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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/NearbyReindeer7849 on 2023-09-14 10:27:36.

So about 6 months ago, I (25F) found out my long term partner (25 - together for 5 years) and best friend (25F) had been hooking up behind my back for almost a year. We’d all lived together as friends for several years which I know is obviously a bad idea but it seemed to work fine for us - we more or less had to when the pandemic started. We didn’t want to break our lease after this all went down because none of us could afford to and I figured I could handle a couple tough months. My mental health already wasn’t great, but it completely went down the drain. I felt extremely depressed, paranoid, eating made me feel sick, and I had panic attacks daily. They would say “everything would be easier if you just didn’t exist”

Basically immediately after I found out, they started constantly begging me not to tell our mutual friends. We had a really close-knit friend group from college, and because we graduated and moved to a new city together mid-pandemic, and also because we we’re all pretty reserved/introverted people, we don’t really have friends outside of that friend group.

I ended up promising both of them that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I was so depressed and lonely at the time that I would do anything to just not lose friends, which I know is stupid of me. But yeah, I promised them that I wouldn’t tell any of our friends.

A little bit later, one of our friends asked me why I had started acting so reserved and if I was doing ok. I ended up blurting out everything that had happened and crying to them about it and they were so so so kind and lovely and validating. They’re the only reason I didn’t blame myself for 100% of this whole situation. But then, that kinda encouraged me to tell more people. I wasn’t just going around using it as a conversation starter, but I was pretty open with the information. People were so kind and supportive about it and my mental health had been really horrible. This was over the course of several months.

Cut to now - we all moved out (they moved in together) and I’m in a much better place mentally. I blocked them on social media and can live my life without thinking about it all the time. Until today, my former friend contacted me and said our mutual friends were refusing to hang out or sometimes even respond. She asked one of them why and they told her they knew what went down. She was LIVID. Said that I’m immature and a pot-stirrer and just trying to spread gossip. She told me I had turned all of their friends against them, and that I had sent my ex spiraling into a really bad depression which I know is pretty serious for them. She said she knew it was a hard situation for me but that I should’ve found other ways to deal with it besides trying to get “revenge” on her and my ex.

I do see where she’s coming from - she and my ex just lost all of their friends and now they feel isolated and abandoned, and maybe if I had thought it through a little more I could’ve found a better way to handle the situation?