A year ago I broke up with my gf of 8 years after finding out she cheated on me and had been for a long time.
I quite literally have zero friends remaining at this point. Every single mutual friend has stayed friends with her and completely ghosted me. I can only suspect I’ve been slandered and that’s why nobody wants anything to do with me anymore. I tried going to local shows as that was my community but it’s completely sucked the fun out of things because it’s a small city and there’s always eyes on me from different corners of the room like I’ve done something wrong and I don’t feel welcome anymore. So I’ve just stopped attending concerts which used to be my safe space. Standing by myself watching the band while people stare a hole in the side of my head isn’t exactly enjoyable.
My lived experience has now taught me that 90% of people are cheaters, liars, and thieves, and while I know that’s not reality, it’s fundamentally changed the way I approach friendships. I don’t open up to people anymore because I don’t trust anyone anymore.
I don’t think or care about my ex but the friends who ghosted me still cause daily intrusive thoughts. I don’t know why I’ve been abandoned. No closure and no way to defend myself. I never expected how much more it hurts to lose friends than it does to lose a partner.
I miss my friends but they’ve proven they don’t care about me so when they inevitably reach out to me there’s no way I’ll be able to forgive.
Probably I need to go back to therapy again but just curious if anyone has experienced similar.
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no matter ho painful (and humbling), it’s a great way to filter out friends from ‘people you like spending time with’. I mean, if not a single one of them was willing to ask for your point of view on the situation, what does it say about them? Most certainly that none were a friend of yours. Friends do care about one another.
Many years ago, when I quit my ‘dream’ job (that came with good money and some prestige attached to it), a job I was even quite good at, my spouse and I witnessed almost all our ‘dear friends’ ghosting us. Suddenly, I was a nobody they had no use for. So be it. People come and go.
It helps to realize real friends are very rare: I know many people, quite a few of them I may even enjoy spending time with, but I have one friend. A single one, we’ve been friends for the last 40+ years and we’ve been through a lot of hard times together (despite each of us living in a different country, and not meeting that often), never failing the other. Someone like that is rare, very much unlike those ‘people one may enjoy spending time with’ that will often come and go, on a whim.
Getting rid of them is an opportunity to meet new people this time not making the same mistake: don’t think all the people you enjoy are friends. Most, the very large majority, will not be. And that’s fine.
Yeah, mate. When my ex left me, even my older brother asked me to not come to parties at his place because it made her uncomfortable.
She was there with my brothers’ friend. She had been seeing him for a while and I was the last person to know. The whole time she had been telling anyone who found out about them that I was abusive and to keep it quiet for her protection (yet she was verbally and financially abusing me).
In the end I was shunned by almost everyone that I knew. I lost my home, my friends, most of my family and ended up in debt for years as a result.
Only my younger brother stood by me and stood up for me. Everyone else believed her. When I started dating my (now) wife, she was approached by several of my old “friends” and told that I was ‘bad news’ and to avoid me because I was abusive. My (now) wife told them she was “a grown woman and capable of making up her own mind, thank you very much!” We’ve been together 22 years, married for 17 years and have two amazing kids. In the end, though I suffered, I have come through way better off than I was then. The perspective that I have gained has made me much more aware of the value loyalty, friendship and love.
My ex married and had a kid with the brother’s friend. They didn’t last 5 years. She pulled the same shit with him, but nobody believed her this time. They had seen the same playbook when she cheated on me. He’s still single, and she’s with another ex-friend’s brother, burning bridges as she goes…
Just take small steps, my friend. Start a journal. See a counselor. Get up every day and see what it brings. You never know what’s around the corner. Eat right. Exercise. Just exist in the world without expectation and you’ll find your place. May it be filled with joy.
Your wife sounds amazing. I’ve been dating someone for a while who has been messaged by someone I know saying I’m bad news. And she immediately blocked. One of the hurdles early on for her is that she couldnt comprehend how someone like me is so universally hated and I’m so grateful she didn’t write me off because of that
Ex’s current bf is a former friend of mine and maybe it’s cruel of me to think this but I can’t wait till he experiences the same thing and maybe gives me some sort of redemption here
You’re over thinking it. No need for the drama.
If you feel like hanging out with someone then do so, if not then dont.
Spend the time on hobbies, exercise, cultivating new relationships or reinvigorating old ones.
Is the breakup and ending of friendships related to the rape accusations levied against you that you posted about 20 days ago?
https://lemmy.ca/comment/23387798
Burying the lede there a bit if that’s the fuller context to your situation.
Edit: I’m not saying I think you’re a rapist. I don’t have enough information to formulate an opinion responsibly. I’m pointing out your former friends seem to have that perception, so that might contribute to you feeling like they’re all staring a hole into the side of your head.
I’m going to apply a user tag and stop engaging now. Arguing with me is not where you need to spend your energy, nor I with you.
I’ve tagged you as ‘reasonable human??’ because your comment was far too sensible for the internet.
Yeah, raping someone would justifiably make someone lose all their friends.
Being accused of something is fully different than actually having done it. Just because somebody accuses you of something doesn’t mean it’s automatic that you are guilty. In the comment that was linked, he literally said somebody falsely accused him. So I have to ask you how do you know that he’s actually guilty?
Thank you man. I am honestly surprised and hurt at some of the reactions here. Even strangers on an anonymous forum have immediately demonized me over this. I’m glad I posted this thread because it proves my suspicion - nobody will ever believe me and that’s just the reality of my life now. Even showing people concrete evidence of her trying to kill me isn’t going to change anything so I guess I just have to somehow own it
Why would I write that comment if I was guilty? It was an obvious cry for help lmao and now I’m embarrassed I said it
But I didn’t, so what am I supposed to do?
What can you do? Hypothetically you take each one of them aside and you force them to tell you what she’s been saying about you. And then somehow demonstrate that she is lying.
Now that’s hypothetically.
Realistically, there’s no way that they will want to change their mind anyway. Unless you have some really solid proof that you didn’t do it. And ans anybody can tell you , trying to prove a negative is almost impossible.
So that means realistically, there is really nothing you can do about it. I mean, you can catch a couple of them when they’re alone. And try to find out what She said. But if they’ve already bought into the bullshit from her then what do you do?. I don’t really see a way back from that.
By the way, I’m going on the basis of she’s lying and that she falsely accused you. As I only have your comment in the other post where you said she falsely accused. I have no way to know what did or did not happen. I’m just giving you information based on what I have. All I can say is good luck and try to move forward. Only you would know if you’d be able to approach those people and have a chance of sitting down and making them listen.
and you force them to tell
probably not the right tone to use when those people probably believe him to be a rapist
It’s the implication.
Yeah same situation, but even people who knew me for 20 years shouldn’t have bought into that nonsense especially knowing the history of the relationship
I guess there’s nothing you can really do to ever come back from this if this is the root problem. Just my word vs hers and she’s expert level manipulator
Edit: I didn’t come here to argue with anyone. But sure, tag me as “probably a rapist” and don’t talk to me. I’m getting used to it. Lol
Maybe you were having a bad day in the above linked convo, but fyi you come across as needlessly argumentative and more than a little misogynist. Tbh i didn’t even see the comment where you talk about being accused of rape because your others were too off-putting for me to continue reading.
Your comments make you seem angry at women. That doesn’t make you a rapist, but it goes a long way to explaining why all your friends would believe an allegation.
LMAO
You read my comment there and that’s your reaction? Wtf?
Why would I write that if I was guilty of said thing?
Did you know the friends first, or did your partner know them first? Or did you meet them at the same time?
Normally people back their friends up even when they are the bad guy but if you were equally as much a friend they should stay neutral.
All knew me first, most since childhood
That is really fucked up. It shouldn’t be that way. Sounds like she did slander you.
I went through a rough breakup with a cokehead. She partied really hard, and i had no idea until we lived together. I broke up with her, and all of my friends chose her…because she was more fun than i was. The day after we broke up, i had 300 less friends on facebook as i had the day before.
Not a single person sent me a message. They just dumped me for the party.
You didn’t need those acquaintances.
Well the good news here is that FB friends aren’t real friends. They’re only there to try to get your attention on them. Their loss, not yours!
In my experience, people often to make choices based on not cool things. Sometimes it depends on the personalities of people involved and he was in a bigger position of power. It can also depend on the information that they provided or have access to. For instance, if you broke up with someone who is vengeful or dishonest, they might spread a lot of lies about you. They can be very sneaky in plant the seeds of suspicion. Unfortunately, I’ve also learned that some people will just believe anything without actual evidence or even logic.
For example, one person I split up with ran a Web for him about 20 years ago. She immediately banned me from the forum, and then was saying a bunch of really exaggerated or just plain false things about me in a private area of the forum to a couple dozen people we had both known for years. I was blocked from there, so I didn’t even know what she was saying and I couldn’t defend myself, and these people believed all these crazy things about me.
More recently I’ve seen stuff like so and had a live stream, and we had a handful of friends and acquaintances he would go watch it. After we split up there are people doing pretty weird and annoying trolling on there. She just kept saying without any evidence that it was obviously me and I’m so crazy, so nuts, so lonely, so drunk and so on. And then if I go on and I’m like what what the hell? I’m not doing this, I just get blocked and ridiculed.
So in either situation, some people around still talked to me and stayed friends, they said things like “well, we didn’t even know of what she was saying was Tru”, but it definitely raised a lot of really bad distrust and suspicions that harmed friendships.
So in general, it seems to me like people go to one side or the other. It’s hard to be friends with people who totally hate each other. You have to make sure you don’t mention one to the other. And also, it leads to resentment. Like if there’s this person who totally screwed me over, it irritates me that someone would still be friends with them after seeing what an awful person they can be and I feel like if they’re still friends with them, they’re not standing up for me. I don’t like people trying to dictate who I’m friends with myself, but still I think OK, so my ex lied to me cheated on me stole from me, and is still trying to harm me, and they’re just like oh, that’s cool.
Thanks for your words. I think I’m just thinking too deeply into this and you nailed it here
It’s hard to be friends with people who totally hate each other. You have to make sure you don’t mention one to the other. And also, it leads to resentment. Like if there’s this person who totally screwed me over, it irritates me that someone would still be friends with them after seeing what an awful person they can be and I feel like if they’re still friends with them, they’re not standing up for me. I don’t like people trying to dictate who I’m friends with myself, but still I think OK, so my ex lied to me cheated on me stole from me, and is still trying to harm me, and they’re just like oh, that’s cool.
It’s just a path of least resistance thing. Staying friends with me would mean more problems than staying friends with her and in a small community like this it’s understandable I guess
Microdose ketamine. You’ll be able to actually process and work through this shit in much less time than years of therapy. (Therapy is still great though. Do that too.) I can’t recommend it enough. Ruminating on this kind of thing is brutal; I speak from experience. Ketamine derails that spiral and lets you move on and feel good about yourself.
I have a trust problem
you: you should do drugs about it!
OP your post history is public. The reason your friends abandoned you is because you raped your ex gf. Any other questions?
And to think you want a safe space. What a fucking joke.
Reread the comment it says he was falsely accused. Please demonstrate where it says he did it. Just because somebody’s accused of something doesn’t mean they’re automatically guilty.
These days, evidence doesn’t matter. People make decisions based on feels.
I’ve never hurt anyone before. That’s a really cruel comment
I guess it answers my question though. If the right person makes an accusation like that you can lose everything. And that’s why I’ll probably never get close to anyone ever again
Yeah my history is public and I’m proud of that comment because it wasn’t easy to write. I was heavily abused for years and the only person who cared and convinced me to get out was my sister.
Watch “The Hunt”, a Danish movie about a kindergarten teacher accused of raping a child. Obviously very hard to watch, be warned.
I feel with you, hope you can find better people. But yeah, I would agree with your 90% figure. They’re not like that on purpose, they’re just too unaware and don’t have enough knowledge/discipline to get rid of mental biases. The 10% is why I haven’t given up.
That movie is a masterpiece and I watched it before any of this happened. I forgot about it and I’m going to watch it again.
