Ultimate betrayal, lies and deceit

[Rickybobbyswife]

Where do I start.

Really, where do I begin. 
I’m going to give you the most condensed version I can…
Where best to start than the very beginning I suppose. I was young, 19, damaged. Raised by a depressed, emotionally unavailable single mother. My father was killed in a horrible accident when I was 6. This led my mother on a montage of bad relationships, which eventually led to my step father. Sexually abusive, narcissistic, controlling & quite frankly insane. At age 14 my mother was faced with keeping her family, son & husband or keeping her daughter - to her husbands command. Well she chose them. This led me to seek shelter and eventually relocate and finish my highschool years with my grandparents. This also led a young me through a montage of emotionally unavailable narcissistic men. 
Enter husband.

He was such a kind caring man, charming & handsome. He could never stay away even though we lived 3+ hours apart. We were inseparable. Madly in love. He made me feel so special, so beautiful, so loved. He gave me the illusion of everything that I had been missing. 
A year later, enter first pregnancy. 2 years later marriage & the second pregnancy. Wow, sounds like something out of a novel right? My knight in shining armour.   Wrong. 

It has taken me 14 years to learn that the meanest people hide behind masks. Masks that welcome you with a smile and open arms. Masks that tell you they have your best intentions at heart - when really it’s the opposite.

 When I met this man he was honest about his previous cocaine use and how it landed him in a bad crowd which ultimately led to jail time. Vulnerable little me thought, “wow, this really traumatized him, he will never walk this path again”. Wrong again!  14 years of trying to help a man with addiction issues. 14 years of trying to support him, understand addiction, and to learn how I could help him. 14 years of intense trauma counselling to heal myself, so I could better communicate with him, so I wasn’t “reactive and scary” to him. 14 years of being told every infidelity that was caught was because of a relapse, there were too many to count. 14 years of couples counselling.

Enter BFF.  About 2 years after meeting my husband and moving to my now “hometown” I met my best friend. She was a very talented photographer in the community. I had hired her for maternity photos and newborn photos with my first child. After meeting I pursued her, I wanted to be her friend. She seemed withdrawn and uninterested at first, but after a few months she had my family over for supper. Her 2nd born and our first born were a matter of days apart, her 2nd born and I even share the same birthday. Pretty neat hey! From there our friendship flourished. She was our family photographer for life, there for every moment including our wedding and second pregnancy. We would always joke that we were sister wives, I run a business in town and worked 12 hour days sometimes 5 days a week. She would help with my children, we would have weekly supper parties and spent 75% of our time together. She was always quick to help with my family. Hell We even vacationed together, and raised our 5 children as if they were family. Community members actually thought our children were cousins, that’s how good we were together.

She was always the one I would go to when my husband would relapse. I confided in her. I loved her and her family as if they were my family. 
After years & years our closeness began to wear off. I would try go to her in hard times and she would be distant, staring at or typing on her phone while I cried my eyes out. She began to always expect things in return when she helped with my family. She began to become jealous of new relationships I was making with other women in the community.

I should also interject somewhere here that she didn’t work full time, her husband was a farmer and could provide her that lifestyle so she had time to text me at least 20 times a day. AT LEAST. Something we need to understand is that she suffered with extreme social anxiety & depression. She was born and raised in this community but could not attend large social gatherings because of the highschool history she had with numerous community members. If we did go to the local pub it was a lot of nail biting and social awkwardness but I didn’t care - that was part of her and I accepted it, but it wasn’t going to prevent me from not going out and dragging her with me - if I could. It was almost like she was stuck in the past. So I excused a lot of these behaviours, she couldn’t help it, she had trauma, and I was in no place to judge her or anyone else because I didn’t understand her pain. 

After some time her stories that first drew me in became repetitive, she was living in this state of never moving forward, only remembering old times and never making new ones. The jealous outbursts I experienced were similar of the ones we’ve all experienced as girls in school. The idea of only having one Bestie. This rubbed me all wrong, this wasn’t how I wanted my adult life to be like. I was working so hard to have a successful business, a happy life and wholesome connections. What I thought was her social anxiety was leading to these bizarre autoimmune issues, extreme hoarding tendencies, insomnia and the list seemed to go on from there. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of her issues, after a decade of complaining started to erode my patience with her.

The jealousy really kicked it over for me. I started putting massive amounts of space between us and I felt bad for it. I felt like I was failing her as a friend. Not only did I feel like I was failing her at this time did I also feel like I was failing my marriage. My husbands addictions issues came full circle. Years of working my ass off, getting kids to the rink, volunteering, etc we’re starting to catch up. Thousands of dollars gone to “vehicle repairs” that were never done, or numerous other excuses for the missing money. My world was caving in.

Enter other 2 BFF’s.  These girls were awesome. They were besties from way back, they loved to have a good time. They welcomed me and my family with open arms. Our brood of children got along magnificently. We vacationed together, dinner partied together, skied together. They were happy to help with our expecting anything back, they held me while I cried, helped me with my kids, they even renovated my living room for Christmas! (My husband bought our family home in our early years that needed massive Reno’s, it took more than a decade to near completion). 
Now both had a reputation of sorts for maybe not being the most faithful in their marriages but it was all hear-say and what you learn in a small town is that you can’t always trust a rumor, after all it’s someone else’s account of a “truth” that been filtered thru 20 or 30 other versions. And again - no judgement! 

They were adventurous, supportive, strong independent women. They had great husbands who supported them and their independence. I was awestruck, I wanted to be like them and they made me feel like I could and like I was part of their family. 

Now if nobody has figured it out yet, I yearned to belong… Well not anymore, but I used to. Going to 6 different schools from K-12 you don’t really ever fit in, especially with a childhood history like mine. I was a weirdo. 

Years went by and I made memories with my new girls, I tried to include my OG bestie but she really wasn’t a fan. She tried, but it never worked and the jealousy never ceased. She always felt left out, left behind and obviously hurt. It hurt, I didn’t want her to hurt but things just kept getting weirder and weirder and the space kept getting larger and larger. 

Enter Covid lockdown.  This was the best my relationship had ever been. Don’t get me wrong, covid sucks but I am so grateful for the time I had with my family. No more overwhelming work schedule, racing to sports, biting of more than I could chew. We got real quality time. My husband was present in our lives, I was the little house wife he always dreamed of and we spent so much time outdoors on our quads, just our little family squad. 
Covid really turned my OG BFF off of our relationship. She felt personally offended that I didn’t respect the rules to the full extent. Everyone had their reasons for doing what they did during lockdown - no judgement. After the lockdown was over things never got back to “normal”. We still talked but I barely seen her anymore. My husband slowly started slipping away again too. My career was booming and sports were starting to pick up traction.

Life got busy again. 

Not long after the infidelity “relapses” started occurring again. This time it wasn’t just women. 
This was the last straw for me. He begged me not to leave, so I didn’t… right away. That eventually turned into the same comfortable routine and cycle began again… until… 

This is like the script to a bad drama film eh? 

So it’s thanksgiving, my high school bestie is living in [ ] , I’ve never been east so I take a few extra days, load up my canoe, my pedal bike and away I go. The summers been tough with the “relapses” and I just needed to escape. Before I head out I go for a girls night with my OG BFF and her high school bestie. It’s the first time she’s ever told me to leave my husband, throughout the last decade she has always encouraged me to stay with him. “He’s trying, you guys are so great together”, etc. But this time, this time she’s telling me to leave. He’s not good enough and I deserve better. At this point I know she’s not wrong, im already there. I’m sick of it, but how do I leave, can I afford to leave, we never have much money, what about the kids? 

So now I’m out in [ ], my husband is texting me all of the time. Weird, usually when I disappear on my adventures I don’t hear from him much. He’s telling me he’s sad he’s not with me, he wishes he could be there and honestly that revolted me. I’m telling you, I was sick of his s*** by now. And if I didn’t already have one foot out the door at this point the universe literally threw me out the door and off a cliff.

Enter OG BFF’s husband.  It’s 8am in [ ] , I just ate some mushrooms and my girlfriend and I just dropped the canoe in the water and “ring a ding ding”!  Talk about timing.  He’s breathing heavy and yelling so fast and emotionally I can’t make out what he’s saying, I’m thinking “oh my god, someone died”. Nope, just our marriages. 

So another thing we should understand is that my OG BFF’s cell phone literally never leaves her hands. NEVER, like you don’t even touch her phone to check the time. Red flag huh? So the night before her husband calls me she’s frisky, and super into him, which is out of character - another red flag. Anyways, the next morning he’s thinking this is weird, she’s sleeping, he takes her phone, uses her sleeping face for her Face ID and BAM.

Messages between her and my husband, my husbands penis photos on her phone and huge reveal her but ALL of her journal entries on a website. [ ] Turns out my husband was commenting on her journals [too]. So she wakes up in a start of his furious, emotionally response to finding these things, he runs out of the house, but not without a fight, he takes of barefoot thru the stubble field and she chases him in her vehicle. He crosses a ditch that her car can’t cross and calls trippy little me in [ ] . He starts sending me photos of the photos and conversations on her phone. Wow. Like are there even words to explain the thoughts and feelings someone feels at this moment? Well thank the universe for extensive trauma therapy and mushrooms. 

The lake was this eerie calm, it was misty and heavy, exactly how I felt it that moment.  I made a few phone calls to get my children to safe homes, in case my husband relapsed, I confronted my husband, to which no surprise he denied initially and fessed up some of the truth. We carried on the rest of that day canoeing like initially planned. I’ll never forget the sound of that woodpecker smashing his tiny head on the tree in the woods that day, or the family of lake otters that followed us around chattering and doing tricks. Psychedelics have their place.

The next week was a blur, hell that 10 hour drive home was a blur. My husband left the family home and a wave of emotion took me. Days later my sister in law convinced her brother to make me a list. Yep, that’s right a list. A list of all of my nearest and dearest that he’d been having affairs with. 
My OG BFF, 10 years. 
She journaled about it here, she still denies that any of it is true and I see she’s deleted as many of her entries as possible but the threads remain.
BFF #2, a few rendezvous years before friending me.  
BFF #3, 5 years.   
It began shortly after she friended me.  
BFF #4, 2 years.  
I didn’t mention her in this, but she was my outback canoe buddy. I trusted this woman enough to disappear into the wilderness with her for days at a time, either on XC skis, foot or by canoe. Oh yeah, and he was trying to hit her up for sex while I was [away]
I confronted each and every one of them after I received my list. 

It’s been over a year since I left them all. But unfortunately the grasps of my OG BFF and my ex husband are long and strong. 
The manipulation never ends, the sabotage and smear campaigns with community members and their families never end.

 Some days it’s damn near impossible to stay strong, to kill your will to fight and to be silent because unfortunately with people like this that is what it takes. Silence, no contact & no reaction. 

Every day I have to learn to forgive myself, for trusting, for being vulnerable, for having a big heart. For justifying their actions, “they just have this problem or that problem”, “they need someone to be patient and understanding with them”, “I accept the good and bad in them, nobody is perfect”. 
So many of these statements are true, but they should never be an excuse to let someone cross your boundaries and mistreat you. 

I am grateful I got the chance to read her journals before she had the chance to delete them. What she did was real, it was extreme and it was damaging to me and my children, to her husband and her children. The fact that she will not own it kills me. The fact that she pretends her journals did not exist further proves that she is not ready to even admit what she’s done to herself. 
I hope one day, her and my ex husband get the help they truly need. I hope they stop self imploding and damaging the people around them. People who truly cared and wanted to help them. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
formatting, removed usernames of other people, locations

[Wiseman2]

31 minutes ago, Rickybobbyswife said:

It has taken me 14 years to learn that the meanest people hide behind masks. When I met this man he was honest about his previous cocaine use and how it landed him in a bad crowd which ultimately led to jail time.
14 years of trying to help a man with addiction issues. 14 years of trying to support him, understand addiction, and to learn how I could help him. 14 years of being told every infidelity that was caught was because of a relapse, there were too many to count.

Sorry this happened. Hopefully you have a good attorney and therapist to help and support you and your children through all this. Once you are completely severed, you'll be able to take  care of yourself and your children with out someone cleaning out accounts to blow drugs up his nose. Make sure there is only supervised visitation..

[stillafool]

Yeah I'm sorry this happened to you also.  How awful.  I hope you no longer speak to your (hopefully) ex husband or any of those women again.