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I think I’m in a love triangle, and I hate it
Nechriah
Chookity!Registered User regular
Chookity!Registered User regular
I have a friend, who we’ll call Luna. I’ve had a crush on her for a while now. The last time I saw her, I let slip that I like her. She seemed surprised, but not unpleasantly so? She said she’d need some time to process this new information, which is totally fair.
This is where things get complicated. A couple of months ago, a mutual friend of Luna and mine, who we’ll call Hayley, started spending more time with me. At first I didn’t think anything of it, since we have a lot in common, but it turned out that she’s into me. I like her a lot but strictly as a friend, which I told her. She seemed to accept that and I thought that was the end of it.
Things escalated two days ago when I stumbled across a reddit post Luna had made about our situation. It seems like Hayley told her that we’d had a thing, but I’d broken it off because of my feelings for Luna (not true). Hayley also told Luna that I’ve had feelings for her for two years (also not true, it hasn’t quite been one). This all lead to her feeling like she was causing a rift between me and Hayley that she needed to bridge.
In her reddit post, Luna also said she thought we were ‘fundamentally incompatible’. I know she’s a very sexual person, which I anticipated could be a stumbling block. I’m asexual, largely due to past trauma, but also because I have pretty severe OCD and don’t like bodily fluids. But I like Luna enough to try to overcome that.
I was pretty upset, so when Hayley messaged me later I told her what had happened. Her response was basically ‘well she’s not wrong...uh I mean THAT SUCKS I’M SORRY’. I found out later that Hayley almost immediately messaged Luna to tell her I’d seen her reddit post and that Luna was mortified.
I don’t hold any ill will toward Luna for this. I put her in this predicament, and I don’t blame her for seeking advice from people removed from the situation (heck that’s what I’m doing now). She’s done nothing wrong here. But I am fucking livid with Hayley. Maybe I’m wildly misinterpreting what’s happened, but it seems like she’s meddled with things between me and Luna and made them way more complicated than they needed to be. Because my feelings for Luna had nothing to do with her until she decided to involve herself.
And hey, maybe Luna and I are incompatible, but that was a conversation for us to have. I feel like she’s made this decision based on false information - I wouldn’t be surprised if Hayley told Luna that I’m completely sex-repulsed, which would be a dealbreaker for her. I feel like I’ve had my agency in this situation removed. I feel like I can’t trust Hayley anymore.
Luna’s messaged me to apologise (not that she needed to) and promised we’ll talk about things soon. I’m anxious as hell but it seems like our friendship is intact, which is the most important thing. But I’m completely at a loss for what to do with regards to Hayley. I’ve got a bunch of messages from her that I’m too angry to even look at, and frankly I’m scared of how much more damage she could try to cause. What should I do here?
This is where things get complicated. A couple of months ago, a mutual friend of Luna and mine, who we’ll call Hayley, started spending more time with me. At first I didn’t think anything of it, since we have a lot in common, but it turned out that she’s into me. I like her a lot but strictly as a friend, which I told her. She seemed to accept that and I thought that was the end of it.
Things escalated two days ago when I stumbled across a reddit post Luna had made about our situation. It seems like Hayley told her that we’d had a thing, but I’d broken it off because of my feelings for Luna (not true). Hayley also told Luna that I’ve had feelings for her for two years (also not true, it hasn’t quite been one). This all lead to her feeling like she was causing a rift between me and Hayley that she needed to bridge.
In her reddit post, Luna also said she thought we were ‘fundamentally incompatible’. I know she’s a very sexual person, which I anticipated could be a stumbling block. I’m asexual, largely due to past trauma, but also because I have pretty severe OCD and don’t like bodily fluids. But I like Luna enough to try to overcome that.
I was pretty upset, so when Hayley messaged me later I told her what had happened. Her response was basically ‘well she’s not wrong...uh I mean THAT SUCKS I’M SORRY’. I found out later that Hayley almost immediately messaged Luna to tell her I’d seen her reddit post and that Luna was mortified.
I don’t hold any ill will toward Luna for this. I put her in this predicament, and I don’t blame her for seeking advice from people removed from the situation (heck that’s what I’m doing now). She’s done nothing wrong here. But I am fucking livid with Hayley. Maybe I’m wildly misinterpreting what’s happened, but it seems like she’s meddled with things between me and Luna and made them way more complicated than they needed to be. Because my feelings for Luna had nothing to do with her until she decided to involve herself.
And hey, maybe Luna and I are incompatible, but that was a conversation for us to have. I feel like she’s made this decision based on false information - I wouldn’t be surprised if Hayley told Luna that I’m completely sex-repulsed, which would be a dealbreaker for her. I feel like I’ve had my agency in this situation removed. I feel like I can’t trust Hayley anymore.
Luna’s messaged me to apologise (not that she needed to) and promised we’ll talk about things soon. I’m anxious as hell but it seems like our friendship is intact, which is the most important thing. But I’m completely at a loss for what to do with regards to Hayley. I’ve got a bunch of messages from her that I’m too angry to even look at, and frankly I’m scared of how much more damage she could try to cause. What should I do here?
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But it sounds like you yourself have a very mature and reasonable attitude to all of this. You're definitely right to be angry at Hayley, but I don't know what the proper course of action is here. I can't tell if she meant to make things super difficult and awkward for everyone, or if this was just a case of severe social incompetence. You know these people better than we do.
I want to believe that she didn’t purposefully make things awkward, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a believable alternative. I was going to say that nobody could be that socially incompetent...but if anyone I know could, it’d be Hayley, so maybe you’re onto something.
The onus isn't on you to forgive or accept that as reasonable behavior. If I were in the situation, I'd read the messages and consider if shes in a stable enough place to talk about establishing some harder, and more defined boundaries. That would be if I had an interest in preserving the friendship, rather than cutting ties if the social situation allowed that with some ease.
1) I hope you're seeing a therapist for your own stuff, if not get on that immediately
2) Hayley was sabotaging you. Whether you want to remain friends with her is up to you but if you do, 100% total honesty with how you feel toward her at this point is max important. Also max important: not trying to get back at her! If you don't, it's whatever. Tell her as much or as little as you like and just move on with not being around her any longer. I don't buy the accidental drama excuse.
3) You and Luna need to talk, yeah. Very Sexual doesn't often mesh well in the long term with Anti-Sexual and working on something that severe for her is likely to fail + burn down your relationship with it. You need to work on it for you, regardless of where you go with Luna now or in the future.
Good luck, and Hayley is the worst. Shredding friend groups over love or sex at your ages is terrible highschool bullshit and it's so much harder to fix or even to find new friends...
Drop both of them and move on.
Hayley just actively tried to wreck a potential relationship because... it doesn't matter why. That's a terrible thing to do and bodes poorly for the future of any friendship you might have.
Luna is sexually incompatible with you. "Trying to get past all that" for her will not work. I'm sorry, it won't. It might for a little while, and you both might think you're okay for a little while, but it's very unlikely to end with either of you being happy with how things are. I'm sorry. I've been there on both sides, and they both suck. You are best off saving yourself the heartache there.
Also, Luna made a reddit post about you that's obvious enough that a third party was able to pick up on both identities and it turned into a shitty situation for all involved. This should not be glossed over. The fact is... this is why I don't allow people to post about other forumers here, and I frown mightily about seeing it in other parts of the forum. Which I have, and it is stupid and harmful and sucks. It puts everyone who reads it in a terrible position and is ultimately incredibly selfish. It doesn't matter if you're using they or whatever instead of the name, people know who you're talking about and you're putting them on the spot. It's also a stupidly passive-aggressive way to get something across to another person. She ultimately made the post knowing it could be read by anyone and knowing it would be recognized. That is not an accident, and it also bodes poorly for the future of whatever relationship you might have.
These two people are bickering with each other behind your back in front of your face, and not only is it a cruel burden on you, it's a trust issue. This kind of thing is poison, and it will affect any future friendships you build until you finally extricate yourself from both of them.
I know it's hard to hear and consider, because I've had to consider it. It feels impossible in the short term, but in the long term not getting involved with this sort of thing is a relief, freeing you to build friendships and relationships that make a little more sense.
Temp-ban-issuing cross.
Do not bring that shit here. Full stop.
The fact that Luna "isn't that" can be one of two things:
Option 1: Luna doesn't have those feelings for you, so you've never experienced that side of her. She likes you (or at least enjoyed the previous status quo) but it isn't romantic.
Option 2: She doesn't have those particular traits of BPD, or she's developed coping mechanisms. From your description of her she definitely fits other BPD criteria.
Whatever you do: Think carefully about it (Both from your perspective and their perspective); Don't expect to resolve this situation painlessly; Expect that at some point you might be the one that has to carry the heavy burden in order to avoid unhealthy escalation.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Erm. As someone who has accidentally done this (on this forum, even!), I would say it could be an accident. Heck, when I did it, I didn't expect the other party to read it, and they in fact never did even after I told them about it and apologized for posting it. You'd think with everything as connected as it is today, you'd assume everything is viewable by everyone but... I dunno, I just don't assume that, especially since I have a lot of family members who simply don't follow my online life in every single way that they could. (that'd be boring, do people actually do that when they're in their 20s? I admit to being a little out of touch)
So to me, yeah something like that could just be thoughtlessness, and thinking that said person doesn't read that forum/blog/Youtube movie reviewer's home page. Because while we all know you can punch your name into Google and see all the hits for it, it's less likely that you know all the places where I post, so as long as I don't use your name it (seems) safe.
Hayley, on the other hand, is pretty straight up manipulative and I'd drop her immediately, no friendship or anything else.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
We’re all real-world (IRL? Meatspace?) friends who spend time with each other regularly. It’s just all of this drama that happened online.
Luna was posting about this on a relationship advice subreddit (I forget which one, I don’t really use reddit, which I guess Luna was banking on) because she felt responsible for causing a rift between Hayley and myself and so felt obligated to fix things, but wasn’t sure how. I only figured out it was her because she uses the same name for all her online stuff. I don’t believe she meant for us to see it, she was absolutely mortified when she found out we had and she’s deleted the post since.
They’re fake names, and to the best of my knowledge none of my friends in that circle even know about these forums, much less that I post here or what my username is.
With regards to our compatibility issues...I’m willing to accept that we’re not a good fit. I just want to be sure that this is actually Luna’s decision. I don’t want to try to change her mind (that’s gross), I just want to correct some false ideas she seems to have gotten from Hayley. Whatever her final decision is, I’ll respect it because I’d rather have her in my life as a friend than not at all. I’m seeing Luna this weekend, so I guess we’ll talk about things then.
CW: sex stuff, trauma
As for Hayley, I really don’t think I can have her in my life anymore. I don’t trust her at all after what she’s done. But I don’t want us to be those two friends who can’t be in the same room, ever, if only for our others friends’ sake. That’s a difficult conversation I’ll need to have with her later - I want to make sure Luna and I are on solid ground first.
I hung out with Luna last night and we did end up talking about things. Since last weekend’s drama we’ve both had a visit from Hayley’s housemate who is fed up with her shit, but also pretty worried about her. Hayley’s BPD has been getting progressively worse, but she’s in complete denial about it. She’s upset that I’m “not making her a priority”, jealous of my friendship with Luna because she feels like they should be better friends than they are, and jealous of Luna because she “doesn’t understand why he likes that nasty trash goblin so much” Housemate wanted to tell us all this because she was concerned that Hayley was going to make trouble and wanted us to be prepared (turns out her instincts are spot on, but her timing could’ve been a lot better)
Anyway, now that we know all of that, Luna and I were able to clear up some of the misunderstandings. Hayley did indeed tell her that I’m 100% sex repulsed and also that I hate children, which would’ve been an even bigger dealbreaker (Luna has a five year old). She did question that, since I’ve always gotten along well with her son, but she took the stuff about my sexuality at face value because hey, she didn’t think Hayley had any reason to lie about that! We both agreed that our friendship with each other is our main concern, and we’ll work everything else out later. She said she’s open to a romantic relationship with me, but she has a lot of other shit going on in her life right now that’s taking up most of her energy - which is completely fair.
We’re both not sure what to do about Hayley - we acknowledged that we’ll probably need to have a talk with her eventually, but neither of us really wants to right now. While she somewhat understands her motivation, Luna’s quite hurt about being manipulated (and being called a trash goblin) by someone she considers a friend. Honestly, I think we both have enough of our own issues to work on right now and some distance from Hayley will be good for everybody.
Based on what you've said, I'm pretty sure that removing her from your life will make everything else a lot easier to assess and manage.
Wow. That's some damn harsh condemnation. Hayley is right now in a state where she's a "manipulative, toxic presence" and is currently unable to handle it, but from what I can tell she's been a friend for quite a while before this episode, and if she resolves her issues she can be a friend again. Right now however, her feelings are waaay overriding her controls over what is the right thing to do, this little emotional triangle is probably the cause of it.
Also, note that the no.1 trigger for persons with BPD tends to be a fear of abandonment, so...maybe not push that trigger too hard? This situation is already pushing that trigger (she sees Necriah and Luna becoming a couple, instead of Necriah/Hayley and she's the 5th wheel) and that's probably one of the reasons why hayley is spiralling out of control.
My recommendation, talk to an actual licensed psychologist about what's the right thing to do. Right now we're going into the "this has the potential to get serious, really serious" territory, and that's way above the paygrade of an internet forum. If Hayleys family is a positive influence (they might not be. Dealing with BPD is hard, and the disorder is geneticly related. So...yeah), then they should probably be contacted.
What I can say is that "hard cutoff with no chance of redemption" is probably not going to make the problems go away, or at least not in a way you'd like.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Don't guilt people into being abused because someone has a sad condition. And don't blanket all people with mental illness with the stigma of lying and manipulation, as if those are just natural side effects. They are not.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
a. When did I blanket all people with mental illness with the stigma of lying and manipulation? I am just saying that with some forms of BPD the brain is saying "do it! do it! do it!" when they're at their worst. To a degree that most people can not believe.
b. Distance is definitely needed. This triangle is not healthy for anyone involved (It's taxing for both Necriah and Luna and it seems to bring out the worst in Hayley, because she wants what she can't have and right now she can't handle not having it), but the way that distance is established (and how far) is fairly crucial for the well-being of all involved.
The level of distance can be anything from "we need you to back off and establish some boundaries. We can't be friends if you're going to lie about us or backtalk us to everyone around you" to "This situation has kind of ruined everything we had", but the way you go about doing it is influences the outcome from "This is something in the past" and "Shakespearian tragedy level of drama".
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
You can respect someone's mental health issues without letting them run roughshod over your own relationships and stability.
Even typing this out makes me feel like a tremendous asshole, but I think I really do just need to accept that this is out of my hands. I need to work on my own issues and stop taking on other people’s, because I’m really not coping very well at the moment. Hayley’s housemate has promised to keep me and Luna appraised of what’s going on with her, at least. She’s now got most of Hayley’s family members saved to her contacts, as well as a BPD therapist who Hayley’s seen in the past.
Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out how all this happened. One moment I’m just trying to reassure my friend that being 30yo single mother doesn’t make her undateable, and that I’d date the heck out of her; and now one of my friendships is imploding when I didn’t even think these situations were that connected in the first place :bigfrown:
and the bottom line is, that how shitty it is, that Haley has mental issues that she needs to get under control, you're not the one to help her with that. You, or Luna are not the ones that can fix this, by just being patient. You have your own mental well being to think about, and excusable harassment is still harassment that you can't get out from.
I cut off my former friend, because I couldn't handle it. And the moment I did, it was just such a relief to be done with that stuff, and the same was true for my other friends. There's this part of you that makes you feel bad, because in the back of your head you're telling yourself "it's not her fault", "We're friends, I can't just drop them." But that's just part of the weight that's making you feel horrible.
others have said this, but i'll reiterate, Haley's mental well being is not your responsibility.
I'd drop contact. and keep it dropped off for a long while.