u/Callie_thecalico_cat

Hi friends! I am new to reddit and tried to tell this story on another sub but it got removed so I thought I would try it here.

I (24F) was ghosted by a longtime friend, Lily (26F), after she found out I was still friends with Jane (26F), who cheated on her toxic boyfriend, Kyle (26M).

Lily, Kyle, and his twin brother Lyle grew up together and consider each other family. I have known all three since elementary school through church and youth ministry activities. In 2023, Lily, Kyle, Jane, and I camp counseled together; this was my first time meeting Jane. After camp, I grew closer to them and their friend group, spending more time with mostly with Lily and Jane.

Over time, I realized Kyle and his brother Lyle were not good people. They are racist, homophobic, and misogynistic. I tolerated them to spend time with Lily and Jane, who are not like that.

Over the next couple of years, I learned more about how Kyle treated Jane and the horrific things Lyle has done (he should be in prison or a mental institution). I tried to spend time only with Jane and Lily when I could and helped Jane see that Kyle’s treatment of her was not good. (It’s hard to directly tell your friend you hate her boyfriend and that she should break up with him.)

Lily fully understands their actions, behaviors, and beliefs are not good, but because she grew up with them, she makes excuses, downplays their behavior, and makes it seem less serious. Unfortunately, Jane does the same, but I think she grew up too sheltered and is too naive to understand how bad it is.

With all that context, here is the situation.

Last September, Kyle went on a three-week trip with his dad. While he was away, I spent time with Jane, and she told me how peaceful and calm her life felt without him. She also said he was being overly possessive; he spammed her with texts, needed to know where she was at all times, stalked her location, blew up her phone if she didn’t respond within 10 minutes, and threatened to fly home because he didn’t trust her.

I told her that this behavior is crazy and we talked about other toxics aspects of their relationship. Eventually, she decided to break up with him when he returned. A couple of weeks passed without hearing from her, so I checked in. She told me she had broken up with Kyle. When I saw her in person, she shared the whole story.

She went out to a bar and kissed a guy she met there. Immediately after they kissed, they both backed away, realizing that it was a mistake. After this happens, at some point Jane is talking to a friend over FaceTime in her bed alone. What she doesn’t know is that Kyle is stalking her on the security camera that he has in their bedroom, and hears her conversation about her kiss.

When Kyle gets back from his trip, there is a lot of fighting, begging, breakup sex, and then Jane moves out. During this breakup, Kyle decides to call Jane’s family and tell them that she cheated on him. So Jane’s family is on Kyle’s side and is telling her that she’s horrible and is going to become a prostitute or a whore or something like that. He also tells her friend’s boyfriend that Jane is going out with her friend and that they’re both cheating (which is not happening). In the weeks after their breakup, he consistently texts her, going back and forth from angry to wanting to get back together- just totally bipolar.

So now into how Lily is involved in all this. Immediately after the breakup, Lily blocked Jane on everything,even though she only has Kyle’s side of the story. And never made an effort to learn Jane’s side of the story.

A couple of weeks after Jane and Kyle broke up, I posted a picture of Jane and me on my Snapchat story for her birthday. After that, Lyle blocked me, and in the next few months, I would find out Lily also stopped communicating with me.

I saw Lily about a month after the breakup at her brother’s funeral. She seemed happy to see me, but of course I would never bother her with trivial bullshit like this at her brother’s funeral, so I didn’t bring it up. Side note: I do want to mention here that I saw Kyle at this funeral as well, and he told me he knows and is OK with the fact that I am still friends with Jane, and even apologized for his brother Lyle being rude and blocking me.

A couple of months later, I texted Lily to check on her after the funeral and see if she wanted to make plans. I never got a response. Four months later, I messaged her again, but still no reply. I also sent her a Snapchat memory she opened but didn’t answer. The only conclusion I can make is that she knows I’m still friends with Jane and is ignoring me because of that.

I also recently messaged another mutual friend who lives near Lilly, who I was a lot closer to when we were little, and is far removed from this situation, and she opened my message and didn’t respond either.

So my biggest frustration is that I never got any communication or explanation for Lily's lack of contact, and it seems like she may be trying to poison others against me because I am still friends with Jane.

My reasoning for staying friends with Jane is because I believe good people can do bad things, and she was at a low point and made a mistake. She has NEVER tried to justify it to me, and she knows what she did was wrong. The way Kyle found out about it (through the security camera) is WAY WORSE than kissing someone at a bar. And after they broke up, Jane told me a lot more about their relationship, and it had been a lot worse than I had thought (SA, Coersion, verbal abuse). So overall, she made a mistake in the heat of the moment because she was getting treated horribly in her relationship. and not only did she breakup with her boyfriend but he turned everyone in her life against her, her family, her friends, she had no one. I wasn’t going to ditch her the way everyone else did.

So what should I do about my friendship with Lily? and Am I in the wrong for still being friends with Jane?

Is it alright if my boyfriend and I dress as Shane and Ilya from heated rivalry for Halloween?

Is it wrong for me to still be friends with someone who cheated on her boyfriend?