The worst game of telephone I have ever been in and how it almost destroyed my marriage and ruined my Easter
Hiya everyone! I(36NB) finally feel like I am in a good place to get this off my chest so I am sharing this tale with the world on how I lost three of my best friends and nearly lost my wonderful dear husband all because of a terrible game of telephone and had my Easter ruined.
First let me set the stage, this situation revolved around three of my once thought closest friends, who we will name Jasper(37FtM), Lydia(40+F), and Nora(40+F), and Lydia’s husband who we will call Scott(37M), my husband who will be referred to as Derek(36M) and little old Me. All of these are fake names. Now all of us are part of a very close friend group, we have all known each other for more than a decade and most of us had met during our high school days and we all believed that we would be there for one another if anything happened in our lives. So now that I have gotten the names and dynamics out of the way onward to the story. Oh also I apologise for any formatting issues I am on mobile.
Everything happened the day before Good Friday, I had just finished my work day and was preparing to enter the long weekend relaxed and earned after a hectic week. As I settled onto my couch and started up my console for some gaming I noticed that I had a message from Jasper from a few days ago that I had missed.
Seeing as I had the time I opened up the message, to see that he was asking to hang out and go for a bakery run near us the following week and I was so down. I messaged him to let him know that the following week was open and to let me know when was a good day for him. Jasper got back to me not long after I sent the message and he let me know that the middle of the week worked best for him and I said awesome.
I looked away from my phone feeling content as I had managed to organise a time to see him as it had been nearly a month since we had last got the chance to hang out and my game had loaded up. I must have looked away from my phone for maybe a minute or two but when I looked back down at my phone, a bunch of messages from Jasper suddenly filled our chat.
My heart stopped.
I was initially worried that something might have happened to my friend as he had been going through a stage for his school and a few exams so I was wondering if something had happened to jeopardize his placement. I was so wrong in my concern and my stomach sank as I read the first message.
They said, verbatim: “I uh… I don’t really know how to say this to you.. But I think you need to know. I have found out from two friends that Derek is going around saying he is having sex with me and saying crazy details.. I.. I have blocked him. I don’t know why he is suddenly lying to close friends about this. I feel sick..”
“Last person I ever have sexual relations with was 8 years ago..”
“I just don’t know what he is saying to people.”
“I would very much like to hang out with you”
“I just .. dont want to be around him ever again”
“I only found out this week when I talked to Nora”
“And then apparently he was saying the same stuff to Scott on moving day”
“I have no clue if he was saying stuff to you?”
“I’m just really confused why he started doing this.”
I was shook after reading the final message he sent me.
I couldn’t believe that my husband would say these type of things, because he hadn’t been saying any of these things to me at all. My mind was swirling as I took everything in, because this was both my and my husband’s best friend, this was the one person we both considered a brother and had the utmost trust in. I had no reason to believe he was lying and I was worried for a new thing wondering if my husband had a psychotic break or if he was trying to go nuclear with one of his oldest friends because he had found out something about his health, the only thing I knew that I needed to do was get answers and figure out what was going on.
So I told him that no Derek wasn’t telling me these things and asked if I could call him, to both find out what was going on and to comfort him because he sounded distressed from his messages.
Jasper said sure so I called him and we got to talking. I again told him that he hadn’t said anything to me and was asking when he had heard these things because somethings in his messages weren’t adding up and I wanted to be clear on what was happening here. I also comforted him because he was acting like he was a mess and I thanked him because in events like these I was always the last person to know, I was happy that Jasper had not left me in the dark about these allegations and I wasn’t the last one to know again (I would come to regret telling him this later). I learned that Jackson had heard these things from two people, supposedly, he had heard this from Nora and Scott’s wife Lydia who had been told this by her husband, no one else had come forward saying those things about my husband. Perfect, I had three people to talk to, after confirming that it was alright if I talked to these people, I wished him well and got to work.
Derek was still at work at the time all of this was happening, he wasn’t allowed to use his phone at his workplace, and he wasn’t expected to get home for two more hours and I wanted all my ducks in a row before I spoke to him about this. I knew my husband wasn’t saying these things but I needed to understand what was happening and I was hoping I could untangle this unfortunate game of telephone that I had unwittingly been thrust into.
I sent each person, Nora, Lydia, and Scott a message asking them all flat out if Derek had been going around saying he was having sex with Jasper and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long thankfully, it was the end of the day and people were generally ending their shifts at work. Nora was the first one to get back to me.
She mentioned that yes Derek had mentioned that in a conversation about a year or so ago where he was talking of his bisexuality that he had had relations with Jasper that it was kind of graphic and that he had implied it was a recent affair and that they hadn’t talked together for months so it was only mentioned in that conversation.
I was floored. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I dove for more information and found out some things. Yes Nora had spoken to Jasper as he was planning a trip down to her neck of the woods over the weekend, she had recently been to the hospital the night before as she had a nasty side effect to some new medication she had started recently and that she had been wrong about the conversation and when it had been had.
The conversation had happened four years ago, not a year or so ago, and the conversation she had been referring to had happened right in front of me. All my husband had said was that “he and Jasper had messed around back in the day” and that was the truth. Jasper and Derek had fooled around once before Derek had met me and both had told me about it. I was piecing together that the new medication might have caused Nora to get confused by the details when she spoke to Jasper and the relief I felt was amazing!
One of the accusations was just a misunderstanding and meant that my husband wasn’t hallucinating or going around saying he’s having sex with our best friend. I was feeling a lot better until I received a notification saying I had received a message from Lydia and I was still riding the high of my last discovery and said goodbye to Nora. I was sure that I was going to hear the same thing again and went to Lydia’s chat, I saw that she had left me a voice memo and I pressed play.
“Hey girl, I’m just sending this because I’m working right now. And, and uh, writing is longer than talking, uhm. Yeah, I told Scott that Jasper was feeling very uncomfortable with Derek about, uh, stuff that he learned, and um Scott mentioned well, he shouldn’t have to feel bad he is the third one in their couple. He’s fucking Derek. Um, so supposedly, from what Scott remembers, our Derek mentioned at one point, either during the move or before the move, um, that he was having sex with Jasper, um, I had to tell him that, no, that did not happen as far as I knew. Um, but your couple is your couple girl. You can do whatever you want, but. Yeah by talking to other people in the group supposedly out Derek mentioned that to multiple people, um I’m not gonna mention names because nobody told me that I could but of. Yeah, you might need to talk to Derek about wanting to boast about his prowess that are non-existent, um. Or think about what’s happening to you girl. If your husband is boasting about stuff that is not happening. Oh um, I don’t think you need that on top of everything else you have in your life. If you have more questions, just let me know.”
Back to square one.
My panic rose back up again and I still needed to figure out what was going on. We had moved into our current apartment at the beginning of September and I didn’t remember a time when my husband would have been alone with Scott to tell him all of these things. It had been a hectic move and Derek had been as busy as everyone as we worked on packing and cleaning up our old apartment. I didn’t remember them talking alone at any point so maybe they had had this wild conversation before then and I was so confused and panicked because now the story was that we were altogether in a threesome and my husband was apparently saying these things.
It was wild, I thanked Lydia for telling me these things as it was a very difficult thing to process and I did have a lot to think about.
Not long after I sent her those messages she sent me another voice memo:
“No it should not be happening. But girl, mostly, it shouldn’t be happening to you. You deserve so much more than this. Oh, um, Cause you are a sweetheart and I really love you. You don’t have to apologise to come to me for this, if you need info, you need help. You just want somewhere to sleep for a couple of days, so you can think you know you’re always welcome here.”
Halfway through me listening to her voice memo, I got a notification from Scott that he had replied to me and it showed the message saying “He didn’t say anything to me.”
I had blinked at the notification going WTF! What did he mean my dear husband never said that to him when his wife said that to he had told her this.
I immediately left her chat for Scott, trying to figure out what was going on.
I asked him to confirm that Derek hadn’t said anything to him and Scott replied: “Nope no words on that to me. It’s the kinda thing that would have stayed in my brain had it been mentioned”
My flabbers were gasted! His wife had just told me that he had told her that we were in a throuple and had encouraged Jasper to think my husband was talking behind his back. My confusion was running a marathon. Why would Lydia say this, she was one of the oldest of our group and was one of the ones people would go to for advice and help, how could she have gotten this so wrong.
I told Scott what Lydia had told me and that I am just trying to figure out things and he told me that this sounds like a bad game of telephone, oh how right he was, and that he didn’t remember ever saying or thinking about Derek going around talking about Jasper like that, but he could not 100% confirm. That was enough for me and I thanked him for all his help and apologised for questioning him like this. I believed that I had found the root of all of this and was extremely thankful that I had the wherewithal to message him in the first place. I needed to talk to Lydia again.
I didn’t want to out right share that I had spoken to her husband and chase her away, so I moved in the shadows a bit here, I just sent her another message saying that I loved her and Scott and that they were both my family and that I truly appreciated her offering their home to me. I saw the dots at the bottom of the chat moving again to show that she was back and was apparently about to send me something again.
I then let her know that I had spoken to her husband and he said that Derek had never said these things to him and that he didn’t remember talking to her about these things.
The dots stopped.
For twenty minutes!
The dots stopped and I was losing it! Lydia had been all quick before to respond and for twenty minutes she was silent. I followed up with messages saying I wasn’t accusing her of anything but that things weren’t adding up and I needed to know what was going on.
I waited for her to reply to see how she would explain all this and where she got this idea from. My vigil was interrupted by a call, for a moment I thought it had been from Lydia and when I looked at the caller ID I saw that it was Derek, my dear husband.
His timing was as impeccable as ever and I am not going to lie; I was kind of a mess at that moment because I found out that someone might have been lying about my husband and had gone through just a wild rollercoaster of emotions and was not doing great. I thought about not answering but I didn’t want to do that to my husband and I had an idea of what he wanted to talk about.
I greeted Derek and he immediately clocked that something was wrong just from the sound of my voice. I was hesitant to tell him what happened, because I figured that this was something that needed to be told face to face. My dear husband was having none of it, he told me to tell him what was going on, so I told him that people were saying that he was going around telling people he was having sex with Jasper.
He had been shocked and told me that he was not doing this and I told him that I believed him. Derek then asked me who was saying this and I told him that I wasn’t sure if I should tell him and he said to please just give him the names that he was going to fix this. I gave him the names of Jasper, Lydia, and Nora. He thanked me, said he was going to talk to all of them and asked if I wanted to eat out tonight and if I was okay with meeting him at a restaurant nearby. I agreed and we both hung up.
I then saw that Lydia had gotten back to me and sent me another voice memo. I thought great finally we might be able to get some answers here and played the voice memo.
“I think you did the right thing about asking Scott. If he says he doesn’t know anything he doesn’t know anything he does not remember. Take it, take it at face value, believe Scott, and then that’s it yeah, just trust your gut girl! The only thing I can tell you is trust your gut if you feel like you have doubt of anything. If you have doubt of me, if you have doubt of Jackson, if you have that doubt of Derek it’s fine. Just trust your gut, don’t panic and sleep on it because sometimes stuff comes out. I don’t know anymore. Scott he sent me a voice message saying I don’t know anything. I’m at work. I have no time for this. Did you dream this? I might have dreamt it. Let’s put the doubt on me girl, let’s put the doubt on my memory because yeah memory is a b***h and I am tired. But um anyway, I do love you, and just trust your gut, love you.”
I screamed and cried after I heard this voice memo.
I couldn’t believe that Lydia had dreamt the whole thing up and had told our friend Jasper and me this stuff like it was the truth. I was a wreck by that point, one person had misremembered a conversation from four years ago and another person had just dreamt up my husband boasting about being in an imaginary thruple. It was agonising and I needed to go meet up with my husband soon and tell him about how this mess had happened.
But first I needed to talk to Jasper because I realised that he had only mentioned talking to Nora and Lydia and not Scott. So I raced to his chat to tell him everything that I had found out and hoped we could save everyone's relationship and my husband’s honour. I told him everything that I had found out that Lydia had dreamt everything and that Scott was saying that my husband never told him anything about him and I brought up that I was there for the conversation with Nora and that all he had said was you two had fooled around before we got together and that was it.
Jasper had said what and to maybe hold off about confronting Derek and I told him too late. I then pleaded with him to unblock my husband, we had all been friends for over a decade and he had been a groomsman in our wedding and that this all seemed to be a huge misunderstanding and it might be good to hear him out and raced out the door to go meet my husband.
At this point you’re probably wondering how these people became our ex-friends and how this led to my Easter being ruined. Well dear readers it’s what happened afterwards that led to all of that. Now one might think that when confronted with the truth about a situation that people would be big enough take things back and apologise for the misunderstanding, I had believed that the people involved would soon have that reaction, how naïve I was.
Once I met up with my husband I gave him a big hug and I asked him how he was, not good had been his reply and he pulled out his phone. I saw that he had a group chat open with the three of them pulled into it and my husband had confronted them all about what was going on and Nora had apologised in the chat and mentioned about knowing what Jasper was talking about and why he might have said what he said from their conversation. Lydia had also replied saying that she was sorry that he was feeling unwell, he had been dealing with some pain in his gut and we were still trying to get a diagnosis for, and that everyone was feeling unwell those days, she had gotten a diabetes diagnosis the previous month, being very vague with her reply and not addressing the allegations that were made against him.
I felt that moment was the right moment to share what Lydia had told me and that she might have just dreamt the whole interaction and that she told me she was taking the blame for this. Derek looked angry and went to the chat he spoke to Lydia directly saying that she had caused quite a bit of pain here and that she needed to fix what she caused.
Lydia left the chat after he had said that to her.
We were shocked and after she had said she would take the blame for all of this and I just couldn’t believe she just left like that. We both felt pretty raw after that and went to get food, we got the food to go and just walked back home. No one had reached out after that and we were just absorbing what had happened to us.
We then found out that there was more.
Derek refused to languish in what he had found out and called a friend to tell him what had happened and that was when he brought up the post that Jasper had made. I was surprised as Jasper had not told me anything about a post, I raced over to facebook and went onto his profile and he had made a post vague mentioning my husband saying he was going around saying he was having sex with him and how betrayed he felt.
I couldn’t believe he had made a post and remember how I had mentioned that I had thanked him for not letting me be that last to know, he had made the post the previous day. It had gotten a lot of reactions from our entire friend group and comments.
I was the last to know yet again.
But I moved on because my husband needed me, he had been crushed by that latest development. He had so much faith in these people. They were people that he truly loved and believed that they were family, the ones he could trust above all others and if they could think that he could do something like this. He was extremely hurt.
I told him let’s just give them a day. They might just be really embarrassed and not wanting to touch social media right now and they are just absorbing everything that happened. I was wishing that everything would be fixed the next day, that the post would be taken down and that apologies would be given out and things would be okay.
That did not happen.
The next day the post was still up and we were still receiving silence from Lydia and Jasper. We were also starting to receive questions from our mutual friends asking what was going on.
It was a rough time as we had to start going around saying no Derek was not going around claiming to be having sex with Jasper and telling everyone who approached us just what happened on that Thursday leading to Easter. Derek was becoming more distraught with each passing hour.
He reached out to Scott saying that Lydia wasn’t responding and wanted to know what was going on. Lydia had muted Derek after leaving the group chat because she wanted to have a nice Easter and convention. She would be lifting that mute after the weekend. So we were left to stew in this mess and field questions on our own.
By that point he needed to do something and he made his own post about the situation, with screenshots of the conversations I had the previous afternoon. We figured this would stop the questions and possibly make Jasper take down the post faster.
Nora did not like this. She reached out to Derek after he made the post saying that she was going to unfriend him and me over the post. That she didn’t like how he wasn’t showing much empathy for Lydia as she mentioned she wasn’t feeling well in the chat and she didn’t like how he was bringing up her age in the post.
Derek had made a mention of memory not being so great after time had passed and she took that as a dig against her age and memory. Derek was crushed yet again.
He was telling me:
“I can’t believe they would do this.”
“I can’t go through this again.”
“If friends are going to believe this about me and end friendships over this I have to be the one to end the friendship first.”
“I am in so much pain.”
I was so worried for my husband, I had never seen him in such a state. I watched him like a hawk over the weekend and safe to say our Easter cheer was ruined. I did my best to help soothe his pain as we don’t know what is causing the pain in his gut but stress is a very massive trigger, all three of them knew this, I was on edge and prepared to take him to the hospital at any moment but thankfully we didn’t have to make that trip. I did have to field every message he sent to our other friends and explain no Derek is not ending the friendship he just is hurt by the other three people and feels like a pariah right now. A lot to do but finally we reached Monday.
The weekend was over. Easter and conventions were done, answers were going to come and they did.
Lydia had made some posts that day on facebook, one was a cutesy image about thanking people for being her friend and a picture about her cosplay that she wore for the convention and thanking Jasper for taking the photo.
They had spent the weekend together. Which I knew about, Jasper had mentioned them going to a convention and Lydia being his ride that weekend together months ago and apparently recent events were not going to change those plans.
Not long after the photo post she sent me a message in our chat.
“just to let you know,. i will be blocking you today. since you are now a mouthpiece for Derek. and since im delusional. i so not need any of this. i still like you but im not dealing with this. i was going to unsnooze Derek today but now.. Im just letting you know. Scott has nothing to do with my decision. and if you are passing message through Scott i will not listen listen / read any of it. i decided on my own. Im following something new this year. If i would not be your friend if i met you today. im not spending any energy on keeping a friendship. i would not befriend Derek now. especially recently. so still love you. and i hope you make good choices for you.”
I was in tears by the end of that message.
I had no idea who Lydia had become and of course my husband had walked in, he had taken the day off and saw me on the verge of tears and sobbing. Throughout all of this I had never resorted to name calling or made accusations, I truly believed that all of this had been a mistake, but because I dared to question her version of events and stand by my husband who had done nothing, I was just a mouthpiece in her eyes.
Derek sent a message to Scott telling him about the state Lydia had left me in, I did reply to her, which she saw so got it in before the block. Telling her about how she hurt me, how she brought up an event that did not happen, how her actions had destroyed a ten plus year relationship and nearly ruined my marriage because of it, how it was understandable and that no I was not a mouth piece and everything I had said was just the truth.
It made me feel a little better and I was just thankful that Derek was there to help.
Then came Jasper. We were still trying to contact him through my accounts as he still had Derek blocked and the post was still up, I let him send two messages. I called him and left a message after he missed the day for us to meetup and I still saw him on the games that we played together online so I thought he would get back to me and we could at least get the post taken down.
After two weeks of silence, I no longer saw him in my friends list and I couldn’t search him up on facebook. He had decided to block me as well. After sending him one text message and leaving one voicemail he decided to block me. Another friend of ours asked if everything was alright because she shared that Jackson had made a post about being harassed for the past two weeks about his previous post.
I was once again floored.
Three friendships gone all because someone had a dream and participated in a bad game of telephone.
Oh the kicker, all of this happened two weeks before our second wedding anniversary. These people had been in our wedding party, one person had been a bridesmaid, another one had been a groomsman, and the other officiated our wedding. This was very crushing for the both of us.
Thank you so much for getting this far. I know this was a long one and I appreciate anyone who read this to the end. If anyone has any advice on how to move forward after something like this it would be much appreciated. Like I said our friend circle is tight and the majority of our friends are playing Switzerland so we are probably going to run into them as we all have a lot of shared interests.
Thank you again for reading and please if you have a friend telling you that your partner is doing something so out of character, take a moment and verify what they are telling you. Because if I had acted like Jasper did, I would not have a marriage right now and probably would have lost all these relationships once the truth came out.
Stay safe, have a lovely day everyone and tell your loved ones that you love them!