Im really sorry this is long but I’ll try and condense it, any help is greatly appreciated! I’ll change the names too...
My bf and I Sam have been together for 4 years. In our first year of a relationship, he introduced me to his best friend, Jacob. We all got along great, and Jacob told me about his girlfriend at university, Lauren. I had never met Lauren, but knew of her and she knew who I was too. We were all discussing double dating, going out together etc.
One night Jacob and Sam were planning a boys night out and decided to experiment with drugs. Sam never takes drugs, and wanted to experiment once, so I finally agreed if it was only once. I don’t want to condone drugs, but would like to say, this has only happened once and will never happen again. Anyway, Lauren is very very against ANY drugs (even smoking). The boys went out and I was at home, and Lauren messaged me on Instagram (at this point I had never spoken to her directly, only through Jacob, about her). She frantically asked me if the boys were doing drugs, she told me someone in her family had died of an overdose before and she was very against drugs. She had asked Jacob not to do drugs and he promised her he wouldn’t. I felt a bit guilty and thought it was pretty shitty of Jacob to lie, so yes I told Lauren the truth. I told her it was a one time thing, as Sam had told me. Anyway, she obviously told Jacob she knew, and Jacob was pissed off for a bit at me. Lauren didn’t talk to Jacob for a bit but eventually they resolved things. And things got back to normal with all of us. I didn’t talk to Jacob much, however Lauren and I became close.
We would message on Instagram like friends, just generally and she told me stuff about her relationship, asked about mine etc. About a year later, Sam and I were talking in bed. Btw I would like to point out, Sam tells me pretty much everything, we have no secrets from each other. He told me that recently Jacob went on a night out with a guy and a girl from their university. He ended up having sex with the girl he went out with but told Lauren he had only kissed her. I was pretty shocked as him and Lauren had been together for a while now, and told Sam that was disgusting of him. Sam agreed with me and I asked him why he’s friends with a scumbag. Sam is quite shy and doesn’t have many close friends, he’s been friends with Jacob since they were kids and finds it hard to cut ties if he doesn’t agree with his behaviour, as sometimes our friends do shit things.
Anyway, a few days later, Lauren messaged me and said she knew Jacob had kissed a girl on a night out, called Amy. However she doesn’t know if she believes him. She said she had a gut feeling it was more than this, but Jacob insists it was just a kiss. She had messaged Amy and begged her to just tell her if it was a kiss or more, however Amy just said “I don’t want to get involved in your relationship, please stop messaging me” (totally against girl code btw). Lauren asked me if Sam had told me anything about it.
This was a huge dilemma for me. I told Sam about this and said I wouldn’t do anything unless he gave me the green light. Sam said if I told Lauren what happened it would effectively ruin his relationship with Jacob forever. But Lauren was my friend now, not a stranger. I asked Sam how he would feel if he was in her position, or if I had cheated on him, and people weren’t telling him. After some talking, he said I could tell Lauren. I told her, she effectively dumped Jacob and Jacob cut ties with Sam for telling me and “causing him to get dumped”.
Sam blamed me for a bit, which was shitty, so I got quite upset with him, but he can see now how the person to really blame was Jacob. Anyway, a positive from this is, Lauren and I became great friends, we visited each other often and kept in touch. But the story doesn’t end there...
So fast forward to this year. After two years of working it out, Jacob and Sam became friends again. I don’t talk to Jacob anymore, but Sam talks to him a lot. Turns out Jacob had told their friendship group what happened, with his own personal spin on it, basically making it look like I purposefully meddled in Jacob and Lauren’s relationship from the start and fed ideas into Lauren’s head about dumping him. They also all make running jokes like “better not let (me) meet any of our girlfriends, she’ll get us dumped!” And they refuse to talk about girls they’re dating in front of Sam, in case he tells me and I “meddle” again. This is actually really hurtful because at the time I felt like I was doing the right thing...I don’t tell Sam but this does really upset me. Sadly he doesn’t stick up for me in fear of falling out with them and I don’t want to push him because like I said he’s really shy and doesn’t have many friends and I know it would get him really depressed to start confrontation with them (they’re very toxic masculinity).
So for that reason I distance myself from Sam’s friends. Anyway, soon, Sam and I are going to visit his parents in a different country and his friends will be there. I haven’t seen Jacob for years, before the whole cheating thing and I’ve never met the others.
My questions are, what should I do? I’m scared, anxious, worried...did I do the wrong thing? Am I an awful person? I feel like they think I’m a bitchy, evil, interfering girlfriend and I’m far from it...I still feel so bad about what happened, so any advice is welcomed
Thank you xxx