[filly05]

For starters, I have changed the names in this but to make this twisted past easier to explain, I needed names to help keep things straight. ☺️

I'll be turning 30 in a few months. When I was 12 I began volunteering at a therapeutic riding stable and met a girl named Katie my age whose mother was a co founder of the program. She had been around horses her whole life. I loved horses and we began a long, close friendship in which grew my love of horses into a life long passion as she taught me everything she knew and I began competing locally. Through the years we had our ups and downs. She was an only daughter with 4 older brothers and she was spoiled. I was the quiet one and she had a tendency to push me around. I grew up with a step father who was verbally abusive. Him and my mom argued a lot. I grew up with little confidence or self esteem, always walked on eggshells with everyone, even into my 20's. At 18 I was diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder after an attempted suicide and a week in an inpatient mental health facility. So I'm sure that helps explain why I stuck around in this friendship for so long. She lied, a lot and as we got older, it got worse. She slept with my first boyfriend and first told the truth but then proceeded to deny it thereafter. We stopped talking for a few years after that. Then we reconnected around 19. We had gone to different schools but since graduating she had become close with a lot of the people that had gone to my school and we started partying together. During this time she was still dating her high-school boyfriend but no one from my town knew that and she proceeded to date 2 other guys in our party group (at different times) but I didn't want to believe she would do that and looked the other way. One doesn't really apply here but the other I'll call Brian. Brian was infatuated with her but it the relationship only lasted a few weeks because she thought he was clingy. She also introduced me to her friend she met in college, Erica. I had a huge crush on Matt. At first she had encouraged Matt and Erica to start dating, they did sleep together once but that's as far as it went. Then she encouraged me to go after him by saying she knew he liked me and we'd be a good match. A few weeks later, Katie, Matt, Brian and myself were sitting in the living room recovering from the previous night of drinking. We were passing around a laptop checking our Facebook, I was the last to get it after her. When she handed it to me, it was on her messages. I'm sure she had no idea that she had done it, she wasn't always super bright. But I couldn't help myself and I opened the first one which was to her mother. They talked about how her and Matt wanted to be together but they didn't know how to tell myself and Brian. They'd known it for weeks and have been hiding it. So the whole time she was pushing me to go after Matt, she was secretly having a relationship with him herself. To this day I never told her I saw that message. But I did stop talking to her for 9 months and I don't remember why we started talking again after that but we did. 2 years went by with them moving in together. I had gotten over it but Katie got worse. She was notorious for making plans and not following through with them. She'd go to dinner with her family with plans for us to go out after, she'd text me saying she'd be ready in 30 min and then I wouldn't hear from her for the rest of the night. These situations happened more times than I can count. We'd talk the next day and it would never get brought up- I didn't have a back bone. Katie and Matt ended up getting married, I was the maid of honor and Erica was in the wedding too. This wedding was seriously a real life version of the movie Bridesmaids. Erica was the gorgeous, fashionable bridesmaid who was jealous for not being maid of honor. I was the maid of honor who tried to make sure everything was perfect for my best friends wedding while my own life was in shambles and Katie took everything for granted and treated me horribly. She did recognize after the fact how she had treated me but never really offered up any kind of sincere apology. I will say that at the reception, after my speech, Erica tried to speak as well but was nearly tackled by another bridesmaid because all Erica wanted to say was that she thought it was funny that Katie and Matt are married now because she slept with him first - inappropriate? I think so. Anyways, within 3 months of their marriage, Katie had an affair with her farrier (horse shoer). She lied to her husband telling him she was meeting me only to go see her lover - I did not figure this out right away. She ended up pregnant by the farrier but list the baby. Oh ill add that she did give up a child for adoption her senior year in high school that only a handful of people know about. She goes to see her every year on the child's birthday (more on this later). She said she didn't love her husband anymore, she moved out and wanted a divorce but it's not what he wanted. She had him wrapped around her finger. After a couple months of separation and hearing her say over and over that she didn't love him, suddenly he was in the market for a little farmette with stall barn and pasture. Within a week she was saying how much she loved him, they were back together and buying this farmette. Coincidence.. No. Shortly after buying their farmette, Brian decided to sell his home and build one. While preparing for his new home, he moved in with Katie and Matt... Does anyone else find this messed up? During this time she had introduced me to a coworker of her husband's named Ben. This turned into a very serious 3 year relationship for me. While he did a lot to boost my confidence and make me a much stronger person, i spent years trying to make him happy in any possible way while the whole time he tried to make me conform to his ideal partner. He'd set an expectation and I'd reach it but then he'd just raise the bar saying it wasn't good enough. Nothing was ever good enough. After 2 years we did break up. Weeks before this I had taken on a rescue horse that occupied a great deal of my time and I was ok with what had happened at first. The following week I had to put the horse down and my world came crashing. Between those 2 things, I hit Rick bottom. I lost my appetite dropping 2 pant sizes in 4 weeks, I was almost a size 0. Trying to go up the stairs at work, I'd get light headed. I was going to try to overdose on pain meds but after googling what I had and how much it would take to end my life, I didn't have enough and that was the only thing that stopped me. In comes Justin. Justin grew up with Katie, they were like siblings (although very different people) and I had met him when I met Katie at 12 years old. Truly a good person, fun to be around, but rather immature at times. But he was there and I was hurting bad. He came forward and told me he'd always liked me but we were never single at the same time until then. I told him I didn't know what I wanted, I was confused, I thought I wanted to try to get Ben back but right for sure it was over. I thought I had feelings for Justin but at the same time didn't want to ruin our friendship, he meant a lot to me. But we did start something that shouldn't have happened, it was only a couple months but I was completely honest with him about my feelings and he understood that and was patient. When I finally decided that I did want to try to get Ben back, I went to talk to Justin. I found him drunk, driving the tractor in the back pasture. He told me he just found out his mom had breast cancer. I decided it wasn't a good time to have this conversation with him about what I wanted. But I never got the chance to because he hit rock bottom after that. He started dating someone and a few weeks into it, she decided she felt threatened by me and didn't want him to speak to me anymore. So out goes a friendship of 15 years or so for his girlfriend of 3 weeks. At this point Ben and I started talking again and I was too angry with Justin and just walked away from that whole thing. About the same time things started looking up for me. I pulled myself out of my hole, I felt stronger with a new confidence. During my low however, Katie was the first one to judge me and she started treating me worse. Over the past year she started belittling me, having to one up me on everything. Never missed the chance to tell me if I was wearing something out of style, etc. I think this had always happened but I was just finally seeing it. But around the time Ben and I started working things out is when I finally saw Katie for who she was. She truly is a narcissist. She wants everyone to perceive her as this perfect, innocent angel with the perfect life and perfect husband. So few knew the things that she had done. She kept her affair hidden from most, no one knew about her first pregnancy or the one from the affair. She continued sleeping with other guys after the initial affair. She talks horribly about so many people behind their back but so many people look up to her because shes "such a nice person". Only those who she lets get close enough see her for who she really is. Once she starts treating them like she did me, that walk away too. Except her poor husband who, as I stated previously, is wrapped around her finger. I walked away, I had my other horse on their property and moved to a different barn. I gave her husband a 3 weeks notice. That was a year ago this last New Years day. I have not heard from her, she has not tried to contact me to ask what happened, nothing. She infuriates me and I am finding out people are starting to see who she really is but I want so bad for Karma to kick her in the butt. And it doesn't stop here. Ben and I did work things out. That following February after I walked away from her I was out for a friend's birthday. Katie was out with one of her friends. There were several mutual friends by her, they were all laughing. I was approached by one of them saying that she was bad mouthing me big time. Saying that I'm such an idiot because Ben and I hadn't put a title on our relationship and he was just using me, she was making a huge joke out of me. No, we hadn't put a title on it yet and while we had our issues, trust and loyalty were not one of those issues. And what does a title mean to her anyways? It didnt stop her from having an affair 3 months into her marriage! The one thing Ben and I valued most was our trust and loyalty for one another. And if that's all we had at that point, I was ok with that, we had decided to take things slow this time around. Fast forward to this last November. Out of no where Ben broke up with me. 3 weeks after an amazing weekend getaway to Nashville, when he had told me precisely why he hadn't proposed yet which was only because he wasn't going to buy a cheap ring and didn't have the money to buy one and wasnt about to finance one since that's what he always preached to me about... Paying for things in cash and not financing them (he is doing well for himself but is a live to work kind of guy rather than work to live). We were planning on buying a house together this April. His reasons for breaking up with me were old conversations we'd had. Decisions we had made together, conversations that were over and done with. He seemed like he was pulling things out of thin air. But, I also realized it was that certain time of year again. The busiet time at work for him which meant high stress causing his Ulcerative Colitis to hit pretty bad. Hes admitted that he pushes people away when this happens and I think that's what was happening. I asked him to think about things and have him a couple weeks. Weeks that were not easy for me. But in those weeks I looked back at how he treated me. Yes he was very good to me in many ways and I do thank him for helping me change into who I am today. But the expectations he so often set that I could never reach because nothing I ever did was good enough. The stress it put on me at one point even giving me hives. I decided to move on and never look back. A couple months later Justin reaches out to me apologizing for what he did and that he's had a new girlfriend for about a year. He talked to her, told her what happened between us because he wanted to reconnect with me and I guess she was ok with it. I was rather apprehensive about it simply bc he is close with Katie and I knew she would not be ok with this. And sure enough, I was right. Justins girlfriend had gone out with Katie one night and she had mentioned to Katie that Justin wanted to reconnect with me. Katie told her that she needed to watch out for me because I had been in love with Justin forever. Seriously? Katie knows the real story and knows that's not how it goes. But as a naracissist does, she uses lies and manipulation to control the people and situations around her. Justin knows this but Katie is like a sister to him and he'll be a loyal friend to her till the end of time. Now, I've also discovered that Ben Is now all buddy buddy with Katie. Which is messed up when shortly after we first starting dating he told me how she really was, he tried to get me to see who she was, how badly she treated people, pushing me to not be friends with her anymore. He's into fitness and said he'd never pay for a gym membership when he can use the local high-school gym for free because he's a resident. And now he's going to the gym with her and her husband. After years of all the things he'd say about her I feel as though he betrayed me somehow. It doesn't make sense but that's how I feel. I'm happy the relationship is over, I feel like I learned a lot from it but it wasn't meant to be. And her, I have so much hatred and anger towards her and I don't know what to do to let it go. She has and will continue to try to meddle with my life however she can to get under my skin and I don't know what to do. I still show my horse and she took last year off from showing but is coming back this year. I will run into her and I need to get this under control or my horse will pick up on it and it will not be a pretty ride. A close friend of mine has taken a few psychology courses and thinks that because there was no closure on this that I may not be able to get over it. But there is no talking to Katie about this when I can't even stand to hear her name. And she is a naracissist so that's really nothing I can say to her that'll make her sorry for how she treated me, she has no regret or shame for anything she does.

[Skeezyks]

Hello filly05: Thanks for sharing these experiences. You didn't ask for advice. And I don't really think I would have much to offer. I simply wanted to leave a reply letting you know I read your post & I wish you well.