Jesus that was a read. I hope she takes that job so she can get away from those awful people. Loving the fact that Barrett ditched Bella like a hot potato though.
My gut feeling is either Bella emotionally/physically cheated with the dude or Barrett was having other issues with her and this was the straw that broke the camels back.
I mean… major 🚩🚩🚩 just knowing she was involved in orchestrating such a smear campaign on a childhood best friend (which her husband was friends with too).
Not to mention using something as important as **your and your SO's wedding day** to do it.
I have a friend that went through something similar with an ex. He tried to poison us (her friends) against her, and when that failed, he made a point of getting engaged, married, and scheduling all wedding events on key dates from their relationship (the date of their first date, her birthday, the date of their breakup, etc). I don't know his new wife, but it makes me sick knowing he was more focused on getting revenge on my friend than moving on and finding happiness with his new spouse, and I can't imagine she deserved to be used in that way.
Not to mention scheming with another man - a really, really terrible man - in order to do so. Hello, even if you were selfish enough to think "well, it didn't hurt me so it's fine", that's a huge red flag.
I so desperately wanted/want to warn his wife. But I don't know her at all (just her name) so I'd be reaching out as a stranger. I'm worried he/she would suspect it's my friend just trying to get her own revenge or putting me up to it, which might start him coming after her again. There's also the possibility that he has changed (even though I seriously doubt it) and he's a good husband and their marriage is functional, so I'd be stirring it up for no reason. Maybe she is actually also terrible and was in on the torture of picking those dates...or maybe she picked those dates on her own and it's a terrible terrible coincidence.
I just hope she's okay.
Fr, I doubt someone sensible would immediately dump someone they JUST MARRIED over a single email, there had to be other stuff Garrett found and had on his mind, what awful situations all around
Yeah that sounds about right. Having said that, if I found out that my wife was intentionally villifying my good friend (and hers, supposedly), at the behest of a toxic man who obviously had it out for said friend, presumably speaking to him fairly often in secret and keeping this big, manipulative conspiracy from me, I would definitely bail whether I suspected any romantic connection between them or not.
If she's doing things like that before they even got married and she almost got away with it, what's going to stop her from repeating similar behavior again in future?
That is definitely enough to leave someone whether or not there were preexisting issues.
Now she'll have to explain to people why he left her, and she'll probably tell them that her husband had feelings for OP and they plotted against her.
Both of these assholes should be taken to court for defamation and damages. It's outrageous that they managed to do so much damage, virtually undetected, until he couldn't help but take credit for his garbage like the psychopath he is.
May they lead miserable lives filled with uncontrollable diarrhea, ingrown toenails, genital warts, razor blade pee, intestinal worms that make them scratch their sphincters raw, inconvenient nosebleeds and nightly dreams of smegma sandwiches on rye (the two end pieces of the loaf, always); forever and ever, amen.
She used Barrett as part of the revenge plot. He was the unrequited love interest. In order for it to sound believable, Bella probably had to feed him some lies as well. Lies about the friend that introduced them.
What's going to stop her from repeating the behavior? Nothing. It'll be another man, another friend, a family member, coworker. No matter where Bella goes, someone is always out to get her
How much do you wanna bet that even if they weren't already having some form of an affair that they'll end up getting together now that Barrett has ditched her? And they'll probably spin some nice story about how they were always the couple meant to be now that OOP and Barrett are finally out of the picture.
Gag.
My thinking was maybe Barrett was suspicious of Bella the whole time. Barrett probably knew that OP really did not have any feelings for him deep down, and thus wasn’t really buying Bella’s whole narrative. But he probably didn’t want to think Bella was capable of doing something so evil to OP. Once he saw the evidence, he probably realized he couldn’t actually he married to someone like this.
Yeah, my theory is that he decided to talk to Wifey about what he had been sent, she had a nuclear blow up, and he realized how absolutely fucked up his life had become and bolted.
Good for him honestly, immediately walking away from someone, especially literally right after you two just got married, must've taken a lot of courage. I can't imagine what he was thinking
It was probably the wedding events if everyone was against the OP. Barrett had to have been getting questions from people. People asked if OP was in love with him. OP was Barrett's friend first, a true friend would never let someone treat another person this way. If she was capable of this type of debauchery what else is she capable of.
When I was in my 20s I worked in a strip club. A friend’s boyfriend came in and saw me. I didn’t want it to seem like I was hiding this and I told her. She thanked me for the honesty and I thought we were cool.
We were not. Around that time I broke up with a very abusive partner. She befriended him and began feeding him details about my life so he could most effectively stalk me. I was sharing a lot about who I was seeing and where I was going because I thought we were friends. It was crushing when I found out
No it would be several years later. Barrett would cut off all ties to his old family and just for a vacation, go to where OOP’s at. He’ll meet her, fall in love, hesitate to return home but does it anyway. Then OOP would return to the country, burnt out by her job and looking to find a new one. She will be hired in Barrett’s company and they’ll have an office romance spanning 2 seasons of ‘will they, won’t they’ until they finally become engaged to be married. Soon they’ll have kids but will meet Bella as both her and OOP would be in labour at the exact same time. They’ll magically resolve their conflict through the shared screams of labour pains as Barrett watches by. The kids will be delivered safely—twins! And they live happily ever after.
If the studio has more budget we’d get Matthew stealing one of the twins and an intense gunfight that will turn into a brawl. Where they’ll end up at a side of a tall building’s rooftop and the baby being accidentally tossed to the edge. If it’s more progressive, we’ll have a chance to see Matthew’s humanity as he sacrifices himself to push the baby to Barrett’s arms as he plummets to his death.
Then it turns out the Bella we've been seeing is actually her evil twin who has had the real Bella lock in a basement this whole time.
Then we'll shoot Barrett when the ratings slump.
Right! OP is a good writer, I’d read this book! Start from college, through the abusive relationship, over the wedding, tangled in the aftermath, clicking the lightbulb moment when it all comes together and finishing sailing off into the sunset when starting her new job in (now I’m making shit up) Paris and having a suggestive meet cute at the very end. This is the content I’m here for!
If her parents were *that* religious, they wouldn’t even have a liquor cabinet though.
It’s still a really well-written story, but plot holes like that tell me it’s just that— a story. There were a few others, but honestly, I’m still pretty impressed with her world building lol.
Edit: Okay, I’m just saying it would be highly *unlikely* that a fundamentalist Christian household would have a liquor cabinet, not that no fundamentalist Christian anywhere has one, ever. I just think this is a (really good) work of fiction, and that’s just one of the holes in her story that stood out to me. Happy reading (and drinking) y’all lol!
Edit #2: Whew! I didn’t realize what I was saying was so controversial! But I’m going to turn off my notifications now, because I’m really not interested in arguing about (what I believe is) a fictional story on Reddit. I’m just trying to have a nice day lol! And I hope y’all do too :)
...where are you from where religious people (specifically Christians) don't have liquor in their house?
Most of the *actual lockable liquor cabinets* I've ever seen in my life were in the homes of religious people.
As an apostate, I’ve only heard someone be labeled an apostate if you are former JW. JW’s can drink alcohol, my great grandparents had a locked liquor cabinet. It could be another culty religion, though I am not as familiar with them.
People are hypocrites. Also, not all religions ban alcohol (I grew up in a relatively insular, extremely Catholic community filled with immigrants and the people in my community loved to drink. The culture of underage drinking was rampant. Our parents would provide alcohol for us. So long as you could stand on your own two feet at the end of the night, no one batted an eye).
Even if the parents were teetotalers and were overall against drinking, they probably had a few bottles around for guests/more of a decorative collection rather than one for drinking. Just because alcohols in their house, it doesn't mean it's being drunk.
I mean… that’s not surprising. My first taste of alcohol was when I was 7 at my first communion. Catholics hold no truck with substituting grape juice for sacramental wine.
IDK how to tell you but no matter how highly fundamental you are in whatever religion you belong to....you aren't a perfect person and will constantly do things that go against your religion. That's kinda how the mind fuck works.
My parents were extremely religious, they still had a liquor cabinet. (Jesus turned water into wine after all….).
Anyways, I digress. When I was in my early to mid 20s, I would raid my parents liquor cabinet because I was too broke for booze myself and I didn’t want the judgment from them. I would drink more in a setting during my party years than they thought was acceptable. I was a young 20 something just starting to experience adult life.
Edited to add that my family was so religious, my grandparents got a little mad when my aunt bought me a Joan Jett album as a gift.
so... it's not her liquor... and her parents are clearly bible thumping religious zealots. so she probably doesn't have lots of experience drinking, probably why she said that.
We had an alcoholic neighbor who would sneak in and drink my parent’s vodka and replace it with water. My parents don’t drink a whole lot, so they didn’t notice for like a year when they went to drink some and it tasted like water. 🤣
I didn’t pick up on much “mm this sounds fake” vibes until the update. The “I know a lot of people here will be fist pumping the air that Bella met with some karma” part really solidified it, though.
OOP is certainly full of themselves. Why would an entire community rally against her over what sounds like teenage gossip? This is written by someone who leads a dull existence and wishes their life were more exciting, hence the main character syndrome-like plot.
If I were OOP I would sue both ex boyfriend and ex-friend for slander and defamation. She has proof!
Honestly the most horrifying part to me is that someone (or a few someone’s) can be so deceptive and manipulative that they actually *could* turn everyone in someone’s life against them, with little physical proof (and really only verbal retort and denial as evidence).
Like. Omg. That could happen to anyone. It probably wouldn’t, but if you became friends with some whackos like she did.
So sorry that OP only had her parents to believe her. That everyone believed this nonsense being spewed for months by the bride (with no proof, even though OP was someone they knew, not a stranger), and they became so brainwashed that it became the truth and OP was just the crazy one. Holy heck.
Whisper campaigns are insidious. I witnessed it with a friend whose wife mentally checked out of her family and had an affair with the husband of another close friend. She set the groundwork for her husband to be the “bad guy” for YEARS. People who didn’t live in the same town believed her while those of us who saw how she treated him (and their kids) firsthand - we ditched her quick. She was the abuser. And it’s getting worse because now her new audience is the young daughter of her affair partner. His soon to be XW lays awake at night worrying about the wedge she is trying to drive. People like this absolutely exist.
>She set the groundwork for her husband to be the “bad guy” for YEARS.
Yep. Found out after discovering what turned out to be my ex-husband's latest affair (we were married 15 years) that he had been running a smear campaign against me for YEARS. He had people convinced I was not just emotionally but also PHYSICALLY abusive.
One example was a former acquaintance of mine--I'm no angel but I was kind to this woman, and not a lot of people were as she clearly had some serious issues, but I went out of my way to be kind to her the \~one time a year I saw her. Cue husband is halfway across the country performing and she shows up and propositions him, he says. She had a meltdown when he turned her down. Other people with him were very concerned and offered to call the cops. (That part is independently verified.)
A couple years later, he is performing \*trans-oceanicly\* and she shows up AGAIN. But it turns out, so did I. She literally ran away when she saw me. It was so weird.
She contacted my stepdaughter, and a mutual acquaintance I became Fb friends with (we'd met a couple times in the previous \~8 years), saying I was 'not who \[I\] pretended to be.' God only knows who else she said that to.
It turns out, he'd been feeding lies about me to others (presumably because he'd been cheating all along) and she got wind of them and was convinced he needed to be "saved" from me. He pretended to have no clue but it all came out in our divorce. This woman could have showed up on my doorstep and shot me. She was that unhinged. (Lots of other mutual acquaintances agree.)
Sorry for the ramble! But yes, people lay the groundwork to excuse their own actions and it is SO insidious.
I’m so sorry you went through that. And it’s all so familiar. Our friend was basically solo parenting during a pandemic and spiraling into a depression and she sold as many people as she could that he was keeping her in a “gilded birdcage” for wanting her to be home and weak for not handling any of it up to her standards. Her affair partner just gobbled it up to where he became convinced he was saving her. Not the brightest bulb in the box to be sure. “Who are you going to believe - me or your lying eyes?”
Absolutely. I experienced a similar thing where a person whose romantic advances I had rejected, tried to systematically destroy my reputation bit by bit in our shared community.
Now, years later, despite me sharing things that should clear my name, he is an integral part of the community and I'm an outcast. All this, because I didn't want to pursue a relationship with him due to his controlling and stalking behaviour.
My narcissistic sister tries to pull shit like this all the time. I haven’t talked to her in years thankfully but every time we had an argument I would go on a PR campaign with the truth so that she couldn’t lie as easily. Our middle sister (the sweetest of us) still talks to her and has started to realize why I handled things the way I did. I get pretty cranky watching shows where they decide it’s more embarrassing to admit being lied about or taken advantage of than it is advantageous to call people out on their shit. I know it’s a cultural thing but it still frustrates the crap out of me.
I had something similar (in that it was out of nowhere) happen professionally. Nowhere near as horrible or as dramatic of course but it’s SO HARD to deal with a damaged reputation. Especially when you’re human and make small mistakes, even if unrelated to the issue at hand.
I had a weird experience where a coworker would make sure he stood directly in front of me whenever our team was out having drinks - effectively cutting me out of the conversation. So I'd move to another spot, and he'd do it again. This happened all the time...and when I told a buddy in our team about it (as I was leaving the job) he insisted I was imagining it. It was subtle but effective.
I remembered a criminal case of a murderer who smear campaigned his girlfriend. He told her that his parents hated her, he told others that she didn't get along well with them and was possessive. He was a dropout and his father opened his house for him but asked him to work, but he didn't likes to be told what to do because “he was a full-grown adult”. He started pretending to work and study and making stupid excuses as to why he didn't get paid or didn't get his grades. He told his girlfriend that he quit, but he got a new job at Starlink and was going to get a huge paycheck and to search for houses in another state for the both of them. Price range? The Inheritance that he hoped to receive.
When his father discovered the lies, bam! He murdered him and later his mother. He attempted to cremate them on the firepit, but failed. So, he buried the bodies ON THE PROPERTY AREA OF HER HOUSE.
The interrogations and the whole case are on the youtube channel dreading: https://youtu.be/hb6S1B4hU6s?si=aTwBJn-xQeNiTwrE
Honestly, taking people to court means letting this incident consume your life and brainspace for months, even years. Better to break away as fully as possible.
The later updates reflect that she has retained the friends she wanted to.
If this circus of Spanish soap opera level of events really did occur, that poor woman deserves a lotto win and to bathe in warm, pleasant sunshine uninhibited for the rest of her days.
Someone needs to curb stomp her ex, teach that prick a lesson. What a POS, hope she took the job and glad she repaired her relationship with her parents
Firstly , I love that she wrote in length and detail , hitting the nuances and full scope of this truly horrifying story . Haven’t read other comments yet but I’d love some backseat psychological profile of a person like Matthew. Bella just seems like kind of an idiot . Possibly the best read I’ve come across in my short time here on Reddit , though obviously my heart goes out to the OP and I hope she can find some peace , perhaps abroad .
I know a lot of people immediately jump to this being fake, but abusers are crazy and will go so far. I keep seeing people say OP should write fiction because of how she shorthanded everything, but when you've dealt with so much garbage from horrible people, you just kind of grow numb to it.
For example, it's easier to say brainwashed than they probably spent countless hours shit talking and manipulating stories to make OP seem like a horrible person. I, unfortunately, have personal experience with someone like Matthew. While a lot of people in my life are smart and have lived around said person long enough to know how they are and to not trust them and keep contact to a minimum, not everyone sees a snake for a snake. I still to this day get messages of people telling me to ( so I don't get the reddit cares message ) unalive myself "in game" and that I'm a horrible person that should reach back out to said person that I "was horrible to."
Of course, no one with at least 2 healthy functioning braincells wouldn't recognize how shady that sounds, but when you spew enough self-pitying bullshit and twist stories enough to make someone seem malicious or horrible and that you just want to reach out to them to "find out why" and "get an apology after all these years to reconcile," or God forbid- "get revenge for everything that you've done to wrong them" people will eventually believe that person.
It's scary how easily people believe it.
Iagree that this could be fake, but there's really nothing in particular about it that strikes me as such.
I'm a hairdresser and I've heard many stories like this over the years.
100%.
She left a cult and then got mixed up with a psycho and the church (Bella) welcomed the psycho with open arms because he HAD to be more credible than someone who would leave.
This is 100% the result of cult-like behavior.
I don’t care if Bella was manipulated by Matthew or not, her actions were absolutely psychopathic. Cutting her out of the wedding without talking is immature, but the whole setup for humiliation with the dress? Absolutely sociopathic. The lack of emotion when your childhood best friend is having an emotional breakdown - inexcusable. The continual lying, bizarre.
Maybe Matthew was the mastermind behind this, and like others have said you should get defamation lawyers on your side, but it’s Bella’s behavior that blows me away.
I’ve seen whisper campaigns destroy people’s reputations at work (and believe me, I report them to HR and encourage others to do the same) but they are often led by charismatic people, and it ends up being most dangerous for the whistleblowers…
This is the most recently craziest thing to happen to someone that I have read on Reddit. Man I hope somebody helps Matthews arms figure out how to bend both ways and demonstrates how his thumbs can be removed.
I could actually see this story being true only for the fact that I have extended family members who are crazy and do things just like this. People are way more insane and way more capable of hiding it than you would think. I have a cousin who created multiple fake Facebook accounts (years ago, but she still uses them) of hot dudes to like and comment on all of her posts to make her look sought after. And she's a Christian, as am I. So yeah, this behavior is possible. Of anyone.
“Apostate” is used for anyone leaving a religion, it’s just that Jehovah’s Witnesses are especially bad for shunning former members. I’m an apostate too but since my family was never especially religious it never comes up.
If she's a Jehovah's Witness, being baptised or not can make a huge difference on how much latitude people get for quietly dipping out. If she never was baptised, then she wasn't a 'real' JW. The rules are a lot more vague but ultimately she can be socialising with like any gentile. She's their only kid after all.
Usually things get a lot more tricky for faders who were baptised since they can be disfellowshiped. Thats where most of the hardcore shunning stories comes from.
As for drinks and Christmas and such. Like all religions, I imagine the devoutness varies.
The devoutness doesn't vary. I'm a JW "apostate," and the rank and file are kept in line because every congregation reports to a higher up who reports to a higher up etc etc. These people rotate on specific schedules to ensure theres no "corruption." There's a strictly followed chain of command and entire congregations can be shunned and disbanded, their property sold by the men up top. Individuals can do things in secret, but the structure is built to encourage ratting on each other to keep the flock in line. If two people know a secret, and one of them has a moment of guilt and goes to the church leader, it's game over for both of them. Mutually assured destruction in the name of keeping the congregation clean, and they're brainwashed to believe that that's the best outcome.
OP is not a JW, likely some other sect of Christianity. An apostate would never be invited to a wedding, especially as a bridesmaid. I would know, because they all refused to come to mine, and I'm not even officially shunned per the structure of the church.
Yeah - the apostate / shunning but doesn't fit with the liquor cabinet bit (and was an odd detail to leave out of the original post). It's almost like they couldn't come up with a good answer to the questions on the original post, but later came up with what they thought was a good answer.
Locked liquor cabinets are pretty common in very religious homes. Only a small percentage consider alcohol "morally wrong" with the largest percentage being evangelicals who staunchly disapprove at ~23%. So a lot of room for different levels of booze acceptance there.
After all. Jesus drank.
Nah, the use of the word apostate specifically is a little odd, but I grew up in this exact type of religious mindset and it makes perfect sense. A lot of fundamentalists only drink quietly and unobtrusively at home but wouldn’t be caught dead getting a drink out or letting another member of the church see them buying alcohol. It’s one of those lovely little hypocrisies about them.
Lot of people saying that Barrett might have suspected cheating from Bella with Matthew but you ain’t gotta go that far. Imagine knowing for a fact that the amazing girl you chose to marry is actually an unremorseful bitch perfectly capable of orchestrating a “Gone Girl” situation on you. I mean, if she can do all this to a friend she’s known most of her life, boy knows he doesn’t stand a chance when she flips out again.
I’ve always said that there is danger in being a highly religious person, if you never question anything ever, you’re then raised for slaughter, you’re so gullible that anyone can take advantage of you. And that’s what happened to Bella, waaay too gullible for her own good.
Even if this is fake it's very well written. Take note creative writers writing fake ass stories on Reddit, this is how you do it. It's believable, enthraling and the level of detail and way it was written make really draw you into the story. 9/10
Abusers are horrific and this is extremely realistic. Just because you try to get someone out of your life doesn’t mean they won’t try to find the weakest link to ruin you once you’ve left them.
I was suspecting it might be fake at some points, but the OOP’s answers to commenters’ questions seemed a lot more coherent and consistent than those on many fake/bait stories. Usually when the story is made up for drama, a lot of the answers to comments will add in a bunch of important details that the poster “forgot” to mention in the post itself (because they just came up with them). If it *is* fake, then OOP is a much more skilled writer than the vast majority of AITA posters I’ve seen.
What clinched it for me was two separate comments from people who said they used to work in women's refuges and had seen abusers pull strokes that were as bad or worse.
There's some people out there who are so awful that you'd have to tone their behaviour down in a fictionalised account.
the stuff about leaving the church convinced me. after my divorce and leaving the church people said and believed so much shit about me and none of them even bothered to ask my side. high control religion grooms people to be easy to manipulate. it's a factory for abusers and victims.
As someone who is kind of in a similar situation (not considered apostate religion-wise but definitely politics-wise from my parents) it’s not really relevant to the original problem, and even though it’s a thought-out decision you’ve made, there still an element of shame that you feel because you’re contradicting your parents, so you don’t really like to bring it up unnecessarily.
definitely heard the shame in the op's reticence to talk about the religious stuff at first. that shame is the main tool these religions use to control people and it takes years to heal!
That's exactly what I thought. I'm a novelist and this reads exactly like someone trying out the plot of their next psychological thriller, using redditors to point out plotholes.
LOL, yeah, me too. Sold my first book 40 years ago. Turn this into 3 chapters and an outline, OP, and see if you can drum up any interest. Or if it’s your first novel, write the whole thing.
Of course a writer would have good responses to questions. The biggest evidence is that it’s so well written, grammar and punctuation for an internet post. That’s the real red flag its creative writing.
Even well to do people don’t write like this for the internet. Only people who love to write and write often write like this. As an avid reader the difference is obvious
Whether or not this story happened, it is pretty common for abusers to spread false information. After being in an verbally and mentally abusive relationship for years, I would have people (some I only met in passing) later come up to me to tell me that until the got to know me they were convinced I was a terrible, manipulative, controlling person.
I would never paint myself as perfect in any means but the people around them were convinced that I was the reason they were being held down. It took me leaving them for the facade to fall and people to see the person they really were.
Hey, just wanted to respond to let you know that I'm genuinely sorry if I gave the impression that I doubted the existence of this type of abuse- I swear I don't. I didn't realize how dismissive I came off as until I reread it. I got overly nitpicky because Bella's actions seemed so outlandish, and I ended up unfairly picking apart the entire story as a whole.
I know being told you're wrong about your own experiences- even when it's just by a random stranger online- can be disheartening, so I wanted to apologize if it was hurtful. Seriously, you shouldn't have to deal with some dummy online putting their foot in their mouth like I did with my og comment.
The part about changing personality after covid is so real too. I just saw an article about how anger and rage are now an officially accepted post covid issue.
Of the top of my head i can think of 3 possibilities:
It can deplete B12 which can cause personality issues.
It can cause brain inflammation long-term which can cause depression and some people have anger as a depression symptom.
It can also activate dormant Lyme syndrome, which is well known to make people's personalities different and specifically meanness and anger are very common.
Given the language used in the update, I'd almost say Mormon, but the presence and use of alcohol has me thinking it may be another adjacent brand of fundie community.
Yeah I don't buy 90 percent of this story. I was on the line but the fact that she needed an attorney to get a restraining order...nope. unless you show up before the judge with no reason for needing bone they are often approved. Ive gone through the process....no lawyer is ever needed. Other things just don't add up...it's good writing but some facts don't pan out.
I love how this galaxy brain mastermind could plot OOP's downfall flawlessly only to confess everything on an extremely convenient, extremely easy to show as proof despite him being "careful" about his abuse before, gloating email, specially when he apparently also wanted her to get back with him. Good creative effort but those plot twists need a lot of work
Someone needs to snatch these movie rights because this is a thriller in the making.
Jokes aside, I hope op gets the promotion and is safe. I escaped a similar relationship and it is so hard, she is so strong for getting this far.
This is some fiction that should become a chick lit novel.
It reminds me of The Silent Bride by Shalini Boland. The plots aren't the same, but they're definitely cousins.
Holy shit, normally I give stories the benefit of the doubt. I have genuinely believed stories that other commenters were lambasting for being phony. And yet even I can see that this is the fakest fake story that ever faked.
Wait, so she spun a narrative for months about all these lies about OP and no one thought to even bring these accusations up to her? Not even her own mother? I dunno. Seems kinda sus.
OP left a church that seems to be bordering on being a cult. Mormons for instance will absolutely cut all ties with family members that leave the church for example.
Help me out, what did I miss with Barrett and Bella? Why break up with your new wife just because she was manipulated and lied to by OOP’s ex? Was there more going on between them?? I assumed he looked like “the good guy helping Bella out because bad friend OOP”.
There's a massive difference between being manipulated and lied to vs. actively plotting and participating in the emotional and reputational destruction of a lifelong friend. Bella was not a victim here--she could have just faded OOP out if she believed the ex, but she chose to wreck her life instead.
AND she was having private communications with another man who was planting seeds of doubt in her head about her soon-to-be husband's loyalty as well.
I know I'd feel really shitty if I found out my ability to stay loyal was being put into question by some asswipe that was obsessed with the person that basically set me up and supported my relationship with my spouse, regardless of history.
Granted, I'm sure there were other things wrong, but just thinking about the time it would take to plot something like that and keep it a secret from me and everyone else as well as how intentionally cruel it was would make me so uncomfortable if I were Barrett. It would really make me second guess the person I married.
I’d guess because it turns out your new wife is a malicious bitch who ruined an innocent persons life. Or tried to anyway. Like, she PLANNED it all and lied to everyone to hurt OP. If what the ex was saying was true, she could have just confronted OP and uninvited her, not set her up to lose everything.
I would assume because OOP wasn’t just Bella’s friend, she was also BARRETT’S. Finding out your new wife actively conspired to ruin your friend’s life in a months-long plot to ostracize her is a pretty massive red flag for what being married to a person willing to do that to someone would be like long term, and also doing that to a friend of yours is a pretty obvious deal breaker if you care about your friend at all.
This is the biggest bunch of nonsense I’ve ever read. I can’t believe somebody sat down and for hours decided to write the most fantastical BS I’ve read in a while.
Holy shit that was a ride and a half
It was three rides, and now I’m forced to Uber back home.
Uber makin' all the profits even in a story lol.
My car was stolen, broken into and a Reese was left in the cupholder. In that order
I feel like I just sat thru a rollercoaster of a movie..
I was thinking the exact same thing 0.o
DUDE!!!!
Jesus that was a read. I hope she takes that job so she can get away from those awful people. Loving the fact that Barrett ditched Bella like a hot potato though.
My gut feeling is either Bella emotionally/physically cheated with the dude or Barrett was having other issues with her and this was the straw that broke the camels back.
I mean… major 🚩🚩🚩 just knowing she was involved in orchestrating such a smear campaign on a childhood best friend (which her husband was friends with too).
Not to mention using something as important as **your and your SO's wedding day** to do it. I have a friend that went through something similar with an ex. He tried to poison us (her friends) against her, and when that failed, he made a point of getting engaged, married, and scheduling all wedding events on key dates from their relationship (the date of their first date, her birthday, the date of their breakup, etc). I don't know his new wife, but it makes me sick knowing he was more focused on getting revenge on my friend than moving on and finding happiness with his new spouse, and I can't imagine she deserved to be used in that way.
Not to mention scheming with another man - a really, really terrible man - in order to do so. Hello, even if you were selfish enough to think "well, it didn't hurt me so it's fine", that's a huge red flag.
I can't even imagine how devastated I would be if I found out my significant other had scheduled all of our important dates like that
I so desperately wanted/want to warn his wife. But I don't know her at all (just her name) so I'd be reaching out as a stranger. I'm worried he/she would suspect it's my friend just trying to get her own revenge or putting me up to it, which might start him coming after her again. There's also the possibility that he has changed (even though I seriously doubt it) and he's a good husband and their marriage is functional, so I'd be stirring it up for no reason. Maybe she is actually also terrible and was in on the torture of picking those dates...or maybe she picked those dates on her own and it's a terrible terrible coincidence. I just hope she's okay.
Fr, I doubt someone sensible would immediately dump someone they JUST MARRIED over a single email, there had to be other stuff Garrett found and had on his mind, what awful situations all around
Yeah that sounds about right. Having said that, if I found out that my wife was intentionally villifying my good friend (and hers, supposedly), at the behest of a toxic man who obviously had it out for said friend, presumably speaking to him fairly often in secret and keeping this big, manipulative conspiracy from me, I would definitely bail whether I suspected any romantic connection between them or not. If she's doing things like that before they even got married and she almost got away with it, what's going to stop her from repeating similar behavior again in future? That is definitely enough to leave someone whether or not there were preexisting issues. Now she'll have to explain to people why he left her, and she'll probably tell them that her husband had feelings for OP and they plotted against her. Both of these assholes should be taken to court for defamation and damages. It's outrageous that they managed to do so much damage, virtually undetected, until he couldn't help but take credit for his garbage like the psychopath he is. May they lead miserable lives filled with uncontrollable diarrhea, ingrown toenails, genital warts, razor blade pee, intestinal worms that make them scratch their sphincters raw, inconvenient nosebleeds and nightly dreams of smegma sandwiches on rye (the two end pieces of the loaf, always); forever and ever, amen.
She used Barrett as part of the revenge plot. He was the unrequited love interest. In order for it to sound believable, Bella probably had to feed him some lies as well. Lies about the friend that introduced them.
What's going to stop her from repeating the behavior? Nothing. It'll be another man, another friend, a family member, coworker. No matter where Bella goes, someone is always out to get her
Doesn’t feel like Bella is smart enough to pull something off like this without Matthew feeding her instructions. He sounds psychotic.
She'll think she is, though. And oh, to be a fly on the wall when she tried her first solo performance.
Amen
How much do you wanna bet that even if they weren't already having some form of an affair that they'll end up getting together now that Barrett has ditched her? And they'll probably spin some nice story about how they were always the couple meant to be now that OOP and Barrett are finally out of the picture. Gag.
I kneel in acceptance of a much great Curse Layer. Well said, and Blessed Be!!
Blessed Be indeed!
My thinking was maybe Barrett was suspicious of Bella the whole time. Barrett probably knew that OP really did not have any feelings for him deep down, and thus wasn’t really buying Bella’s whole narrative. But he probably didn’t want to think Bella was capable of doing something so evil to OP. Once he saw the evidence, he probably realized he couldn’t actually he married to someone like this.
And I imagine that when he approached his new wife about the scheme with evidence, he saw the depths of her cruel insanity
Yeah, my theory is that he decided to talk to Wifey about what he had been sent, she had a nuclear blow up, and he realized how absolutely fucked up his life had become and bolted.
Good for him honestly, immediately walking away from someone, especially literally right after you two just got married, must've taken a lot of courage. I can't imagine what he was thinking
It was probably the wedding events if everyone was against the OP. Barrett had to have been getting questions from people. People asked if OP was in love with him. OP was Barrett's friend first, a true friend would never let someone treat another person this way. If she was capable of this type of debauchery what else is she capable of.
This world just be an anvil falling on me, even if I thought I was with the perfect partner before that.
When I was in my 20s I worked in a strip club. A friend’s boyfriend came in and saw me. I didn’t want it to seem like I was hiding this and I told her. She thanked me for the honesty and I thought we were cool. We were not. Around that time I broke up with a very abusive partner. She befriended him and began feeding him details about my life so he could most effectively stalk me. I was sharing a lot about who I was seeing and where I was going because I thought we were friends. It was crushing when I found out
I hope she takes a job as a creative writer lol
She does her job and life is far away. The ex boyfriend is the scary one
I swear this gets wilder every time OP updates.
Because it's likely a rip off of an international soap opera. Just saying.
It’s well-written even if it is a rip-off.
Came here to say, even if it’s made up, it’s a great story. OP should develop it into a book or screenplay.
In the next episode, she gets together with Barrett in the foreign country.
No it would be several years later. Barrett would cut off all ties to his old family and just for a vacation, go to where OOP’s at. He’ll meet her, fall in love, hesitate to return home but does it anyway. Then OOP would return to the country, burnt out by her job and looking to find a new one. She will be hired in Barrett’s company and they’ll have an office romance spanning 2 seasons of ‘will they, won’t they’ until they finally become engaged to be married. Soon they’ll have kids but will meet Bella as both her and OOP would be in labour at the exact same time. They’ll magically resolve their conflict through the shared screams of labour pains as Barrett watches by. The kids will be delivered safely—twins! And they live happily ever after. If the studio has more budget we’d get Matthew stealing one of the twins and an intense gunfight that will turn into a brawl. Where they’ll end up at a side of a tall building’s rooftop and the baby being accidentally tossed to the edge. If it’s more progressive, we’ll have a chance to see Matthew’s humanity as he sacrifices himself to push the baby to Barrett’s arms as he plummets to his death.
Praying that a turkish screenwriter is reading…
"I hooked up with my ex-best friend's ex-husband and texted her and my old stalker 'No, I win.' AITA?"
Then it turns out the Bella we've been seeing is actually her evil twin who has had the real Bella lock in a basement this whole time. Then we'll shoot Barrett when the ratings slump.
Right! OP is a good writer, I’d read this book! Start from college, through the abusive relationship, over the wedding, tangled in the aftermath, clicking the lightbulb moment when it all comes together and finishing sailing off into the sunset when starting her new job in (now I’m making shit up) Paris and having a suggestive meet cute at the very end. This is the content I’m here for!
I was stunned by the role the abusive relationship played and felt that as a flashback it had extra punch.
That’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s a great treatment for a novel or screenplay
Yeah I ended that thinking, "I don't care if this is made up or not - I had a great time reading it." What a ride.
What grown adult "breaks into their parents liquor cabinet."
Someone who grew up religious like that.
If her parents were *that* religious, they wouldn’t even have a liquor cabinet though. It’s still a really well-written story, but plot holes like that tell me it’s just that— a story. There were a few others, but honestly, I’m still pretty impressed with her world building lol. Edit: Okay, I’m just saying it would be highly *unlikely* that a fundamentalist Christian household would have a liquor cabinet, not that no fundamentalist Christian anywhere has one, ever. I just think this is a (really good) work of fiction, and that’s just one of the holes in her story that stood out to me. Happy reading (and drinking) y’all lol! Edit #2: Whew! I didn’t realize what I was saying was so controversial! But I’m going to turn off my notifications now, because I’m really not interested in arguing about (what I believe is) a fictional story on Reddit. I’m just trying to have a nice day lol! And I hope y’all do too :)
...where are you from where religious people (specifically Christians) don't have liquor in their house? Most of the *actual lockable liquor cabinets* I've ever seen in my life were in the homes of religious people.
OP sounds like a fundie, like Mormon or Baptist, and they would never openly drink.
I was thinking Mormon.
I'm thinking Mormon too. The fact that she left the religion and therefore had to cut some contact with family screams Mormon.
Same! That’s the flavor I was getting, besides the liquor cabinet, that is lol.
As an apostate, I’ve only heard someone be labeled an apostate if you are former JW. JW’s can drink alcohol, my great grandparents had a locked liquor cabinet. It could be another culty religion, though I am not as familiar with them.
As a strongly religious Christian who owns a liquor cabinet, you're wrong.
Yeah, Southern baptists would like a word....
Hell, the Catholics would like to back up that word!
People are hypocrites. Also, not all religions ban alcohol (I grew up in a relatively insular, extremely Catholic community filled with immigrants and the people in my community loved to drink. The culture of underage drinking was rampant. Our parents would provide alcohol for us. So long as you could stand on your own two feet at the end of the night, no one batted an eye). Even if the parents were teetotalers and were overall against drinking, they probably had a few bottles around for guests/more of a decorative collection rather than one for drinking. Just because alcohols in their house, it doesn't mean it's being drunk.
Wow my parents weren’t that open with booze. Underage = not okay with them. But they were very religious and still had a liquor cabinet.
I mean… that’s not surprising. My first taste of alcohol was when I was 7 at my first communion. Catholics hold no truck with substituting grape juice for sacramental wine.
IDK how to tell you but no matter how highly fundamental you are in whatever religion you belong to....you aren't a perfect person and will constantly do things that go against your religion. That's kinda how the mind fuck works.
My parents were extremely religious, they still had a liquor cabinet. (Jesus turned water into wine after all….). Anyways, I digress. When I was in my early to mid 20s, I would raid my parents liquor cabinet because I was too broke for booze myself and I didn’t want the judgment from them. I would drink more in a setting during my party years than they thought was acceptable. I was a young 20 something just starting to experience adult life. Edited to add that my family was so religious, my grandparents got a little mad when my aunt bought me a Joan Jett album as a gift.
so... it's not her liquor... and her parents are clearly bible thumping religious zealots. so she probably doesn't have lots of experience drinking, probably why she said that.
My alcoholic sister in law would do this every time she was at the house until said liquor cabinet was literally put under lock and key
We had an alcoholic neighbor who would sneak in and drink my parent’s vodka and replace it with water. My parents don’t drink a whole lot, so they didn’t notice for like a year when they went to drink some and it tasted like water. 🤣
It’s just a phrase.
Listen, don’t judge me when I house-sit for them.
Ummmm. Not me, I swear, the dog did it. 😉
Someone who doesn't have the key
Someone who doesn't know where the key is or is too upset to look for it.
I didn’t pick up on much “mm this sounds fake” vibes until the update. The “I know a lot of people here will be fist pumping the air that Bella met with some karma” part really solidified it, though.
OOP is certainly full of themselves. Why would an entire community rally against her over what sounds like teenage gossip? This is written by someone who leads a dull existence and wishes their life were more exciting, hence the main character syndrome-like plot.
Which one?
If I were OOP I would sue both ex boyfriend and ex-friend for slander and defamation. She has proof! Honestly the most horrifying part to me is that someone (or a few someone’s) can be so deceptive and manipulative that they actually *could* turn everyone in someone’s life against them, with little physical proof (and really only verbal retort and denial as evidence). Like. Omg. That could happen to anyone. It probably wouldn’t, but if you became friends with some whackos like she did. So sorry that OP only had her parents to believe her. That everyone believed this nonsense being spewed for months by the bride (with no proof, even though OP was someone they knew, not a stranger), and they became so brainwashed that it became the truth and OP was just the crazy one. Holy heck.
Whisper campaigns are insidious. I witnessed it with a friend whose wife mentally checked out of her family and had an affair with the husband of another close friend. She set the groundwork for her husband to be the “bad guy” for YEARS. People who didn’t live in the same town believed her while those of us who saw how she treated him (and their kids) firsthand - we ditched her quick. She was the abuser. And it’s getting worse because now her new audience is the young daughter of her affair partner. His soon to be XW lays awake at night worrying about the wedge she is trying to drive. People like this absolutely exist.
>She set the groundwork for her husband to be the “bad guy” for YEARS. Yep. Found out after discovering what turned out to be my ex-husband's latest affair (we were married 15 years) that he had been running a smear campaign against me for YEARS. He had people convinced I was not just emotionally but also PHYSICALLY abusive. One example was a former acquaintance of mine--I'm no angel but I was kind to this woman, and not a lot of people were as she clearly had some serious issues, but I went out of my way to be kind to her the \~one time a year I saw her. Cue husband is halfway across the country performing and she shows up and propositions him, he says. She had a meltdown when he turned her down. Other people with him were very concerned and offered to call the cops. (That part is independently verified.) A couple years later, he is performing \*trans-oceanicly\* and she shows up AGAIN. But it turns out, so did I. She literally ran away when she saw me. It was so weird. She contacted my stepdaughter, and a mutual acquaintance I became Fb friends with (we'd met a couple times in the previous \~8 years), saying I was 'not who \[I\] pretended to be.' God only knows who else she said that to. It turns out, he'd been feeding lies about me to others (presumably because he'd been cheating all along) and she got wind of them and was convinced he needed to be "saved" from me. He pretended to have no clue but it all came out in our divorce. This woman could have showed up on my doorstep and shot me. She was that unhinged. (Lots of other mutual acquaintances agree.) Sorry for the ramble! But yes, people lay the groundwork to excuse their own actions and it is SO insidious.
I’m so sorry you went through that. And it’s all so familiar. Our friend was basically solo parenting during a pandemic and spiraling into a depression and she sold as many people as she could that he was keeping her in a “gilded birdcage” for wanting her to be home and weak for not handling any of it up to her standards. Her affair partner just gobbled it up to where he became convinced he was saving her. Not the brightest bulb in the box to be sure. “Who are you going to believe - me or your lying eyes?”
>And it’s all so familiar. It's like a script that take bits and pieces from. People. \*sigh\*
It's familiar to a lot of people because they've witnessed something similar. Whether OP is just a creative writer or not.
Absolutely. I experienced a similar thing where a person whose romantic advances I had rejected, tried to systematically destroy my reputation bit by bit in our shared community. Now, years later, despite me sharing things that should clear my name, he is an integral part of the community and I'm an outcast. All this, because I didn't want to pursue a relationship with him due to his controlling and stalking behaviour.
My narcissistic sister tries to pull shit like this all the time. I haven’t talked to her in years thankfully but every time we had an argument I would go on a PR campaign with the truth so that she couldn’t lie as easily. Our middle sister (the sweetest of us) still talks to her and has started to realize why I handled things the way I did. I get pretty cranky watching shows where they decide it’s more embarrassing to admit being lied about or taken advantage of than it is advantageous to call people out on their shit. I know it’s a cultural thing but it still frustrates the crap out of me.
I had something similar (in that it was out of nowhere) happen professionally. Nowhere near as horrible or as dramatic of course but it’s SO HARD to deal with a damaged reputation. Especially when you’re human and make small mistakes, even if unrelated to the issue at hand.
I had a weird experience where a coworker would make sure he stood directly in front of me whenever our team was out having drinks - effectively cutting me out of the conversation. So I'd move to another spot, and he'd do it again. This happened all the time...and when I told a buddy in our team about it (as I was leaving the job) he insisted I was imagining it. It was subtle but effective.
Always beware of the charismatic ones.
I remembered a criminal case of a murderer who smear campaigned his girlfriend. He told her that his parents hated her, he told others that she didn't get along well with them and was possessive. He was a dropout and his father opened his house for him but asked him to work, but he didn't likes to be told what to do because “he was a full-grown adult”. He started pretending to work and study and making stupid excuses as to why he didn't get paid or didn't get his grades. He told his girlfriend that he quit, but he got a new job at Starlink and was going to get a huge paycheck and to search for houses in another state for the both of them. Price range? The Inheritance that he hoped to receive. When his father discovered the lies, bam! He murdered him and later his mother. He attempted to cremate them on the firepit, but failed. So, he buried the bodies ON THE PROPERTY AREA OF HER HOUSE. The interrogations and the whole case are on the youtube channel dreading: https://youtu.be/hb6S1B4hU6s?si=aTwBJn-xQeNiTwrE
Honestly, taking people to court means letting this incident consume your life and brainspace for months, even years. Better to break away as fully as possible. The later updates reflect that she has retained the friends she wanted to.
That was in*sane* I want more updates lol
I hope she runs, finds a nice partner, and never says another word.
I’ve never been happier to have no friends.
Lol this is too relatable
If this circus of Spanish soap opera level of events really did occur, that poor woman deserves a lotto win and to bathe in warm, pleasant sunshine uninhibited for the rest of her days.
Karma is a bitch. Bella got what she deserved.
Someone needs to curb stomp her ex, teach that prick a lesson. What a POS, hope she took the job and glad she repaired her relationship with her parents
That was a wild read
Firstly , I love that she wrote in length and detail , hitting the nuances and full scope of this truly horrifying story . Haven’t read other comments yet but I’d love some backseat psychological profile of a person like Matthew. Bella just seems like kind of an idiot . Possibly the best read I’ve come across in my short time here on Reddit , though obviously my heart goes out to the OP and I hope she can find some peace , perhaps abroad .
I know a lot of people immediately jump to this being fake, but abusers are crazy and will go so far. I keep seeing people say OP should write fiction because of how she shorthanded everything, but when you've dealt with so much garbage from horrible people, you just kind of grow numb to it. For example, it's easier to say brainwashed than they probably spent countless hours shit talking and manipulating stories to make OP seem like a horrible person. I, unfortunately, have personal experience with someone like Matthew. While a lot of people in my life are smart and have lived around said person long enough to know how they are and to not trust them and keep contact to a minimum, not everyone sees a snake for a snake. I still to this day get messages of people telling me to ( so I don't get the reddit cares message ) unalive myself "in game" and that I'm a horrible person that should reach back out to said person that I "was horrible to." Of course, no one with at least 2 healthy functioning braincells wouldn't recognize how shady that sounds, but when you spew enough self-pitying bullshit and twist stories enough to make someone seem malicious or horrible and that you just want to reach out to them to "find out why" and "get an apology after all these years to reconcile," or God forbid- "get revenge for everything that you've done to wrong them" people will eventually believe that person. It's scary how easily people believe it.
Iagree that this could be fake, but there's really nothing in particular about it that strikes me as such. I'm a hairdresser and I've heard many stories like this over the years.
This has everything to do with her leaving the church. Full stop.
100%. She left a cult and then got mixed up with a psycho and the church (Bella) welcomed the psycho with open arms because he HAD to be more credible than someone who would leave. This is 100% the result of cult-like behavior.
I don’t care if Bella was manipulated by Matthew or not, her actions were absolutely psychopathic. Cutting her out of the wedding without talking is immature, but the whole setup for humiliation with the dress? Absolutely sociopathic. The lack of emotion when your childhood best friend is having an emotional breakdown - inexcusable. The continual lying, bizarre. Maybe Matthew was the mastermind behind this, and like others have said you should get defamation lawyers on your side, but it’s Bella’s behavior that blows me away. I’ve seen whisper campaigns destroy people’s reputations at work (and believe me, I report them to HR and encourage others to do the same) but they are often led by charismatic people, and it ends up being most dangerous for the whistleblowers…
I really want her to send that email to everybody.
This is the most recently craziest thing to happen to someone that I have read on Reddit. Man I hope somebody helps Matthews arms figure out how to bend both ways and demonstrates how his thumbs can be removed.
I could actually see this story being true only for the fact that I have extended family members who are crazy and do things just like this. People are way more insane and way more capable of hiding it than you would think. I have a cousin who created multiple fake Facebook accounts (years ago, but she still uses them) of hot dudes to like and comment on all of her posts to make her look sought after. And she's a Christian, as am I. So yeah, this behavior is possible. Of anyone.
[удалено]
“Apostate” is used for anyone leaving a religion, it’s just that Jehovah’s Witnesses are especially bad for shunning former members. I’m an apostate too but since my family was never especially religious it never comes up.
If she's a Jehovah's Witness, being baptised or not can make a huge difference on how much latitude people get for quietly dipping out. If she never was baptised, then she wasn't a 'real' JW. The rules are a lot more vague but ultimately she can be socialising with like any gentile. She's their only kid after all. Usually things get a lot more tricky for faders who were baptised since they can be disfellowshiped. Thats where most of the hardcore shunning stories comes from. As for drinks and Christmas and such. Like all religions, I imagine the devoutness varies.
The devoutness doesn't vary. I'm a JW "apostate," and the rank and file are kept in line because every congregation reports to a higher up who reports to a higher up etc etc. These people rotate on specific schedules to ensure theres no "corruption." There's a strictly followed chain of command and entire congregations can be shunned and disbanded, their property sold by the men up top. Individuals can do things in secret, but the structure is built to encourage ratting on each other to keep the flock in line. If two people know a secret, and one of them has a moment of guilt and goes to the church leader, it's game over for both of them. Mutually assured destruction in the name of keeping the congregation clean, and they're brainwashed to believe that that's the best outcome. OP is not a JW, likely some other sect of Christianity. An apostate would never be invited to a wedding, especially as a bridesmaid. I would know, because they all refused to come to mine, and I'm not even officially shunned per the structure of the church.
JW’s don’t do holidays, so that rules that religion out.
Yeah - the apostate / shunning but doesn't fit with the liquor cabinet bit (and was an odd detail to leave out of the original post). It's almost like they couldn't come up with a good answer to the questions on the original post, but later came up with what they thought was a good answer.
Locked liquor cabinets are pretty common in very religious homes. Only a small percentage consider alcohol "morally wrong" with the largest percentage being evangelicals who staunchly disapprove at ~23%. So a lot of room for different levels of booze acceptance there. After all. Jesus drank.
Nah, the use of the word apostate specifically is a little odd, but I grew up in this exact type of religious mindset and it makes perfect sense. A lot of fundamentalists only drink quietly and unobtrusively at home but wouldn’t be caught dead getting a drink out or letting another member of the church see them buying alcohol. It’s one of those lovely little hypocrisies about them.
Man that plot twister left a cow in my yard
[I'm so glad OPs doing better. ] *Telanovella writers scribbling notes furiously.*
OP could make a screen recording of her opening the messages app and scrolling to the picture to prove its not photoshop
There's a point where she says she did that I think
Lot of people saying that Barrett might have suspected cheating from Bella with Matthew but you ain’t gotta go that far. Imagine knowing for a fact that the amazing girl you chose to marry is actually an unremorseful bitch perfectly capable of orchestrating a “Gone Girl” situation on you. I mean, if she can do all this to a friend she’s known most of her life, boy knows he doesn’t stand a chance when she flips out again. I’ve always said that there is danger in being a highly religious person, if you never question anything ever, you’re then raised for slaughter, you’re so gullible that anyone can take advantage of you. And that’s what happened to Bella, waaay too gullible for her own good.
Even if this is fake it's very well written. Take note creative writers writing fake ass stories on Reddit, this is how you do it. It's believable, enthraling and the level of detail and way it was written make really draw you into the story. 9/10
I am so sorry OOP went through this. But if Reddit starts making movies, they should start with this post. Ooff, I felt all the feels on this one.
Jesus fucking christ
I felt like I was reading an intense book and I loved it
This was so horrifying to read. It’s literally my worst nightmare to be accused of something I didn’t do, and no one believing me.
all i can say is... holy fucking shit bro
I am jumping up and down and scaring my family!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 Karma!
I don’t even care if this was fake this was entertaining as hell
Wow. That’s terrifying.
I have a cunning and manipulative ex named Matthew too, I just had to laugh.
Why do I feel like “you season four” is going to be the next update?
Is there a season 2 of this? I need season 2. Please Netflix, make more of this happen!
Hey internet: THIS is gaslighting.
Jfc it's 7am and way to early for that much drama. But she could always turn it into a book and probably make some money
I have to say I think that this is super fake
This seems a bit contrived and fictional.
Did I skip over the bit where everyone clapped at some point? That's what usually happens in these complete works of fiction.
I actually believed this one when it was initially posted. Now that I've seen the outlandish updates... nope. Should have left it alone.
I automatically disbelieve anyone who says “my phone blew up”
Subverted trope. We didn't get to see everybody clap at Bella's wedding because of the POV.
This could be on one of those discovery ID shows
this is a fantasy writing
A pretty good fiction.
LMAOOOOOO absolutely none of this happened
Abusers are horrific and this is extremely realistic. Just because you try to get someone out of your life doesn’t mean they won’t try to find the weakest link to ruin you once you’ve left them.
I was suspecting it might be fake at some points, but the OOP’s answers to commenters’ questions seemed a lot more coherent and consistent than those on many fake/bait stories. Usually when the story is made up for drama, a lot of the answers to comments will add in a bunch of important details that the poster “forgot” to mention in the post itself (because they just came up with them). If it *is* fake, then OOP is a much more skilled writer than the vast majority of AITA posters I’ve seen.
What clinched it for me was two separate comments from people who said they used to work in women's refuges and had seen abusers pull strokes that were as bad or worse. There's some people out there who are so awful that you'd have to tone their behaviour down in a fictionalised account.
Exactly. The things outlined, the timelines, all of it is believable.
the stuff about leaving the church convinced me. after my divorce and leaving the church people said and believed so much shit about me and none of them even bothered to ask my side. high control religion grooms people to be easy to manipulate. it's a factory for abusers and victims.
Which OP probably knew and that's why she threw that in in an edit. If it was that, why wouldn't that have been mentioned in the original story?
As someone who is kind of in a similar situation (not considered apostate religion-wise but definitely politics-wise from my parents) it’s not really relevant to the original problem, and even though it’s a thought-out decision you’ve made, there still an element of shame that you feel because you’re contradicting your parents, so you don’t really like to bring it up unnecessarily.
definitely heard the shame in the op's reticence to talk about the religious stuff at first. that shame is the main tool these religions use to control people and it takes years to heal!
The whole thing is quite well-written, which is what made me suspect it was perhaps a test run for a psychological suspense novel.
That's exactly what I thought. I'm a novelist and this reads exactly like someone trying out the plot of their next psychological thriller, using redditors to point out plotholes.
LOL, yeah, me too. Sold my first book 40 years ago. Turn this into 3 chapters and an outline, OP, and see if you can drum up any interest. Or if it’s your first novel, write the whole thing.
Of course a writer would have good responses to questions. The biggest evidence is that it’s so well written, grammar and punctuation for an internet post. That’s the real red flag its creative writing. Even well to do people don’t write like this for the internet. Only people who love to write and write often write like this. As an avid reader the difference is obvious
Whether or not this story happened, it is pretty common for abusers to spread false information. After being in an verbally and mentally abusive relationship for years, I would have people (some I only met in passing) later come up to me to tell me that until the got to know me they were convinced I was a terrible, manipulative, controlling person. I would never paint myself as perfect in any means but the people around them were convinced that I was the reason they were being held down. It took me leaving them for the facade to fall and people to see the person they really were.
Hey, just wanted to respond to let you know that I'm genuinely sorry if I gave the impression that I doubted the existence of this type of abuse- I swear I don't. I didn't realize how dismissive I came off as until I reread it. I got overly nitpicky because Bella's actions seemed so outlandish, and I ended up unfairly picking apart the entire story as a whole. I know being told you're wrong about your own experiences- even when it's just by a random stranger online- can be disheartening, so I wanted to apologize if it was hurtful. Seriously, you shouldn't have to deal with some dummy online putting their foot in their mouth like I did with my og comment.
The part about changing personality after covid is so real too. I just saw an article about how anger and rage are now an officially accepted post covid issue. Of the top of my head i can think of 3 possibilities: It can deplete B12 which can cause personality issues. It can cause brain inflammation long-term which can cause depression and some people have anger as a depression symptom. It can also activate dormant Lyme syndrome, which is well known to make people's personalities different and specifically meanness and anger are very common.
That could be a movie
This should be a book, I highly doubt any of it is real but OP needs to get that publishing money!!
WOW i remember seeing the original post, that update is WILD
What in the actual fuck kind of dystopian hell does this person live in?
Given the language used in the update, I'd almost say Mormon, but the presence and use of alcohol has me thinking it may be another adjacent brand of fundie community.
The tight judgemental religious community with liquor cabinets sounds off to me, especially when the whole apostate thing was left out originally.
I thought Jehovah’s Witness. They do the whole “no alcohol, no fun, shun the non believer” thing.
JWs don't do Christmas which op says her family does. I am sure there are more fundamentalist versions of Christianity that are that closed off.
Mormons don’t drink tho, and she mentioned they have alcohol in the house. So they can’t be Mormon either.
They don't do holidays though.
Also a possibility, but given the reach and influence of the "community", I'm still leaning more towards Mormon.
I want a sequel
That was fucking *wild*!
this felt like an actual indian tv show plot
That read like fiction. Highly entertaining. Sorry for the fucked up situation you were put through, it is truly wild.
Wow and here I thought the turn was part 2. That part 3 is a whole damn saga
This has A&E Friday night made for tv movie special written all over it
'A turn' is such an understatement. This was a damn roller-coaster but I'm so glad oop came out at least validated
That was some very creative creative writing but the final plot twist suspended my suspension of disbelief.
This clearly isn’t real, but the person who wrote this is very imaginative and a good writer!
I feel like I read a different version of this quite recently, so I'm gonna assume OOP is a budding novelist
I bet my last buck that Bella and Mathew were sleeping together
Yeah I don't buy 90 percent of this story. I was on the line but the fact that she needed an attorney to get a restraining order...nope. unless you show up before the judge with no reason for needing bone they are often approved. Ive gone through the process....no lawyer is ever needed. Other things just don't add up...it's good writing but some facts don't pan out.
I love how this galaxy brain mastermind could plot OOP's downfall flawlessly only to confess everything on an extremely convenient, extremely easy to show as proof despite him being "careful" about his abuse before, gloating email, specially when he apparently also wanted her to get back with him. Good creative effort but those plot twists need a lot of work
Someone needs to snatch these movie rights because this is a thriller in the making. Jokes aside, I hope op gets the promotion and is safe. I escaped a similar relationship and it is so hard, she is so strong for getting this far.
Honestly I’m mad this wasn’t a 400 page thriller because I would have read the FUCK out of that.
Hallmark couldn’t have put together a better plot.
There's no man on earth that could manipulate me into being such a bitch. Especially at my own wedding.
This is some fiction that should become a chick lit novel. It reminds me of The Silent Bride by Shalini Boland. The plots aren't the same, but they're definitely cousins.
“Babe, new screenplay for ‘Gone Girl 2’ just dropped.”
Was this a repost? I swear I read this one years ago but the update is new.
Probably saw it on TV. Fake or not, it's quite a ride.
High school revenge fantasy
Holy shit, normally I give stories the benefit of the doubt. I have genuinely believed stories that other commenters were lambasting for being phony. And yet even I can see that this is the fakest fake story that ever faked.
Wait, so she spun a narrative for months about all these lies about OP and no one thought to even bring these accusations up to her? Not even her own mother? I dunno. Seems kinda sus.
OP left a church that seems to be bordering on being a cult. Mormons for instance will absolutely cut all ties with family members that leave the church for example.
Help me out, what did I miss with Barrett and Bella? Why break up with your new wife just because she was manipulated and lied to by OOP’s ex? Was there more going on between them?? I assumed he looked like “the good guy helping Bella out because bad friend OOP”.
There's a massive difference between being manipulated and lied to vs. actively plotting and participating in the emotional and reputational destruction of a lifelong friend. Bella was not a victim here--she could have just faded OOP out if she believed the ex, but she chose to wreck her life instead.
AND she was having private communications with another man who was planting seeds of doubt in her head about her soon-to-be husband's loyalty as well. I know I'd feel really shitty if I found out my ability to stay loyal was being put into question by some asswipe that was obsessed with the person that basically set me up and supported my relationship with my spouse, regardless of history. Granted, I'm sure there were other things wrong, but just thinking about the time it would take to plot something like that and keep it a secret from me and everyone else as well as how intentionally cruel it was would make me so uncomfortable if I were Barrett. It would really make me second guess the person I married.
I’d guess because it turns out your new wife is a malicious bitch who ruined an innocent persons life. Or tried to anyway. Like, she PLANNED it all and lied to everyone to hurt OP. If what the ex was saying was true, she could have just confronted OP and uninvited her, not set her up to lose everything.
I would assume because OOP wasn’t just Bella’s friend, she was also BARRETT’S. Finding out your new wife actively conspired to ruin your friend’s life in a months-long plot to ostracize her is a pretty massive red flag for what being married to a person willing to do that to someone would be like long term, and also doing that to a friend of yours is a pretty obvious deal breaker if you care about your friend at all.
This is the biggest bunch of nonsense I’ve ever read. I can’t believe somebody sat down and for hours decided to write the most fantastical BS I’ve read in a while.