O Karma, where for art thou?
February 1, 2010 9:15 PM   Subscribe

Could anyone suggest ways to stop obsessing over an old enemy? This person can spin your own words on you so fast she will almost make you believe you're lying when you know you're not! (very long, sorry)

I cut all contact with this person about ten years ago because she stabbed me in the back. Long story short, I made a big mistake by sleeping with my best friend's ex boyfriend after they broke up. (she broke up with him for what it's worth) We were both drunk and I regretted it immediately. Meanwhile, Angie finds out about this because I thought she was my friend. I told my best friend about the incident and she didn't speak to me for almost two years. Meanwhile, I'm crying on Angie's shoulder about this and she's listening. Fast forward a few years and best friend contacts me. I learn that while Angie is being my "shoulder to cry on", she is trashing me to best friend and going back to me and telling me what my angry friend was saying about me. Fast forward not even a year later and lo and behold, guess who Angie hooks up with and later has a kid with? The ex boyfriend!! Yes. That's when I quit talking to her. From what I hear, she's putting him and his family through hell.
She's the kind of person that will play the victim when she gets called out on her b.s. and make YOU look like the bad guy. She has done and is doing this to people to this day and people still like her! I know it's not my business and I shouldn't care but I do. Karma seems to not exist for people like her. I want to not care but short of burning her in effigy I don't know what to do to stop thinking about her and hoping she gets what she deserves!
posted by iabide79 to Human Relations (23 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Weirdly, I find that being friends with such old enemies on Facebook has de-fanged them. Their mythologies are not so fearsome, now that I'm an actual adult.

The way you talk about your friends is oddly distant. How often do you speak?
posted by purpleclover at 9:22 PM on February 1, 2010


That's when I quit talking to her

Good, that was step one.

Step two: LET IT GO. You've presumably moved on with your life and made new friends. If you haven't it's time to. If you have, and you still can't LET IT GO, you need a therapist to tell you to LET IT GO.

I don't mean to be too snarky, but it seems like you've got a lot of issues here that may not have everything to do with this 'evil' person
posted by Think_Long at 9:24 PM on February 1, 2010 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I would suggest that your write her a letter, perhaps several, that you do not intend to send. Say anything and everything that you want to say. Then burn each one (BBQ or Fireplace - but do be careful both of the fire and to crush the ashes after you burn them because you can still read burnt paper.

Getting it out on paper helps free your mind of it and burning is a way to really let it go.

As for Karma... people get what they deserve but not always in our lifetime.
posted by DovieSeals at 9:24 PM on February 1, 2010


Karma is a bitch and will eventually catch up with her. Sometimes it takes a long time. What I would be concerned about at this point is the child who is the product of this person. I hope that child finds a nurturing and loving home. WIth his/her father?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:36 PM on February 1, 2010


Response by poster: :( The child situation is out of control. She's an awful mother. Drugs/legal issues/ect so on and so forth. Hopefully the father will win in court.
posted by iabide79 at 9:44 PM on February 1, 2010


I don't get it. This situation is years in the past, and you don't have contact with her. It sounds like she isn't trying to reenter into her life. It also sounds like she has plenty of trouble in her own life without someone wishing her evil. Continue to keep her out of her life, and stop thinking about her. Focus on yourself. If you have to think about her, try to imagine instead the reasons that might have caused her to act in such a way - show her compassion, in short. It's not doing you any good to nurse a grudge, especially one this long in the past. Drop it and move on.
posted by ajarbaday at 9:56 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Seconding Think_Long. I think that AskMe recommends therapy too often, but if you still feel this angry after ten years, this is likely more about you than her. Good luck!
posted by ripley_ at 9:57 PM on February 1, 2010


Response by poster: Ehh, there was a fairly recent interaction with her. It wasn't positive to say the least. It's not so much what she did to ME that bothers me to the point of insanity, it's the playing the victim crap that she pulls with others that kills me. All I was asking for was suggestions as to how to let this go other than therapy. Can't afford it at this time, even though I'm long overdue. :)
posted by iabide79 at 10:05 PM on February 1, 2010


Response by poster: I also forgot to add that we live in a small town and have mutual friends. oops.
posted by iabide79 at 10:07 PM on February 1, 2010


Best answer: Small towns can be a regular Peyton Place, can't they?

She's probably always going to be like that, so best to avoid her and any known hangouts. You can't control what she does with others, and if she is indeed not a good mom, she'll learn the hard way not to do that stuff. Or she won't and her kid will get taken away.

It's not your job to protect other adults against this woman, and once you found out she was doing you wrong, you cut her off. Keep at it. The letter writing thing can be good and if she's still on your mind after that, well, get busy. Go walking, clean, whatever. It's really hard to focus on other people when you keep busy yourself.

If you see her again, quick hello and exit. You can mumble names under your breath afterward.

My solution to similar small-town woes was to move as far away as possible, fwiw.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 11:03 PM on February 1, 2010


Best answer: In a world absolutely crawling with truly evil bastards, you pick this penny-ante loser's petty betrayals to obsess over?

Get a sense of proportion.
posted by flabdablet at 11:29 PM on February 1, 2010 [16 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you for that perspective, flabdablet.
posted by iabide79 at 11:41 PM on February 1, 2010


Maybe some people only pretend to like her because when you encounter the truly crazy, sometimes it's easiest to smile and nod & thereby escape unscathed from the situation, rather than let them know what you really think of their behavior.
posted by citron at 11:58 PM on February 1, 2010


Best answer: The moment you start to resent a person, you become his slave. He controls your dreams, absorbs your digestion, robs you of your peace of mind and goodwill, and takes away the pleasure of your work. You cannot take a vacation without his going along. He destroys your freedom of mind and hounds you wherever you go. There is no way to escape the person you resent. He is with you when you are awake. He invades your privacy when you sleep. He is close beside you when you drive your car and when you are on the job. You can never have efficiency or happiness. He influences even the tone of your voice. He requires you to take medicine for indigestion, headaches, and loss of energy. He even steals your last moment of consciousness before you go to sleep. So, if you want to be a slave, go ahead and harbor your resentment.AA Big Book

People who wrong you are perhaps a mixed up mess with their own very serious problems. Though you do not like their symptoms and the way they distribute them to you, try to understand their imperfections, and if at all possible forgive them for being that way. Realize that they, like yourself are far, far from perfect and likely to remain so. When you can forgive them for being just human, you can begin more healthy communication that may lead to mutual resolution.
posted by netbros at 12:25 AM on February 2, 2010 [8 favorites]


Best answer: Sometimes, when I find myself really stuck in my feelings of resentment and/or rage towards someone, I ask myself: what is it about myself that I don't have to face as long as I keep focusing on this person? What is it I can hate about him/her so I don't have to see it in myself? What is the unpleasant truth about me or my life this anger is camouflaging?

The shortcomings, weaknesses, failures, guilt, etc. that sometimes surface like this can be a bitch to admit to myself, but there's a certain relief, a feeling of release the moment I finally gain the insight. And then I'm free to start working on the real task of becoming a better, kinder, more mature person.

As to the question of karma: I was wronged once in a professional context, and in a way that had very longstanding consequences for me. And the person who did that continued to have a successful career after the ruins of mine had long ago stopped even smoldering. Hoo boy, the unfairness! It was was maddening.

Until I asked myself: if I could choose, who would I rather be in this situation? The wronged one or the one who does horribly wrong? And like that, instantly, instinctively, with a flash of genuine pity, I realized what a punishment doing a bad thing already is in itself. I would not want to be a person who does that; just the thought of having to live my life with that weighing on my conscience, knowing I'm that kind of person, makes me feel queasy. Talk about instant karma.

(BTW, the way you described the situation your ex-friend is in - drugs, custody dispute - it seems to me regular karma already got her good, too.)
posted by sively at 1:37 AM on February 2, 2010 [12 favorites]


Best answer: It helps me to think, "What answer could this person give me that would make me satisfied?" (to the question, "Why did you do this to me?")

The answer is usually, "None." Either they acted that way because they have a serious problem with you (unlikely here), in which case knowing about it will just hurt you and make you unhappy, and presumably you have other friends so you know you're not THAT bad a person. OR they acted that way because THEY have a serious problem (obvious here), in which case it has nothing to do with you. (Or, sometimes the third option, because you did something rotten to them once and they've been passive-aggressively overreacting ever since instead of confronting you like a grown-up, in which case I also think you have the right to let it go.)

This helps me to let it go, when I realize that no possibly answer to "why" will satisfy me or make me happy. I still may occasionally feel sad about a lost friendship or annoyed about a past wrong or even upset about a current piece of crazy (like this lady and the kid, I'd think), but it's a passing emotion, no different than my reaction to anyone else, and it helps me stop letting that person live rent-free in my head. It also helps me to stop engaging if I run into them in the future -- since it seems like she still wants to engage!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:03 AM on February 2, 2010


Best answer: I recently heard a wonderful quote: "Holding a grudge is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." Really, you are only hurting yourself by wasting any energy on this person.
posted by dawnoftheread at 8:44 AM on February 2, 2010 [5 favorites]


Best answer: This post reminds me very much of my former frenemy, coworker, hate-crush.

Netbros quote from the AA Big Book is just perfect. She has power of you -- every time you listen up to gossip about what she's up to, think about the misfortune she deserves, imagine arguments and confrontations in your head she is making you her slave and stealing your energy away from things that actually deserve it.

What was REALLY REALLY REALLY hard for me to accept is that some people are different from me at their very core -- they might be totally crazy or irrational, they don't understand that they are not victims, that they are not nice, and that they might be the cause of their own problems (and the problems of others). It drove me crazy trying to understand how someone's values could be SO different from mine or what I consider normal, how someone's perception of the world and their place in it could be so different from mine, and how what was so obviously rational to me did not seem to enter their minds.

The only solution is to acknowledge that you will never understand her, appreciate that you will never be her, and ignore her. REALLY ignore her. Do not listen to gossip about her, do not go places she might be, don't ask questions about her, just pretend she does not exist.
posted by tastybrains at 11:49 AM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]


Remind yourself that it's better to know her than to be her.
posted by y6t5r4e3w2q1 at 1:05 PM on February 2, 2010


Response by poster: Thank you very much tastybrains.
posted by iabide79 at 1:24 PM on February 2, 2010


Thank you for that perspective, flabdablet.

You're welcome. And here's a little song to help you keep it:

One of these things is not like the other ones, one of these things does not belong...
posted by flabdablet at 6:03 PM on February 2, 2010


Response by poster: flabdablet..I never compared her to the likes of Pol Pot and Hitler and the like but thanks anyway.
posted by iabide79 at 6:29 PM on February 2, 2010


I'd guessed as much.

My point is that your irritating ex-friend is not comparable to the likes of Hitler and Pol Pot (hint: she's the one who's not like the other ones) and that you might consider thanking your lucky stars that you ended up as one of her targets instead of one of theirs.

Thinking that way is one of the things that let me finally get over being humiliatingly beaten up by the tough Italian kid in high school. A sense of proportion really does help.
posted by flabdablet at 10:57 PM on February 2, 2010


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