'AITA for telling my friend she 'had it coming' when her husband left her?' UPDATED

"AITA for telling my friend she 'had it coming' when her husband left her?"

About a year ago my husband made a friend a work, Jane, who is honestly the worst. I don't have the word count needed to explain why, but ask if you want/need to know.

I met her at a work event his company had and she introduced herself by hugging my husband's arm and saying "it's so nice to finally meet his home wife, I'm his work wife".

My husband had enough sense to push her away and announce she was in no way his wife but after that she essentially blamed me for "wrecking" her friendship with him.

Apparently they used to have lunch (sometimes with colleagues, sometimes alone) and got drinks after work sometimes (with colleagues) but he stopped after that. I never had to ask him to. I told him he could hang out with her if he wanted but he said he could tell it would cause problems and it wasn't worth it.

Jane started telling people I was controlling, jealous, and often bullied her when we were alone. I've never been alone with her. Recently she met one of my friends, Kate, and Kate decided she was the nicest girl ever.

I warned Kate that Jane had a pick me vibe but Kate started yelling that she never wanted to believe what Jane said about me but since I immediately bad mouthed her, everything else must be true too.

This shocked me but I didn't fight because maybe it was true? Maybe I was just jealous and scared and my dislike was just a reaction. My husband said it wasn't and he thought I had a right to dislike her.

A couple weeks ago it got out that Jane and Kate's husband were having an affair. Kate had introduced them, despite my husband saying that she probably shouldn't. Kate blamed this on him always defending me.

When Kate demanded her husband end it with Jane, he ended it with Kate instead, kicked her out of the house, and moved Jane in. Jane apparently told Kate she could use her apartment until the lease is up because they're friends.

She's a housewife, her money is her husband's and he cut her off, so I got her a hotel for the week while she disputes that. I've woken up everyday to calls and texts from Kate crying about the whole thing. She kept saying she never could've guessed Jane would do this. I told her, I showed her messages Jane had sent me, and Kate had just cut me off.

Yesterday I'd finally had enough, partially because Kate had practically ghosted me when I warned her about Jane, and started agreeing that I was being petty. Normally I'd always support Kate no matter what but I felt betrayed too and now she's back because Jane's a jerk? So I might be the AH here cause I asked her to stop talking about it for 10 minutes so I could breathe.

To talk about anything else to distract herself. She got mad. I said I understood it was bad but it also didn't feel fair to me because I warned her, she made her own choices, and honestly had it coming for ignoring obvious red flags.

Now many of our friends are saying that was too harsh and unsupportive but why should I sugar coat common sense? So AITA?

EDIT: The "work wife" is not when I stopped liking Jane. This moment was a test of my husband's character, not hers. She should like my husband. Everyone should. He's a 12/10.

He's not only beautiful and kind but he's weirdly fascinating. He looks like Chris Hemsworth, Zac Efron, and Ryan Reynolds had a beautiful angel baby who somehow has the personality of an intellectual Patrick the Star (Spongebob). This is a weird description but it makes so much sense when you meet him.

His face and personality are so contradictory that if you talked to him online, you'd think you were being catfished. Last night at dinner he spent 1.5 hours discussing his favourite type of rock. He's not a geologists. He doesn't have a rock collection. This is not a normal part of our conversations.

I said "hey baby, how was your day?" And he said "fine, you know what my favourite type of rock is?" And that was dinner, and yet somehow I was enthralled the whole time.

He is so hardworking, he's so smart, and so dedicated he'll succeed in any job he does. Everyone loves him as they should. I'd honestly rant about him for hours, he's my favourite type of rock.

But onto the main point, this man does not have social cues (that might explain the rocks idk). If she had not said the actual words "work wife" there's no chance he would've caught on.

I'm saying this because her games were so obvious that even my beautifully ignorant husband was able to catch on. I started disliking her because of her actions, her words, and the way she talked about people and things. It was always very nasty. Kate's personality has changed drastically since spending time with her.

I found out about their friendship after it had already started a while before. Kate brought Jane to book club my friends host. Kate met Jane at our palates studio. Jane told me my husband told her she should go there because I do, but after reading some of your comments I think I'll actually ask him about that.

I never saw Jane at palates but I might not have noticed her. I switched to the 6am class after getting a new job, Jane stayed in the 8am class because she didn't want to wake up at 5am (fair).

This is important: Kate and her husband have different stories about what's happening. Kate says she caught them having an affair. She demanded her husband end the affair, he said no. And said that if she didn't allow it, she needed to leave because he wanted Jane to move in.

Kate refused so he told her to leave. Jane offered her apartment but Kate refused. Her husband has cut off all her cards and access to the bank because she refused. Her husband says Jane is having a hard time right now due to relationship issues and wanted to stay with friends.

He agreed to let her stay with them but Kate got jealous, accused then of having an affair, and decided to leave on her own because he refused to kick Jane out during her hard time.

Jane felt bad and offered to let Kate stay at her apartment until Jane feels better. Kate refused because she's entitled and is now just demanding money because she's an angry gold digger. Both stories sound fun. Neither actually have anything to do with me.

Yes, has hired a lawyer, but since she refuses to divorce him (she thinks they'll work it out) and she refuses to sue or press charges (that might damage their chances of getting back together), her lawyer has very few options to actually help her. Her husband is also a lawyer but I think he does corporate law. Still, he knows what he needs to say and do to lose as little as possible if he chooses to divorce.

Also, for the people saying my husband should report to HR. I won't say you're wrong, but I can't imagine my husband will. He doesn't want to be a part of the drama, that's part of the reason we got her a hotel rather than letting her stay in our spare bedroom.

In hindsight I'm kind of glad because I would've said yes and I know she's going through a hard time but it's so much negativity that even my workplace has started to notice something is bothering me. Also some of the comments are making me question the friendship entirely. I can try to update if anything happens but I can't imagine much will.

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:

Spirited-Ad6144

NTA. You warned her and she practically ended your friendship because of this. Now she wants to be your friend again because the thing that you warned her against happened. While it was kinda rude, you were right.

slitteral1

Sometimes the truth hurts and people just have to hear it bluntly.

SteampunkHarley

Damn, Jane wanted someone's husband and it didn't matter whose. NTA.

SundressSeductive

You warned Kate about Jane and tried to help her see the red flags. It's not your fault if she chose to ignore your advice and now has to deal with the consequences. It's natural to feel frustrated when someone dismisses your concerns and then comes back expecting your full support.

Similar-Traffic7317

NTA. You warned Kate about Jane. She didn't listen and now Jane has replaced her in her own marriage. If it was me, I would go no contact with Kate. Block block block.

Nobody_Asked_M3

NTA. Big respect to your husband for cutting her out as soon as a red flag like that popped up. He definitely respects you and the marriage.

Later OP left this update in the comments:

Skip ahead to skip the info dump but I'll give you all the information I have

I first want to clarify that I don't think any of this is that dramatic or meaningful. To Kate obviously it's different but as some of you mentioned in the comments, it's not my circus, not my monkeys. I am extremely emotionally detached and honestly I don't think that makes me a bad guy because I have my own life and problems, I don't need theirs.

I also want to add that none of my friends are "mad" at me. If my husband can tell that Jane shows problematic behaviours, everyone can. There were nothing but warning signs that she found pure join in wrecking people's lives, she's very open about it. It makes her feel important and powerful. She's not an evil mastermind, she's not very cunning, she's EXTREMELY obvious.

This is part of the reason I said what I said and haven't "blamed" her husband. They made their own mess. They played stupid games and are going to win stupid prizes. Also, I never said "I told you so" or rubbed it in her face, I asked her to stop for 10 minutes and when she refused I explained why I needed her to stop.

My friends just thought it was too harsh (we spoke calmly, there has been no yelling or anger from us... Kate, Jane, and their husband maybe, but I'm not involved in that).

Other than financially and emotionally supporting Kate for the meantime, I'm not involved and actually want to be less involved in their drama which is why I asked her to stop. We have a psychologist friend, go rant to her I think she needs the practice anyway (more on that shortly)

My main question was whether I was indeed wrong for what I said and I think I have enough to build a good enough idea, thank you for that!

As I've said I few times in the comments, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not sitting in on lawyer meetings or home discussions. I only know what I'm told and I mostly hear Kate's side (against my will at this point)

Now onto the UPDATE: To start, I asked and my husband doesn't know if she's done anything inappropriate to him at the office but they've already been investigating it. I asked about why he told Jane about my pilates class last year. He said that she'd asked him if she went to the gym.

He said he did and she said she wanted to join a gym to work on flexibility and asked what gym he goes to. Instead he told her my pilates class because my studio has yoga. He told her I was in the 8am class which she apparently joined.

This makes me a little uncomfortable after reading some of the comments because now all I picture is her somewhere in the back of the class watching me. I hope that's just my imagination. I guess after I stopped going at 8am, she approached Kate.

My husband also told me last night that HR at his company has essentially washed their hands of Jane. Idk if this is popular in every country, but here we have a section of the government that directly regulates and oversees all companies and businesses to ensure safety and fairness, possibly more than that too, idk.

Pretty much if you feel a company is disregarding your safety as an employee or is allowing mistreatment, and the HR and executives at the company won't help, you can go over their heads to the government who will step in and help. They can force a company to be held liable for any unlawful actions towards employees.

Most people never use this organization because companies do fear them and will actively avoid letting them get involved in investigating the company.

Apparently, a few months ago Jane mentioned to another female employee that she was going to "get" my husband one day, even if she had to "sprinkle sprinkle on his drink". She apparently didn't clarify what that meant but I think we can all assume. The employee reacted improperly (by which I mean the way we all probably would've wanted to but in a work setting it's a no).

Jane decided to go directly over the company's head and straight to the government claiming workplace harassment, bullying, and assault. The biggest issue is that the employee who did it is one of the executives nieces, so Jane's claiming it's been an ongoing issue and nepotism is the reason for lack of action.

She even sent an email after making the claim saying something like "as per our previous discussions, the mistreatment by your niece has reached a new level. I've decided I need a paper trail so I'm sending this email...." to which the company immediately said wtf?

But now the company is being thoroughly investigated by the government and the company can't fire her during this period. They are apparently gathering evidence everyday to fire, and possibly sue if word of the investigation gets out, as soon as the investigation is over.

You might be thinking thank god, but I honestly don't think it will do much. She has a sugar daddy now and I imagine that now that she's entered a new society class, she's going to start climbing.

I can't imagine there will be much more of an update than this, but I can say that while Jane is not an evil mastermind, I do think Kate's husband is. So if you're hoping for some kind of karma, it will likely come to her the second she's an inconvenience to him.

Considering she's apparently also going around telling some people "I didn't know he was married, we're in love...." while he's trying to set up a narrative of his own, this may happen sooner rather than later. Then again, it would only really matter if Kate takes any action against him which I don't think she will.

Kate's husband doesn't like mine because he thinks he's annoying. My husband doesn't like Kate's because when they first met, Kate's husband kept bragging about screwing over a family in a development deal that was taken to court. That's not how he worded it but that's what he did.

My husband's company and Kate's husband's firm are in no way connected. They know each other through us, and aren't close. My husband did go with the boyfriend's of a couple of my friends to get some of Kate's belongings from her house which is how I know her husband has a different story.

If you want an update on Kate, our friends all got together this morning for breakfast and I apologized to her. She snubbed me a little but we all ignored it and she didn't say much.

After, my aforementioned "psychologist" friend (she's not, she's in school to become a child psychologist) told me that she thinks Kate has an inferiority complex, delusions of grandeur, and a hero/savior complex but she said that her insecurities don't allow her to live out her imagined heroism by actually helping people.

So when she was finally given a victim (Jane) who validated her fantasies and gave her a villain (me) who Kate felt safe to attack (because she didn't view me as a real threat and assumed I wouldn't fight back in any way), she was finally given the chance to live out her delusions.

During this time, due to no one wanting to be around Jane, Kate was also isolated from her regular support system (because she can't let her victim face the world alone) which gave Jane a chance to affect Kate's perceptions which was easy because of Kate's self-doubt and insecurities.

And that's also why when she was betrayed by the person she'd been "saving" rather than accepting that she was delusional, she switched and made her husband a victim of Jane who she now has to save from Jane. The issue is that she views Jane as a real threat which she can't actually challenge because she's scared of losing and what that will do to her "heroism".

So she's been obsessively pushing for us to do the saving for her to reset her delusions. Apparently me telling her she had it coming not only damaged her self-declared heroism but most likely also damaged the idea that I'd never fight back and be a safe opponent which could have made her feel even more unstable.

To be clear, my wannabe-child psychologist friend didn't say she felt like she didn't have a stable support system, but that I challenged her strength as a hero and made her question her own power over others.

I will not be sending her to a real psychologist because I don't want to pay for it but I've decided to call her parents and tell them what's going on. They can fix their child.

After reading some of your comments about the kind of friend Kate is I am also going to pass financial support to her parents to take care of. I don't want to cut her off for good 1. Because we've been friends since middle/high school and 10 years is a lot. It hurts to think it will end and 2. Because I feel like, based on what my other friend said, maybe I could've prevented it by being closer to Kate.

But my wannabe psychiatrist friend said something like "If your friend jumps out of a plane without a parachute, you don't jump with them. Neither of you have a parachute, you can't save them, you'll both just hit the ground" which I think I butchered but how she said it sounded smart.

I think she meant that Kate obviously did something stupid and irresponsible getting close to Jane despite obvious danger, and if I'd followed her, even if it was to help, I'd just be part of the drama now. And honestly that does make me feel better but I do feel bad.

Hopefully her parents are able to help her. I won't make our friends choose between me and her either, I'll just keep my distance like she did all year with Jane.

I can try to update if anything more happens but I'm borrowing this account to post and I might get kicked out before then so I'll try to figure out how a throwaway works if there's an update and I don't have access.

Thank you again for you help and advice. Also to answer the most important question asked: his favourite rock is metamorphic, specifically the gneiss rock. But he needs to do more research to be 100% sure

In response to a comment OP added more:

Delicious-Mix-9180 said:

NTA but she’s not a “pick me”. She’s one of those girls that will move on a girlfriend’s husband just to have him.

Exciting_Stable_3113 OP:

I wasn't able to fully describe her in this, but she definitely gives off a pick me vibe. I think at lest, I could be wrong idk.

Kate was the only girl friend she was willing to have. She often said girls are too challenging to befriend because they love drama too much.

She bashed all of our interests and would mock us for being so basic. I definitely think she gets a sense of power being "better" or superior to other girls, which is I think why she's going for people's husband's and boyfriends so often.

She often brags about being the only girl in my husband's office who isn't a secretary or assistant. (3/4 of my husband's direct supervisors are women but he says she doesn't respect them because the man is clearly the real boss and they must've flirted or threatened their way into their positions).

She says women aren't cut out for male dominated fields (they work in business. They provide business and marketing advice to smaller companies)

She says she likes Kate because she's not like the other girls who are so possessive and obsessed with their men. And she has hobbies outside of shopping and nails and make up. (So do most girls but whatever....) But yeah, I do think you're right about that.