Friendship and Betrayal

In this episode, I’m opening up about a new layer of my divorce journey—the impact of friends and family. Divorce has a way of revealing people’s true colors, and in my case, it was a harsh realization. I talk about navigating friendships that turned toxic, watching so-called friends play “neutral” while adding fuel to the fire, and even witnessing inappropriate boundaries between friends and my family. This episode is all about recognizing and letting go of relationships that don’t serve you, and embracing the few true connections that remain. Life after divorce is a journey, but sometimes removing the weight of toxic relationships is the first step to moving forward.

Episode Highlights:
[00:01] - Opening up about friends and family dynamics in my divorce.
[02:45] - The “fun friend” with no boundaries and her impact on my life.
[07:00] - Discovering how my friend was undermining my role as a mother.
[11:10] - Handling the “neutral” friends and realizing their role in the drama.
[15:35] - Reflecting on friends who turn away and the awkwardness of social encounters.
[16:50] - Lessons on friendship: recognizing the “fake” from the real.

Links & Resources:
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Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:01

Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. So I ask you, how did the involvement of friends and family affect you during your divorce. I wanted to bring up a friend that I mentioned in an earlier episode. This is a friend who our daughters were close when they were three years old, and they pretty much grew up together. These are friends that we vacationed with, that we went out to dinners with, that we spent a lot of time with. I always knew that she had a long list of people who didn't care for her. Let's put it that way. And at one point, I asked one of our other friends in common, what is it about her? Why do people like her? And she said to me, she's fun. So that kind of put it in perspective for me, in terms of what I wanted my friendship to be with her. I enjoyed the time that I had with her because she was fun, but I was very well aware that she had no boundaries. She would come to my house and move things around because she thought it would get a rise out of me. I liked having things in order, in place, organized, whatever. And she got a kick out of coming to my house and moving things around right before COVID happened. She came over my house and there was talk about this. She knew that I was a germaphobe, and because of something that she knew I didn't like, she came into my house, came over to me in the kitchen and licked my face. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about that, but that was how she pushed the envelope with me. She would do things that she knew I didn't like that. She wanted to get a rise out of me. She wanted to see my reaction, and she thought it was funny. Well, COVID hit, and now we're all in lockdown, and it turned out that her husband was the first person that we all knew who who got COVID, and he was very, very sick, and she quarantined him from the rest of the house, so she and her two daughters were okay for the time being, being that I knew how sick he was, I offered to make him matzo ball soup, and I wound up walking it over to their house. It was, I don't know, like a 25 minute walk with my daughter. I mean, we had nothing else to do. We were home and in lockdown, so we couldn't really go anywhere. But we dropped off the soup to him, and apparently he loved it so much and said he would never be able to have any other kind of soup. And so I made him more and you know, like that was who I was. That was the kind of person I was. Once the divorce was underway, and my friend decided that she was going to be Switzerland and be neutral, and she would be friends with both of us. And knowing what I knew about her, just in terms of, you know, the gossip factor for her, she was one of those people that decided she was going to be in the middle of it, I immediately knew that if she was going to be talking to him about the divorce, I would not be talking to her about the divorce. And it became very apparent to me very early on that she was in it for the drama. She was in it for the gossip, whatever she thought he was telling her the truth about. I'll never know, but you know, I had told her, leading up to the divorce why I wanted to divorce him. She knew what the issues were, but she still bought whatever he sold her, and that's fine, whatever that was her choice. So it became very clear that it wasn't just that she wanted to be in the know and in the middle of all the drama, she actually partnered with him to undermine me as my daughter's mother, and she would get in the way of things that my ex husband and I should have dealt with as her parents, but this friend would go behind my back and do things with my daughter and for my daughter without my knowledge or consent. Before my daughter went to camp last year, she took my daughter to get her third year piercing, again without my knowledge or consent. I believe she signed the consent to be my daughter's Guardian at the piercing place. I don't know that my ex husband went. I don't think he did. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't be surprising to me to know. That the friend vouch for my daughter, which always just blew me away. In fact, they took my daughter with them on vacation this past February break, my ex husband was not going with them, so before I was giving my consent for her to go, I wanted to make sure that they were all going to be on the same flight together, preferably sitting together, but I'm made out to be the bad guy, and, you know, the buzz kill of the whole thing, because nobody else seems to care about her safety. So once they sent me proof that they would all be on the same flight. I mean, my daughter has never flown alone. She is not the kind of person who can get herself out of sticky situations. If presented with one, she kind of freezes, and I don't know that she would know what to do if she were alone on a flight and something happened. So anyway, when she came back from her trip, I was sitting in the living room, and my ex husband and my daughter were sitting in the kitchen, and my daughter was explaining to him about something that happened on their trip, where the friend actually my daughter said, I don't know how much she was actually drinking, but she stumbled out of the elevator and started screaming and running down the hall, and as she's saying this to my ex husband, I hear him shush her because and probably point to the fact that I'm sitting in the living room. So he didn't want her talking about how drunk my ex friend was on this trip while she was responsible for my daughter in the middle of legal proceedings. I mean, who would take somebody away and be responsible for them in the middle of a divorce situation and a very toxic one to to boot? I'll never understand that, but this is what I mean about how she likes to insert herself in situations that she doesn't belong in. This is also a person who used to go to PTA meetings with a sippy cup filled with vodka. I keep saying that, you know, Mr. No boundaries, meaning my ex husband and misses no boundaries, meaning her. I would question whether there was something going on between the two of them, because he was at their house constantly. Her husband was, I would say my ex husband's biggest supporter through this divorce. So like it was a it was an odd, triangular relationship there that I just it didn't make sense to me. I mean, every single person that that knew what was going on would would always ask me, you know what's going on between them, and truthfully, she could have him. That wasn't my issue. My issue was more about the influence that she has over my daughter. I understand that she used to call my daughter on, you know, my daughter's phone and, like, chit chat, like girlfriends, and it was like a way to kind of infiltrate my daughter into believing that, you know, this is her friend too. I'm sorry, a mother should have her own friends of her own age, and why is she befriending my daughter like she's somehow her new mom? So it was very weird. There were a lot of people that were in my ear telling me how inappropriate that relationship was, I mean, if you, if you just knew this much, you could deduce that this was a highly inappropriate relationship. And I think it was like over two years ago, I made some comment about them being in a sexual relationship, my ex husband and this friend, and I overheard somebody saying that she went back to our friend group and was kind of laughing like, Oh, do you believe that Karen thinks that he and I are fucking, which is kind of weird to say, unless you are. The reason I bring all of this up about her is because this was just a whole other layer to my divorce that I did not need. They both got a kick out of it. They both meaning my ex husband and this friend. You know, I'd be sitting in the den one day, and I would hear the two of them on the phone together in the living room, and all of a sudden I hear her say through the phone, because she's a loud talker. Where's Karen, and he has a loud voice, even in his quietest whisper, he cupped his mouth as he said into the phone couch like it was a big secret that I was sitting on the couch while they were on the phone. So I called up to him, and I said, Why does she care what. I am. And he said, What do you mean? And I said, I can hear you both. And he's like, Well, why are you eavesdropping on my conversation? Then I said, Well, if it was so private, you would have gone upstairs to your room. I mean, this was like the idiocy that was going on, and the two of them would do anything they could just to get under my skin, and it worked for a while, until it didn't. So I used to say that she was the biggest cancer in my divorce, and these are some of the reasons why. But we had a much bigger friend group, and I in his own way, he would let me know who was pledging their allegiance to him. But at one of my daughter's flag football games, I remember one of the husbands approached me and asked me if he initiated the divorce. And I said, No, I did. And he's like, Oh, I thought, I thought he did. And I said, Nope, it was me. And I mentioned something about this smear campaign against me. And he said, Oh, well, that's for sure. Like he was pretty adamant that there was a definite smear campaign against me. And he said that was 100% sure. I didn't ask what the story was or what he was telling people. I didn't really care, and I didn't want to know. But this, this husband, for sure, confirmed to me that, you know, whatever I thought was actually happening. But for the most part, all of the other friends, you know, they would pass me here and there, and sometimes they would look away. Sometimes they would look at me and like, you know, smile, but not really like a friendly smile. It was kind of like, you know, an awkward smile. Nobody really paid attention to me. It was just kind of like it was awkward when we passed, and that was it. Even during Open School Night or parent teacher conferences. I forget which one I think it was open School Night Two years ago, I'd be walking by myself through the halls looking for the next classroom to go into, and I would see all of these ex friends just kind of like looking at me, smirking, like like they had the goods on me, or they understood what was going on, or I it was so stupid. It brought me back to middle school all over again. But you know, most of the people that that I was friends with, that knew what was going on, they they really just looked away and just pretended I didn't exist. It was definitely awkward. But, you know, I held my head high. I went about my business, and, you know, I was there to meet my daughter's teachers and and learn whatever I needed to learn about these classes. And that was it. And I was in, I was out. He was still pulling people, you know, to the side and letting them know that, you know, we were getting divorced and and I could see the, you know, the shock on some of these people's faces and stuff, but you know, he had to make sure he had everyone in his back pocket. I was very close with his family for all these years, for 26 years, and I ran into one of his cousins at dinner one night. I was out to dinner with a friend, and she came over to talk to me, and we were, you know, lightly, chit chatting, and she kind of made a joke, like, Can you hurry up and get divorced so we could be friends again? Look, I, like I've said before in an earlier episode, I understand that his family has to support him and back him and be on his side and and I totally get that. I hope, when the dust settles and things kind of go on, and our lives move on and all of that, that there won't be any bad blood between me and his family, but like I keep saying to the people that I still speak to, and his family will always be connected through my daughter. They know me well enough to know that I wouldn't just ignore them and act like I didn't know them, and the fact that I didn't get any closure with them, you know, I wanted to reach out and just say I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to you before everything kind of hit the fan. But will always be connected. Who I am, who I was during the marriage, they all knew who I was and what I stood for, my my integrity, my character, my heart. I just I can't believe if people really dug down deep, that they really believe whatever he sold them, but they wish me well and and, you know, there's no bad blood. The tragedy for me in in my family, though, is how, you know, he used to always kind of groom me and in a way of separating me from my family. Family. He has a big family. Everyone is pretty much very local, easy to get together with. My family is very small and very spread out, so it's not the same at all. He used to get very angry that my parents weren't like his parents. His parents would be available and around and, you know, we would get together with them often. They would call almost every night. You know, at times I thought it was a little excessive, but I grew up where I if I didn't speak to my parents, you know, more than once a week. That was normal, but he made it out to be that my parents were selfish, useless. They didn't care. That was the narrative that he sold me over the years, and I'm pretty sure that's the narrative he sold to my daughter as well, and whatever issues that my daughter had with my parents, with anyone else in my family, he just kept picking at that scab until that was something that she felt too. So my parents have tried to regain a relationship with her. During the divorce, she was not receptive to it at all, and instead of encouraging a relationship with another set of grandparents who love her dearly, he further separated them, and for three years, she did not have a good relationship, if at all, with my parents and my siblings and anyone else On my side of the family. Two of the songs that came up in my head as I was thinking about what I wanted to say in this episode, one of them was friends by Houdini, and the other one was rumors by Timex Social Club, if you're interested in listening to them, they were really appropriate for this episode. So some of the lessons that I learned about who your friends really are. I guess seeing all of my fake friends who I thought were real friends, but really and truly they weren't, you see people for who they are during divorces, during weddings, during funerals, people show their true colors eventually, and as hard as it was to let people go for my life, it became very evident to me that they were just holding me back and weighing me down, and I needed to separate from them if I was going to move forward in my life and have a new start. So I did what I had to do. I felt so much better after and now my life moves forward. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. I invite you to comment, like, share, subscribe. You can reach me at the music of life five, five@gmail.com with any questions or stories or experiences or anything that you want to share with me, I'd be happy to talk about it on another episode. You can check out my website@podpage.com slash the music of life. You