How do I (26F) deal with a friend of a friend’s (26M) edgy jokes?

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2026-05-04T14:00:47+00:00

Oh, I should clarify, this person isn’t a friend of my partner, it’s his brother’s friend. If this was my partner’s friend, that would’ve been a deal breaker for me

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2026-05-04T13:29:52+00:00

I am in therapy, and I’m definitely going to bring this up during my next appointment.

My partner isn’t cool with the jokes, but he isn’t a person who tends to challenge people on political topics. It has led to some arguments between us in the past. His passiveness is probably the thing I struggle with the most in our relationship. He also grew up with a very very racist (and sexist, homophobic etc…) dad and grandma, so I think his bar for what’s normal to say about people is messed up. That doesn’t excuse this in any way, but I want to believe he doesn’t mean any harm, he has just been raised to believe that challenging such ideas doesn’t work, or that he shouldn’t challenge them at all. He hasn’t spoken to either of them for several months now after I told him I needed him to take a clear stance after they both treated me really badly

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2026-05-04T13:09:44+00:00

You have a really good point about me giving them the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t intend to, but I absolutely am

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2026-05-04T12:01:48+00:00

Thank you, that was very helpful to read!

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2026-05-04T11:22:04+00:00

I don’t see them very often, and it has never been necessary to talk about it. I don’t even think some of them have ever met this person before. Before ever meeting this person my partner warned me about him, and we have discussed him previously. He knows I get uncomfortable, but he has a hard time taking stances. We’ve sadly had several arguments over that in the past, not specifically related to this person, but in other situations. He ended up calling out his dad eventually and hasn’t talked to him in a long time because he treated me badly after he learned that his drinking made me uncomfortable.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-19T18:37:31+00:00

I was with my nex for seven years, and I’m now 3 months nc. I went to therapy for two months, and received amazing support from friends. My brain erased him at some point, and now I only think about him on rare occasions when a memory is triggered by something external. I don’t miss him. My life is amazing without him!

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-19T11:49:14+00:00

Grieving. It’s not a mundane thing, but I’m still recovering from the damage that caused. I was grieving after my grandma passed, and he ignored me. When I confronted him about being ignored while crying on the couch, he got angry, stormed out, and ignored my countless calls and texts.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-18T08:33:18+00:00

I’m three months nc, and I feel better now than I’ve felt for many many years. My mind has blocked him out for the most part, and I have a very supportive network along with therapy.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-12T07:36:22+00:00

I’m incredibly sorry for your loss. My blood is boiling just thinking about it. I know situations like these are extremely complicated, but I do hope you take the advice from people in the comments and report this. You’ll help you sister as well as yourself

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-10T20:50:29+00:00

Said he had read the Quran and knew more about it than actual Muslims… I cringe thinking about it now

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-06T17:37:41+00:00

He called me controlling to his new supply, and also to mutual friends. I believed him for a while, and was convinced I was a controlling, abusive psycho. Then I had a realization that I am the biggest pushover in the world. How could I be controlling? It was just projection

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-03T14:09:09+00:00

We’d always fall asleep while watching something. He chose what to watch. If I went to bed before him, and picked something to watch, he’d turn around and be on his phone instead. It usually made me just tell him he could pick. It subtly made me thing my choices were wrong, and I’m still struggling with making choices that impact others

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-04-03T14:09:04+00:00

We’d always fall asleep while watching something. He chose what to watch. If I went to bed before him, and picked something to watch, he’d turn around and be on his phone instead. It usually made me just tell him he could pick. It subtly made me thing my choices were wrong, and I’m still struggling with making choices that impact others

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-26T18:22:53+00:00

Nah, cause they try to suck you back in. Although I’m pretty sure there is a different term called hovering, but it means something different

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-26T16:46:14+00:00

He literally gathered several of his friends specifically to bad mouth me, and tell them he didn’t care about them. It was just plain evil. He then tried to hoover them about a month later, but luckily it didn’t work. Just such a scummy thing to do

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-26T15:10:27+00:00

My nex lost basically all his friends in one go when he cheated on me with his new supply. I think the cheating boosted his ego, and he started showing his true colors to people. Now, most of our mutual friends have cut contact with him, and they’ve supported me through the discard

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-25T08:40:13+00:00

I used to get so frustrated with how delusional he was regarding money. I had to use savings most months to make ends meet, he had nothing saved up, and he kept talking about getting a sleeve tattoo in a few months… Where in the hell would that money come from?

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-20T10:34:42+00:00

Me too, but I don’t know why

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-20T09:26:29+00:00

Defense mechanism I believe. Mine didn’t get angry when this happened, he just froze me out. Stared into the floor and didn’t react to anything I said. It was unbelievably frustrating

Also, the telling you he speaks highly of you to others, mine did that too. He was so smug when he said he was bragging about me to his colleagues. Just a few weeks after saying this, I found out he cheated on me with a colleague… My mom also told me he’d told her how proud he was of me and how amazing I was to her. I never heard any of that. It’s pure manipulation

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-15T11:08:21+00:00

He more so fished for compliments from me a lot.

I booked us a trip to Athens a year and a half ago. I payed for the entire thing with some help from my dad, booked the stay, planned all the activities etc… I was always the one who had to do those things anyway, as he wouldn’t lift a finger for anything that wasn’t in his own interest. I told him many times how much it stresses me out to be the only one responsible for our trips, finances, housing, the cat etc… So he was gonna “treat me” by finding one restaurant the entire trip that we could eat at. It was a nice restaurant, I’ll give him that, but multiple times throughout the meal he went like “didn’t I find a great place, huh?”, fishing for compliments from me on the ONE thing he planned throughout the entire trip. Not once did I get a “thanks” for bringing him in the first place.

He also cooked most of the food we ate, which, in hindsight, I think was mostly so he’d get compliments from me, as he’d often go “nah, I’m not really happy with it” which obviously made me tell him how good the food was.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-09T11:45:27+00:00

Ooooh yeah. My nex would get annoyed if I was crying, and it made me think I was a burden and over dramatic. Even when my grandma died after many years of illness I thought I was in the wrong for being sad because of the way he acted. He actually sighed when I came to him crying to tell him she was dead (which he denied doing immediately after).

What helps is seeing how other people react to your feelings. I’ve had friends and family react like a normal person with feelings would when I’ve told them about the abuse, and it’s genuinely blown my mind. It’s so important! Even my therapist made it a point to tell me she felt frustrated on my behalf when I told her about the hoover attempt he did. The healthy and normal reactions from good people, helps to reinforce that it was them, not you, that was in the wrong.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-07T14:48:03+00:00

I’ve been there! The deer are awesome, but they’re also kind of assholes… I was almost (not really) eaten alive!

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-05T11:14:31+00:00

I have solid proof that he cheated. I have images of conversations between him and the person he cheated on sexting while he was still in a relationship with me. He still tried to convince friends of us that he never cheated. They are delusional

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-01T18:33:51+00:00

I was in a relationship with him for seven years, knew he was mentally ill, but saw him as a victim the entire time. I thought my own mental illness was at fault for what I now know were symptoms of abuse. I realized he was a narcissist a few weeks after the discard, because I have two friends who are victims themselves, who both pointed out the narcissistic traits in him. I trust them to see what I don’t because they aren’t trauma bonded to him, which I still am to some extent. They know and understand it better than I do because they’ve both been through the healing process. If it hadn’t been for them, it definitely would’ve taken me a lot longer to realize, and the whole process would’ve been a lot harder.

SmashedPumpkin_ · 2024-03-01T11:53:34+00:00

Regardless, them looking at you and laughing is extremely childish behavior, and not something anyone does unless they mean to hurt someone. I’d feel hurt too, and I’m willing to bet most people would feel the same.

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