How to tell my friend re. broken engagement

[Eeyore79]

Moved to other forum

[BUENG1]

I told my friend not to give her ex-fiance the engagement ring back... was it the right thing to do?

 

Basically what happened is they got engaged and moved in together, and as soon as he was able to keep close tabs on her he became suspicious she was having an affair (she wasn't, he was always ridiculously jealous and suspicious, and he got so much worse when they got engaged). After only two months of living together he walked out, it's a 1 bed apartment so my friend can't get a roomie to share, and she can't afford the rent on her own. So she goes to the landlord and says, I can't afford the rent here now my fiance has walked out, can I cancel the rest of the tenancy? And the landlord says no, you signed it so you have to stay. There's 10 months left on the tenancy, which would cost 4k = 2k each.

 

So my friend is stuck in this tenancy which her ex-fiance also signed his name to, and she says to him: Look I know you dont live in the apartment any more and so you feel you shouldn't have to pay the rent, but you signed this joint tenancy too and we can't get out of it, so you have to pay your half because I don't have the money. It's unfair that you should walk away and live somewhere affordable while I'm stuck with a tenancy we both signed. And obviously he says no, he's not paying anything! So (on my advice) she says: Well you're not getting the engagement ring back (worth 1k) until you pay up for the rent, because if you don't pay up I'm going to pawn the ring and put it towards your half of the rent.

 

Obviously, he hasn't paid up, and she's still hanging onto the ring and planning to pawn it if he doesn't pay up within a couple of months. He said he would take her to court for the ring, and she said Well if you do I'll take you to court for the rent, so he's dropped the subject. I asked her why she just doesn't take him to court anyway, and she said because her biggest fear is he'll pay the rent and exercise his right to move back into the apartment he's paying for, and she'll have to live with him in a 1 bed apartment till the tenancy runs out - she's terrified of him because of his recent behaviour. She said she actually hopes he doesn't pay up and she can just pawn the ring and get a bank loan for the rest of the rent, which seems unfair to me but I can understand why she's afraid he'll move back in.

 

But he's now going around and telling all their mutual friends that she cheated and then refused to give the engagement ring back, and he's seen her in the street with the guy she cheated with and he's going to punch him, etc. He has seen her with a guy, but it's someone she met and has sort of been having a rebound relationship with for a few weeks, but their friends have also seen her out with this guy and assumed the ex-fiance is telling the truth and she cheated with this guy. They asked her if she kept the ring, and she said Yes but.. and didn't get a chance to finish because they walked away.

 

She's really upset because their mutual friends are all siding with him because they knew him longer, they won't listen to her explanations and they're saying nasty things like she's a slut and a whore. So I told her if they turned on her like that they're not true friends anyway. One ex-friend works with her, and one of his colleagues reported him because he was having a text chat with the ex-fiance on his work computer, and he was saying stuff like my friend won't be at the company much longer, he'll make sure they get rid of her, and she's lazy and doesn't work, and they should destroy all the equipment in the stock room because she does perverted things with it like getting off on the joystick and stuff. It's a load of crap, but my friend was very upset when the manager showed her the printout of that chat and asked her about her friendship with this guy, because she feels like all of her old friends must be saying this sort of spiteful stuff behind her back.

 

Needless to say, I feel like this is sort of my fault. Her fiance was ok with her until, on my advice, she refused to return the ring until she got his share of the rent. Then he got really nasty and started turning all their mutual friends against her and being threatening. I don't know what to tell her to do.

 

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