Toxic Friend DEMANDS MORE MONEY out of me... FORCING ME to CHOOSE between HER and my FAMILY

My toxic entitled friend is constantly antagonistic towards my family and my children,

as she is always asking for money and basically implying that my family is distracting me from

giving her exactly what she wants. And so, after a really toxic remark she made about my future

kid, I decided to get some revenge, by literally cutting her out of my life in a way that she will

never find me ever again. Here's what happened. So I ended a very long-term friendship with someone

I called my best friend because it became glaringly obvious that she only had time for me when she

needed money or help. I ended it abruptly and without explanation. After she said one of the most

callous things I've ever heard from someone who claimed to care about me. For a bit of context

about three years ago, I became a mother and that's around the time when she stopped showing up

for me, constantly making excuses and telling me she had other plans. I was always the person

who could show up at her house, even when I lived an hour away. But once I moved within a three

mile radius of her, she never had time for me. I'm a stayed-home mom and she makes more than my

husband does, and her bills are about 50% less than ours. I have urged her to work on budgeting

and making a plan for savings, but she says I'm making her feel bad about her spending and just

shuts me out. She knows that my husband and I have worked really hard to get our credit scores

over 700. We've put money into savings and we've been really responsible with our finances.

So when I would tell her that I can't help her out, she goes heavy on the guilt tripping,

insinuating that I should be helping her because she knows we have money saved and simply won't

talk about anything other than how her financial problems are going to cause her to completely

break down. And then at that point she becomes hysterical. In the last year alone,

I've built her out of car repossession, having her electricity turned off for non-payments,

gas money, money for her child's medications, etc. Yet she always has money to smoke, drink alcohol,

ordering food, buying stuff to decorate her house, etc. And always has excuses for why she just

can't pay me back on time. And she even claims that she just forgot that the bills were due.

She recently formed a new group of friends that don't have any children or any responsibilities,

who can party with her, enable her bad habits, bring liquor to her house, buy her things and get

drunk every single weekend. And yet I was placed on the back burner because me having a family

a child and responsibilities no longer fit into her lifestyle. Her husband is actively addicted

to substances and she enables him to stay active in addiction, would constantly call me literally

screaming into my ear about how badly he treats her, how strung out he is, and how badly they're

fighting. But then in the same conversation, she reverts back to making excuses for him whenever

solutions are presented. But any mention of my husband, who works hard to take care of his family

and were both in therapy, and she has nothing but unkind things to say about him,

referencing back to many years prior when we were struggling in the past. She was unhappy when

my husband and I got married, where she said that she didn't support it, and that she didn't

want to know about it. But the thing is, we are very happy and we have been for quite a while.

It's almost as if she resents my husband and my family, for making me less accessible to her

instead of being happy for me. Well, fast forward to present day, and my husband and I are expecting

our second child, which was all part of the plan, and she is also not happy about that.

She even went as far as encouraging me to make sure the birth doesn't happen if you know what I mean,

and said that I was making a mistake. Now for reference, I'm struggling in this pregnancy,

with something that is causing extreme morning sickness all day every day, and I'm throwing up

five to ten times a day, and I'm barely able to hold down water, and sure there are medications

that help, but the side effects are also just super rough. It is temporary and I know it will pass,

but still is really hard nonetheless. Well, my breaking point was reaching out to her for support

recently, because of the mental toll that it's all taking on me. Because she said to me,

you did this to yourself and you need to figure out how to deal with it on your own. And this

was said a few days after I said no when she needed $250 for an ongoing health issue her dog has

had for months now. You know, the same one that she's just completely let go. Well, after she said

that, full stop, I blocked her number, all of her socials, and also deleted several of my socials,

because she had multiple friends watching my posts and reporting back to her. She even created

profiles to try and get access to me, but I did not provide any explanation or any reason for

cutting her off. I know from years and years of dealing with her that she will try to turn it

back around on me, play the perpetual victim, twist it to make it my fault, and manufacture a list of

things that she thinks I've done wrong, and I honestly just don't have the time or energy to deal

with it. Wow, good for you for cutting this lady off because she is insane. She's the classic

person who literally only takes away from friendships and doesn't give anything. She's always looking

for a handout, but she's never able to give a handout herself. And that's honestly so obnoxious,

and I really think the worst part about this is that you are completely right. She's pissed off

because you're focusing on other people instead of her, as if your family and your children are

somehow a distraction from what she wants. And it's like, my god, she was never your friend to begin

with. Everything with her was just transactional, because she literally only wanted money out of you

and nothing else. So seriously, good for you for cutting her off, because that lady sounds like

an absolute nightmare to deal with. If you like Am I the jerk, you're probably going to love Am I

the Genius. Check it out linked down below in the description. Also go to Am I the jerk.com

slash submit. If you would like to submit your own stories, an entitled truck driver decided to

be a jerk by flashing his lights and honking his horn anytime we try to stop him on the highway.

So me and my girlfriend decided to get some petty revenge by literally giving him a taste of his

own medicine. Here's what happened. So this happened last summer when my girlfriend and I were

driving back from her sister's house. It was a long drive. And since we left late at night,

we ended up on the toll roads around one to two o'clock in the morning. Now at first we noticed

flashes of light in the distance and assumed it was heat lighting since you know it was summer.

So we just didn't think much of it. A little while later we got behind a semi truck on a two-lane

road. When we switched lanes to pass them, everything seemed fine until he moved behind us and started

flashing his brights at us non-stop. Well, that's when we realized that the heat lighting we had been

seeing was actually this guy flashing his brights at every car in front of him. On top of that,

he started honking at us. Stunned, we switched lanes to let him pass and as we did,

he flicked us off. At that point, my girlfriend decided to stay behind him because she didn't want

to drive next to him. Well, as we continue driving, he did the same thing to another car.

After a few minutes, I then joked that we should give him a taste of his own medicine.

My girlfriend said, yeah, and she started flashing her lights at him, honking her horn,

and then sped past him and I even flicked him off. By the time he realized what was happening,

we were already far ahead. He tried to catch up, but his truck just didn't have the speed,

and we simply couldn't stop laughing. We never figured out why he was doing it,

but blinding people at night like that was just dumb and dangerous. He wasn't trapped in traffic

or anything. He was just being a massive jerk. So in the end, we got our petty revenge,

and we had a good laugh all the way home. Yeah, I will never understand why some truck drivers

act like that, where they will be up on your tail and flashing their lights and honking their horn,

as if they somehow own the road. It's like, dude, I'm going the speed limit and I'm

literally out of your way. I'm trying to pass around you because you're the one going too slow,

so for you to pretend to be super aggressive for some dumb reason, all because I'm trying to get

around you like that is honestly so obnoxious. So honestly, I don't blame you for getting revenge on

this guy, because the way this guy treated you in my opinion was completely unacceptable.

Today, I messed up by sending a badly timed gift to the work group chat that caused all of my

co-workers and manager to start desperately messaging me that I need to delete it right away.

Here's what happened. So this took place back in 2020 during the lockdowns,

and I'm 30 years old at the time. My workplace shifted to remote working,

so everyone was now working from home, and Microsoft Teams was the new tool that we were using

to keep in contact. My manager suggested that in the mornings, everyone sends a gift or a meme

to the group chat when they start work. That way, everybody knows we're online. The group chat

consisted of 15 people, so mornings were a little annoying as the group chat was flooded with images

and messages, as a fan of the Simpsons. I would usually just send some random Simpsons gift,

like Homer emerging from the bushes, or Ralph rolling down a hill. So one morning, I had to start

a little earlier to catch up on some work, and I opened up Teams and I did my usual Simpsons

related search, and then I picked the gift of evil Homer dressed as the devil, shaking maracas

and dancing on the grave of good Homer. And honestly, I thought I was the first person to message

in the group that morning, but I was completely wrong. After I sent the message I went to the bathroom,

and while on the toilet, I could hear my team's notifications go off, and even heard somebody

try to call me twice. But I figured it could wait until I got back to my desk. So I get to see

what's going on a couple of minutes later. The group chat was still open with my gift of evil

Homer dancing on a grave, but there was another message I hadn't seen earlier. The message had

the same timestamp as mine, but it appeared in the chat before my gift. They must have sent it

moments before I did. Making it look like I'd sent my gift of the grave dancing Homer as a response,

while the message was one of the team members saying that her dad died over the weekend,

and she wouldn't be working for the next few days to spend time with the family and plan the

funeral. When I realized what it looked like my heart sank, I rushed to delete the message and

just pray that she hadn't seen it. The other notifications was one colleague sending me a screenshot

of the chat and asking me what I was thinking, and the others were two missed calls for my manager,

and it all kept's message telling me to delete the gift immediately. After deleting it, I called

my manager to let her know what had happened, and thankfully she assumed it was a mistake,

and that I would never do something so insensitive. I asked if she thought I should say anything to

the colleague since I wasn't sure if she had actually seen it, but my manager said that she was

offline now anyways, so all I could do was wait until she's back if I was going to say anything.

When she returned to work, I did explain what happened and I gave her an apology. I didn't give

the full description exactly of what gift I sent, just that it wasn't appropriate for the time.

Luckily, she said she had not seen the message, so thankfully I didn't hurt her,

but I did scare the living daylights out of about five co-workers who had seen the message,

and the gift before I was able to delete it, and honestly with all things considered,

I think I got incredibly lucky. Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. First off, you're so lucky your

co-worker didn't see that because yeah, that could have been really bad, but also at least you

have people who care and they're like wait a second, you need to delete that, because I've worked in

places where my co-workers could care less what I'm doing, and so you very easily could have had

somebody in that group be like oh that's funny, let me report you and get you in trouble.

So yeah, this was definitely a mess up, but honestly it clearly was not on purpose,

but it's just so unfortunate and kind of funny that that's the message you sent,

especially after something so devastating that your co-worker just described.

And either jerk for not having my roommates back on enforcing her boundaries about our roommate,

because right now she's incredibly mad at me and I seriously don't know what to do.

Here's what happened. Okay, so I live with three roommates. We'll call them Leah,

May and Darcy. Leah and I have lived together for three years now,

May for one year, and Darcy for only a few months. Well the issues started with Darcy getting a new

boyfriend who started coming over quite frequently. I have no issue with this and neither does

May because the boyfriend is very nice, but apparently it's Leah that has the issue with this.

Now Leah's room is right next door to Darcy. Her complaints so far have been the following.

For starters, she's been woken up to the sounds of bed squeaking a couple of times.

Secondly, Darcy hasn't told us when he's coming over a couple of times,

so he's walked in while Leah is in pajamas or doing Pilates. He also doesn't really clean up

after himself at the bathroom, and also he left the window blind open when it's always closed.

But mostly overall, it's how often he's over at the house. It's been a month of this

boyfriend being around, and Leah has come ranting to me on multiple occasions. She has sat down

with Darcy to discuss this, and Darcy was embarrassed by the noise thing, and I believe it hasn't

happened ever since then. However, Leah also told Darcy that she could only have her boyfriend over once

a week, as she said that she made it clear when Darcy moved in that this was a quiet house where

boys can't come and go, not even overnight once a week, but anything longer than 15 minutes or

just getting picked up. Ever since that talk, Darcy still has him over even though it is a little

bit less, going from maybe four times a week to two times a week. But still, it's way more often

than Leah would want. Now I've kind of just gone along with whatever Leah has said because it's

easier and we are good friends, but I don't really care that much, and also I live on a different

floor from them in our house. Frankly, I have no issue with any of that, except for the obvious

point of the bed squeaking, which I'm happy has been addressed. I also have sympathy because the

boyfriend lives in dorms on an army base, so they have no option but to come to our place if they

want to hang out without spending any money. Well, here's where I may be the jerk. Darcy texted

our group chat, asking if she could have her boyfriend over tonight. Leah was talking to me when

we got the message, and I told her that it's up to her, but I'm not going to say no. She then

started ranting about the situation again. And at this point, I kind of snapped, and I said to her,

your boundaries might not be reasonable. And I explained that a lot of people wouldn't care

about him being over, or some of the issues that she's had with him. Well, she was very clearly

not impressed with what I said, and the conversation devolved from there into me telling her to do what

she wanted to, but it's also up to her now. I'm not getting involved. With her replying and saying,

well, that's fine, you haven't had my back since the beginning of this, so what difference does it

make? So seriously, am I the jerk for what I said to her? Like, I can see where some frustration

comes from, but I don't think we have any right to limit what someone is doing in the place they

rent. Leah does have bad anxiety, so this might be a contributing factor. What should I do?

Okay, honestly, I really can't see both sides here because this does sound incredibly messy.

For starters, Leah is literally right next to them. She has a front row seat and how noisy and

obnoxious Darcy probably is being. And I don't know about you, but if you've had like roommates

or even like lived in an apartment complex, noise is just going to be a part of the equation.

Like literally, this is just something that happens and you kind of just have to live with it.

But when it comes to Leah, clearly this is something way worse than what would normally be allowed

in an apartment. And she's kind of latched onto the idea of like, oh no, this is Darcy's boyfriend

and he's got to go. So on that end, I can understand where she's coming from. But also, I think Darcy

absolutely has a right to bring her boyfriend over. For me, unless it's in writing in some kind of

lease of some kind that says, no, we can't have anybody over here ever. Then sorry about that,

but my significant other is absolutely coming over. Like you can't stop me. I didn't sign up for that

and I don't care. And it's also really weird to me that Leah's trying to drag you into this and

be like, you need to help support me on this. It's like, no, I don't think so. I'm not involved.

I live upstairs and I don't have anything to do with this. Do whatever you want. I've had

friends like that where it's like their way or the highway. And I can completely understand

where you're like, okay, I'm not getting involved in this. So that's just my take on it. I kind of

see both sides of this and I can see why you would be annoyed. But I can also absolutely understand

why Leah is like, okay, this has got to stop. But either way, hopefully this gets worked out because

this sounds like an annoying situation. Today, I found out that my girlfriend of almost five years

cheated on me in a way that honestly has broken my trust. And at this point, I don't know what to do.

Here's what happened. So we've been together for four years, almost five in total. And today,

the guy she went out with told me everything that happened between them. Basically, they met at

the gym and started texting each other on Instagram. One day, they decided to go out together,

obviously without telling me. And from there, there were other days between the two of them and

other group dates with his friends. And for reference, she only told me that she had met this group

of nice guys and that she had gone out with them a couple of times. During one of those days that

she went with just the two of them, she invited the guy to her grandmother's house since the bars

were closed and it was cold outside. When they arrived, he lay down on the couch to sleep and she

leaned against his chest, taking his arms and holding him close to her to be hugged. After that night,

he told me that on other occasions, she also tried to kiss him. For example, while they were walking,

she stopped, put her hands on his shoulders and stared at him. As soon as I found out everything,

I confronted her. And as I told her what had been said to me, she continued to deny it, saying

that for her, he was just a friend and that she loved him because he was going through a difficult

family situation. I then had to tell her everything that he had told me to get her to admit something.

Even if she continued to contradict herself, looking at the chat between her and him,

I saw that it was almost always her who suggested they go out and that they would go out at night,

which would literally be on nights when I sent her a message saying good night and she would

just brush me off and ignore it. We finally got to the point where she burst into tears,

apologizing and saying that she doesn't feel anything for that guy and that he was always just

a friend to her. Now, to give some info about me, I'm a very quiet guy and I'm introverted.

I prefer to stay home on Saturday nights or at most always go out with the same group of friends,

but she's the opposite. She likes going out, she's extroverted and she wants to go out every single

Saturday. So honestly, I don't know if I should forgive her. It bothers me to end a relationship

like this after five years together, but I have no idea how to forget or even ignore what happened,

especially because she hid it from me. What should I do? Okay, I think it's important to know that I

don't think she's actually sorry. She's only sorry that she got caught and not that she was cheating.

If she had any ounce of remorse about what she was doing, she would have disconnected from this guy

and been like, wait a second, what am I doing? This is so wrong. But instead, she was sneaking behind

your back and going out with this guy and also meeting his friends and doing all this other sketchy

stuff. And that, in my opinion, is not the mark of a good girlfriend. If anything, that's the mark

of someone who absolutely does not have your best interest in mind. And she clearly just doesn't

care about you in that way. So truly do this what you will, but I know for me, there's no way I would

ever take someone like that back because that's a level of betrayal that I just honestly don't think

I would ever be able to forgive. Okay, I'm not kidding when I say this, but I'm literally the

biggest scatterbrain on the planet because anytime I'm shopping online, I always forget my

login information. Like seriously, I'm like scrambling around being like, oh my gosh, where is it?

I cannot remember where I put it. But in the middle of that chaos, the one saving grace is that

beautiful purple button at the top of the payment options that literally signals to me that Shopify

has my back. It's like the one stop shop to make sure all this chaos of shopping online just goes

away. And that's one of my favorite things when it comes to shopping online, especially with Shopify.

And in case you didn't know, like Shopify is the real deal. This is literally a commerce platform

behind millions of businesses around the world. Like they account for 10% of all e-commerce in the

United States, which blew my mind. I did not know that. But like seriously, it kind of makes sense

because they are experts at what they do. And on top of it, they're totally beginner friendly.

They can literally help you design your own studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates.

They even have options of like creating your own one-man army when it comes to like marketing,

as they've got easy to make like email and social media campaigns that can just like absolutely

help your customers find the best deals. And guess what? If you get stuck like I would probably do,

they've got an award-winning 24-7 customer support. And it's like, bro, I don't know about anyone

else, but it really sounds like Shopify absolutely has this figured out. So whether you're shopping

online or creating your own brand, Shopify is absolutely the place to start.

See less cards go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash AITJ.

Go to shopify.com slash AITJ. That's shopify.com slash AITJ.

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banner to learn more. Am I the jerk for snapping at my friend after she humiliated me in front of

others because things seriously got very heated and at this point I don't know what to do. Here's

what happened. Okay so I've been close friends with this girl for the past two years.

We've had our fair share of issues but this time things escalated to the extreme.

Recently we attended an event with some mutual friends. While walking around she jokingly called

me pig crap in front of everybody. And while I did take this in stride it still did sting a little.

Later when everyone was taking pictures I asked if we could take one together but she insisted

on a group picture instead. Our friends encouraged us to take one first saying that we do the group photo

afterwards. But suddenly she withdrew and lashed out. She then said to me then go ahead take the

picture alone and it honestly felt humiliating. Now this wasn't the first time. Something similar

happened before when we had an argument. She had refused to take a group picture just because I

was in it. She then made a scene and then walked away. Confused and upset. I asked her what in the

world that was about. But she ignored me. I persisted and raised my voice a bit and I demanded an

answer. At which point she ran away. And you know what? I left the event too. Later on she

called me yelling about how I insulted her in public. She said she didn't take the picture

because she wasn't comfortable with me. And it's like excuse me what are you talking about?

The argument got heated and she shouted at me and I yelled back at her. And then out of nowhere

she threw in and said is this how you talk to your mother and sister? At that point I lost it I

said F you and then I hung up. I also texted her saying that she is an awful person and I was

done walking on eggshells around her. I pointed out how she treats strangers with sweetness

but is awful to people who actually care about her. And then I blocked her completely. She then

called me from another number absolutely furious. How dare you cuss at me? How dare you call me

awful? But I retaliated saying that she was the one who dragged my mother into the argument.

Well her response was to say should I call your mother and tell her that she's awful and say

they afforded her? She then accused me of not knowing how to respect women. She then threatened to

file a police complaint against me for cussing at her and then she ended the call by saying I

hope you go straight to Hades. But I just said yeah I'll see you there and then I hung up.

After cooling down I felt bad for how ugly things got. I sent her a message saying I didn't

appreciate her bringing my mother into it but I was sorry for cussing at her and how the fight

escalated. Well she just read it and then she blocked me. So honestly am I the jerk in this

situation for the way I responded? Because right now I seriously don't know what to do.

Okay this is such a weird situation because my god no I don't think you're the jerk at all.

I think you probably could have had that conversation in a much more mature manner but seriously your

friend here is not a good friend at all. She literally puts you down in public, she calls you

names and treats you like garbage in front of everybody else and she goes as far as trying to

like isolate you from the group just to humiliate you. So yeah this whole situation really sucks but

I think you really need to find like better friends because this lady definitely does not sound

like one. When you subscribe make sure to hit the bell to turn on notifications.

To finish listening to all the stories check out the playlist at the top of the description

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