Sorry if the title is a mouthful. It's kind of hard to describe this situation. I met my roommates two years ago at a MtG event that was happening at a local gaming store. I happened to be there to look for old D&D books they tend to sell and I was approached by Dani (37F) and Rachel (34F). They struck up a conversation with me. They seemed really friendly and eager to make my acquaintance as fellow female gamers so we clicked and a friendship grew.
Over time I met their family. Dani was married, her husband Rob (38) and her BIL and SIL (Rob's brother) Mike (33) and Jess (20). I know it's a mouthful of names and information sorry! They all seemed nice and eager to make friends except Rob who was a bit standoffish he got a long more with my fiance Jake (27).
Dani, Rachel, Jess, Rob, and Mike all lived under one roof. Dani inherited her grandparents five bedroom house after they died. It was paid off so the only thing that they had to pay was taxes and utilities. Dani and Rachel didn't work and claimed they were trust fund babies who had allowances so everything was paid for. (Remember that) Other than that Rob was the only person out of the five doing anything by going to school for computer science and interning at a company where they want him to "try to hack into their defenses" apparently. His GI bill goes towards the taxes etc.
With all of that out of the way, my fiance was offered a job in Seattle and the offer was too good to refuse. He was going to move out there first and I was going to follow in two months. Our lease of our apartment was up and since I have saved up quite a bit of money (we are very frugal) I felt comfortable putting in my two weeks and moving back with my parents (who live six hours away) until I had everything settled financially etc.
I told Dani and Rachel about the news and they begged me to instead move in with them because they have a spare bedroom. They insisted I could live their rent free until then and Rob could help me ship my computer and other electronics before I left. I thought on it and agreed because hey, these are my friends and they have been super awesome up to this point. Why not? I took them up on their offer but insisted on at least helping pay for a bit of rent and food. They all seemed really happy to have me. The spare bedroom that I moved into had french doors that opened to a bathroom that also had a door to the hallway. I was assured that no one used that bathroom and that Rachel, Jess, and Mike used the communal one down the hall while Rob and Dani used the master bathroom attached to their bedroom.
It all seemed to go well the first week until the first problem happened. Some kind of drama happened between Dani and Jess and so Rachel, Rob, and Dani piled into my bedroom while I was writing up some work emails to talk about it. They literally wanted to include me in a pow-wow where they mudslinged on the BIL and SIL. I didn't really feel comfortable with this and it made me wonder if they were so willing to say this stuff about their own family what do they say about me or my fiance? I really don't like this kind of stuff and I was really surprised by it so I made an excuse that I had to go to the store and left. It was messed up seeing Jess crying on the living room couch with her husband comforting her while their family talked crap about them to an outsider.
It became more obvious that Dani called the shots on a lot of things even in a persons more personal decisions. She would proclaim that we were going to play such and such game now and if someone didn't feel like playing (not even to suggest another game just to sit out) she would immediately retreat socially and that person would become the house pariah. Again, I really don't like this kind of stuff. I am a talk things out type of person and seeing this kind of emotional manipulation bothered me a lot. The third time it happened I said "It's just a game, we can still play it" and that seemed to throw blood in the water. Dani burst into tears and I was yelled at because apparently she has PTSD and I was insensitive about it. Apparently she got PTSD because her husband was over seas and the trauma of it was too much for her. Yeah..
I threw my hands up in the air and went to my room. I wasn't going to deal with it and I wasn't going be subjected to such childish behavior. Things went down hill after that. I was given the cold shoulder for two straight days by everyone in the house and my requests for certain foods on the grocery list went ignored despite the fact I was paying for it. The excuse was that they didn't feel comfortable buying the food because it would have upset Dani to see my requests on the list.
I shrugged and went out shopping for myself. When I brought back my groceries Rob met me at the door to the garage telling me that I had to leave my food in the garage refrigerator. Honestly at that point I didn't care. I put my food in the fridge and went inside. Rachel made several attempts to talk to me over the course of the next few days and hang out in my bedroom and outside the house but one of the other members of the family would knock on the door and tell her that Dani needed her. It was all incredibly weird. It was like their lives revolved around appeasing this one person. Dani was up on this pedestal and God forbid if it wobbled just a little bit because she would lose her mind and the others would turn on you.
They all seemed to warm up to me after a week which honestly I was cautious of. It was one day of cold shoulders and the next I was back to being good ol' throw_away_bw. The flip flopping of attitudes bewildered me. Who are these people and where were the people I knew that seemed super friendly and good-natured? It was like the moment I entered their house to live boundaries crashed and their real attitudes surfaced.
One evening I was laying in bed talking to my fiance and the conversation got a little frisky. Of course I was really quiet (whispering etc) but the next day Rob commented on hearing "weird sounds" coming from my bedroom and gave me a wink. I WTF'd and gave him a look and he walked out of the room. This made me really uncomfortable. I began to doubt how quiet I was and I felt embarrassed. I decided to do a test and I played music at the volume I was talking last night and I stood near my bedroom (which is down the hall and out of the way) to see if I could hear it. Nothing. So I turned up the volume louder and louder to the point that I just knew I wasn't that loud. I felt my stomach tense when I realized that if he was really listening in it would have been through the french doors to the bathroom. I went in there and listened and yep. There is a space between the doors just big enough (not really noticeable from the perspective of my bedroom) that if you got close enough you could look into my room.
I felt really uncomfortable and I placed one of my sheets over the french doors. I began to withdraw from these people. I was out most of the day with work and other friends till I would come home and sleep. This didn't go unnoticed and yesterday I came home they were all waiting for me in the living room. I walked in on a family meeting about me. They asked me to sit down and they all started firing accusations at me. Claiming I was bullying Dani and talking poorly about her. I was stunned by what was going on. The only thing I had said that was could be seen "talking poorly" was confiding in my Mom and sister about what was going on in the house and debating if I should pack up my car and move into a hotel in an email. There was no character assassinating or anything like that.
They kept saying "We know you did these things you have to admit to it!" and when I questioned them on it and calling them on the BS they would say "You don't have a right to know how we know this! You're the one in trouble here!" and things like that. Finally Rob said "F*** it! I'll tell her. I saw your emails and I saw what you were saying about my wife. We let you into our house and you take advantage of our hospitality." All the meanwhile Dani was crying into Rachel's shoulder who was also crying.
Then it became a whole poor Dani fest. It turns out that the whole facade of Dani and Rachel being trust fund babies was a lie. When Dani's grandparents passed away she inherited the house and over $300k which they SPENT IN TWO YEARS. They were living on their last $20k. None of the women in the house work because of depression and fibromyalgia. I noticed that when one would develop symptoms of something the others would immediately after. I can't even wrap my head around it. They also claimed I was bullying the women of the house with how I dressed and wore makeup etc. (business casual 9 out of 10 times of the day the rest is beat up PJs)
Apparently they were hoping I would save them from their financial problems and give them financial advice since I independently am doing well because of my job. Rob bragged that he could see everything I did on my electronics because he could see what was going on in the network. I questioned him how he got into my devices which are password protected and don't have remote access enabled. He claimed he had his ways to get in because of his schooling. I told him that it was illegal and they all agreed that it was my word versus theirs if I called the cops.
Because I questioned his ability to hack into my electronics etc it meant I was admitting to their accusations. I sat there and laughed at them. I admit what I said after that wasn't nice at all. I told them they were hypocrites and terrible people and went to my bedroom.
I took the day off of work today and I am sitting at a Starbucks typing this out on my laptop. My desktop etc is all unplugged and sitting in the trunk of my car. I am at a loss. I feel like I've been spun around in a tornado. These aren't the people I thought I knew. They hid all of this incredibly well and it was like their masks ripped off the moment I took up residence in their house. It's only been three weeks and it's devolved into this. My privacy feels totally ripped apart by these people and apparently I am the one to blame for it. What should I do? Is there any legal recourse I should take? Thank you
I apologize if this is all out of sorts. I am pretty shaken up over it and I haven't had much sleep.
tl;dr: Friends(20-30'sM&F's) invited me to stay at their home for two months before I move to the west coast to live permanently with my fiance. Moving in seems to have uncovered the worst parts of their personalities. They have told a lot of lies over the course of our friendship. The husband of the home owner spied on me while I was having phone sex with my fiance and also claimed to have "hacked" into my protected devices. They claim I am a bully and a bad person because I don't agree with their dysfunctional behavior and because I wear make up and dress well for work. They claim it's their word versus mine in regards to the husband going through my personal emails. Is there any legal recourse I can take? What should I do?
Submitted October 08, 2015 at 02:54AM by throw_away_bw http://ift.tt/1WNRHUz relationships
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