So, last month my friend (26M) and his GF(24F) of 4 years broke up. It was not a surprise to anyone except for him.
For years he has started to have problems with substance abuse, behavioral issues and increasingly differing worldviews with everyone. We’ve all seen this slow, steady descent and by some part he is aware of it himself, sometimes boasting how much of an alcoholic he is and how he cant go a day without beer.
In our friend group, i’ve known him since highschool and we’ve always been close, though we have drifted apart a bit the last years. His ex gf has also been part of the group since they started dating.
So about a week ago, i was hanging out with him, we were both a bit tipsy and we startes talking about his breakup. When he said that it came out as a total surprise, i told him that we had all seen this coming.
When he asked me to explain, i brough up his problems i mentioned at the start. I spared no detail and didn’t sugarcoat one bit. I told him that he straight up brought this upon himself, because for the past years he has spent more time boozing, arguing with randos and attending rallies than spend time with his gf.
This seemed to get under his skin. Tempers rose, strong words and names flew and it ended up with him storming out. He hasn’t talked to me since.
AITAH for reality checking him, or was i perhaps too harsh and direct?
NTA
Maybe you could have been more gentle and helped him realize he has a problem without him getting so defensive but he needed to hear it.
Maybe this can be a wake up call for him.
NTA. He is obviously delusional about himself and needs to be told how his behavior is having a bad effect on someone who loved him and others. Other than his enablers, I doubt she is the only one who doesn’t like his behavior. He is mad because he knows it is true, but doesn’t want to change.
NTA – true friends are the ones who should check us when we are going down the wrong path. I think in today’s day and age a lot of people are looking for validation that the way they are living is the right way, and we have begun to see criticism as inappropriate and judgmental, which is not the case. Truly caring means having those tough conversations and not just supporting someone’s destructive habits, especially with alcohol involved like that.
This wasn’t an intervention, it was a drunken argument.
nta at all. could you have been nicer? i mean yeah, but its hard to keep your calm when someone just isnt being real with themselves so i totally understand. you could have told him before they had broken up, but that isnt your job
NTA for the specific question you asked for judgment on, but *wow* are you late to the game. He’s gone off the rails becoming an angry, unpleasant person to the point that it’s affecting his relationships in a way everyone can see and you’re only now having a talk about it?
Your friend is a self-admitted proud alcoholic and you’re *sitting there drinking with him*? Are you kidding me?
You’ve been helping him throw his life away. I hope this is the wake-up call he needs, but man, he needs better friends.
NTA. He needed tough love.
NTA– Tough love, man. He needed to hear it.
NTA. How many times do we here men say, “The divorce (breakup) came out of nowhere.” Glad you gave him a reality check.
I’m going with ESH because he’s an asshole but you are pretending you don’t know that you deliberately started a fight with your friend while having drinks with an alcoholic. Of course he got mad. You didn’t stage an intervention, you dressed him down without warning when he thought he was venting to a friend.
Yeahhh OP. Isn’t wrong for what they said, but a real friend wouldn’t watch you destroy your whole life for years and only say something now that it’s all imploded. The time for the reality check was years ago.
NTA. Somebody needed to call him out on his bullshit. May have cost you the friendship, but it’s better for him in the long run that he heard it loud and clear.
ESH because you had to know you would upset him.
…what kind of rallies? Ones with drum circles or…