March 8, 2024 at 8:38 pm

Best Friend Lies About Terminal Illness And Has An Affair With Her Boyfriend, So She Puts Her On The Local News And Ruins Her Wedding

by Ryan McCarthy

Source: Reddit/AITA/Pexels

Sometimes you go through so much with friends that they become part of your family.

Your friends are the ones who sit with you through the worst break-ups, through your darkest moments, and the next day go out and laugh all night with you!

It makes the betrayal of a close friend all the more heartbreaking, because all those memories you have become tainted in the worst way.

Well in this user’s story, no one could expect the sinister betrayal of her best friend when she not only lied about her cancer, but also had an affair with OP’s boyfriend!

It sounds terrible, but how OP gets her revenge will have you grinning from ear to ear. Check it out!

Helped Destroy My Trust in Humanity? I Put You on The News!

Once upon a time, I (almost 49F) had an extremely close friend, “Mindy”. She was not just my friend, she was like a sister. We met in grade school.

Over the years, we would spend lots of time at each other’s houses, but by the time we were 19, my house was our meeting place because she had bad family problems.

My parents kind of informally took her in because they sympathized with her situation.

I always tried to make her feel like she belonged and avoided luxurious stuff if she could not afford it (expensive shows, nice clothes she might like but could not wear).

Other times, I just gave her some stuff from my closet. She was nice, outspoken, and made me feel like I had the most loyal friend on the planet.

And their great friendship only grew as time went on…

The years go by. I’m fresh out of college and got a nice job. Mindy’s life has improved. She had her own place and 9 to 5 very reliable job.

By then, we had a group of friends: all young professionals trying to make our way. I remember that time in my life as bittersweet.

We would often reminisce of our college days, and, because this happened in the 90s, there were no social networks, no texting.

So exchanging old stories glued us together as we wondered how things worked out for friends we may never see again.

But soon OP noticed something was off about her longtime friend.

Gatherings and get-togethers happened in my apartment. I loved that place! Around those days, Mindy began to look sickly and quite not herself.

I was worried and loved her to death. She had been there for me when my fiancé broke up with me for no reason. I guess we now call it ghosting.

He was the first man I ever truly loved. I was never able to get him to express his love like I did, but I accepted him for who he was.

He was gorgeous, successful, and protective; so when he proposed, I was on cloud 9 and decided to ignore the negatives.

But her happiness would not last for long…

I had saved a lot of money for our wedding. To be fair, he did the same in a separate banking account.

Things came to an end when all of a sudden, he broke up with me. He told me he did not want to get married and did not love me nor wanted any type of relationship.

I felt like he despised me and wanted to cut ties no matter the cost. Invitations had not been issued, so calling off the engagement was not such an ordeal.

Mindy was there for me, listening to my pain, my rants and endless sobbing. I lost so much weight I was embarrassed to be seen out on the street.

And OP would soon get even worse news.

Mindy’s boyfriend George, was awesome about letting me crash at their place whenever anguish and pain hit me hard. They both cut ties with my ex.

I had made so many life altering decisions for him only to be left in the dark. Mindy and George sat me down and disclosed that my ex was seeing someone else.

I remember the shock and emotional pain. My heart was racing and I ran to the bathroom because the bad news made me throw up.

That Christmas was so bad. I sat in my living room staring at the wall. Mindy and George and helped me set up a very 90s posh concept Xmas tree to cheer me up.

I was so depressed the tree stayed put until next Spring.

When it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, Mindy revealed she was sick.

By Summer, Mindy broke some devastating news. She was terminally ill.

I was so angry! She didn’t deserve this. Her diagnosis was grim.

So bad, that George proposed earlier than he had planned because he wanted to live in the moment.

She had always dreamed of a huge wedding. It was her obsession.

We would go into bridal shops and try as many dresses as possible when we were teenagers. The wedding of her dreams was now out of the question.

Her family would not pitch in (she’d left their home on very bad terms) and George, dealing with medical school debt, was up to his neck in debt.

But OP realized she could do something special for the friend who had helped her through one of the toughest periods of her life.

I decided to pay for her wedding.

It would be a small event, but I would make sure the decorations and her dress were as dreamy as she had always wanted.

I still had the money I had saved for my wedding and as stupid as it may sound, back then I was sure those final days with Mindy would be worth gold when she was gone.

Her illness made me realize there are worse things in this life other than being unceremoniously dumped by my ex.

I threw myself into it. I was also happy and hopeful, as Mindy was able to go to her chemo sessions by herself without becoming too sick. She also looked much better than other patients.

Their friend group was also doing everything they could to help Mindy.

Our group of friends also helped her a lot. There was not a day when someone would not bring her groceries or help pay for a random utility bill as she was now out of work.

I had initially offered to help her setup a better health insurance plan but she declined (pay attention to this, more on this later).

So I decided not to intrude and give her the fairy tale wedding (or as close to it that I could) that she wanted.She had picked a nice rental dress and tiara.

The florist was to accommodate her taste and create an indoor garden (the venue would be my apartment). The baker had been retained for a 6 tier wedding cake.

There would be 35 people. With tables, an aisle and a musician to play some music (we could not do the loud disc jockey thing).

Then one day OP saw a face from her past that almost sent her spiraling.

Now, back to the insurance issue. My first job was as a junior sales executive for a health insurance company.

There was a legal dispute against another insurer and I was called in by the court to be a witness. As I was getting cleared to enter the building, I saw my ex.

My stomach churned. I immediately thought “ courtroom wedding”. By the time I reached the elevator, he had already vanished.

I contacted a good friend who I knew was doing her law internship at the court district. She helped me by checking any legal records regarding my ex.

No court wedding ( I was relieved, I know it sounds silly), but there was a fraud claim and he was the plaintiff. I didn’t make much of it but it was strange.

He was very smart and getting screwed out of his money sounded too uncharacteristic.

Meanwhile, OP’s attempts to get health insurance for Mindy was yielding some troubling findings.

I still wanted to help Mindy and tried to set her up with a good insurance plan. I knew it was difficult given that companies treat terminal patients as money dumping risks.

I pleaded with my old boss and he searched her name but she was not in the company database.

Maybe she was using a different insurer, but that was odd because she clearly told me what her insurance company was.

I felt guilty because I was kind of snooping.

Then, OP received some bombshell information that left her questioning EVERYTHING.

Things were normal for a month, until my friend at the courthouse broke some disgusting news.

The defendant in my ex’s lawsuit was my best friend, Mindy.

She then disclosed that the case had become “popular gossip” among courtroom clerks because my ex had fallen for a complicated Cupid scam.

As it turned out, Mindy and my ex had an illicit love affair behind George’s back and mine. It spanned a full year. And she was not “out of work”.

She had been fired for embezzlement and larceny.

But this was only the half of Mindy’s insane scamming.

She had been moving apartments, but I thought it was because had been trying to save on rent, so she had kept looking for cheaper and cheaper places.

She moved around towns in the same city. First she took my ex’s money for some “investment” and she used her former employer’s credibility for it.

Then she got him to help her with “medical bills”, and scammed him out of close to 20,000. Her illness was fake.

And with her world shattered, OP needed to get to the bottom of all of this.

I avoided her for a week.

I hired a PI to help me get whatever I could, without much hope as their affair had ended. The PI managed to help me get some closure.

His name was on her lease for a small studio. Everyone in the building thought they were a couple. It was their love nest and it was 2 hours away.

I never suspected anything. But apparently, he had been lying to me about his actual working hours.

He had also helped cover for her car payment at least 6 times in a year. She had my ex as her sugar daddy.

She had seen me cry, puke, curl on my bed and had broken the news that he had someone else: herself.

I just got chills, is this woman the devil herself? And not even to mention poor George!

My ex seemed salty over the fact that she had chosen to stick with George. It was simple math.

My ex was very successful but George, although not wealthy yet, had become a physician and was spoken for to start a small practice with a potential partner.

She upped and left and cheated him out of money along the way. Apparently my ex figured out she had been lying about her condition.

The disgust, pain and disappointment hit me fairly hard.

But somehow, I had so heavily invested myself in helping her that I had emptied myself of any potential nerve wrecking reaction. I was numb.

Before it was too late, OP took every penny she had paid for Mindy’s wedding back, and decided to break the news to George.

I went straight to all the wedding vendors and cancelled before it was too late to get my money back. I defunded her wedding.

No cake, no dress and no veil. I sat down with George on a Friday afternoon and offered him all evidence and proof.

He cried, but at the end admitted to feel painfully relieved. Yes, he loved her, but he had felt pressured to get married.

But George confessed he himself  had noticed quite a few discrepancies in Mindy’s story.

He confessed to many red flags: she always went to her medical appointments by herself and became irritated if he asked too many questions.

She had shown him some test results that were incredibly well crafted but now knowing what she had done he thought the medical documents could be fake.

He confirmed that the sneaky way: having his nurse ex roommate run her name in the computer at where she claimed to be her doctor’s office.
We also suspected that she may have been having a new affair as she spent more and more weekends with her all girls church camping group.

She claimed it was her sanctuary and helped her a lot. It may have been a front.

Having realized Mindy’s betrayal, George and OP were now in cahoots.

George and I accepted the fact that we had been cheated, taken advantage of and emotionally destroyed by the same person.

I personally felt a loss of innocence. Now I understood why she wanted to keep her wedding thing almost a secret.

It may have been possible that making it public may have blown her cover, one way or the other. George and I decided to do “what was right”.

And with the combined rage of a betrayed lover and a betrayed best friend, they decided to get even in the most brilliant way!

I paid for a “video tribute” to my “loyal” friend and decided to send it to the local news as the “heartwarming story of love and healing”.

It featured her and George’s apartment compound on purpose so that everyone wanting to serve her court papers could find her.

It was an agonizing week. The news weren’t showing our “positive note” yet and we were sick with the waiting. But It all blew up on Tuesday morning.

The news channel enthusiastically showcased our story with a collage and lots of information about how she was about to get married and had almost already “beaten cancer”.

Soon Mindy’s victims started popping out of the woodwork!

Dozens of “ill spoken” haters popped from out of nowhere. As it turns out, this had been her second “illness story”.

I never knew someone so close to me could lead such a scummy double life. My ex went straight to the channel and was interviewed.

It was pathetic! He poured his heart out about how crazy in love he had been and how she had only used him.

I think by then he didn’t care if all our friends and families found out what he had done.

With the storm of her consequences incoming, George decided to confront her head-on.

George confronted her with all the information. She denied it, then said it was a lapse of “bad judgement”. She moved out without too much drama.

It took George over a decade to forgive himself for allowing someone to make him look so stupid as a person and as a physician.

She left me some voicemails with lots of excuses.

I picked the phone only once and told her I had defunded and pulverized her wedding and that it was me who told George what was going on.

I used a level voice to tell her to never call me again unless she wanted to find out how far I would go to see her pay for her unlawful actions.

I cried immediately after I hung up. It was so surreal.

And in an incredible silver-lining to this tale of betrayal, George and OP actually found happiness together!

George and I slowly found normality. But it took some time. He dated a couple of girls here and there but was not ready. I myself became shut down.

She avoided jail I don’t know how, even when our mutual friends filed petty claims for all the money they invested buying her stuff while she carried on her false pretenses.

Eventually, I used the “wedding money” to partner with George and we opened a small clinic.

Best decision ever! Over the years, George and I became best friends and grew closer. We got married some years ago and are proud parents to a happy family.

Wow, talk about an emotional rollercoaster! Mindy sounds like a straight up sociopath, straight out of Criminal Minds!

Just goes to show you that you never really know someone as well as you think you do, huh?

Reddit was absolutely blown away by this story, but many were quick to point out OP got a husband out of the whole ordeal!

Source: Reddit/AITA

Many were reminded of their own manipulative and sociopathic relationships.

Source: Reddit/AITA

This user said not only did OP get revenge, but she won, especially by getting George for herself!

Source: Reddit/AITA

Many Redditors wondered what type of person could comfort someone who they had secretly caused so much pain.

Source: Reddit/AITA

And finally, this user said they didn’t know which was this story was heading until the very end!

Source: Reddit/AITA

Props to OP, because if my sister/best friend betrayed me this hard, I don’t know if I could ever trust anyone again!

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.