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Woman Livid After Cheating Ex Sends ‘Olive Branch’ Birthday Gift To Her Party Via Mutual Friend

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Establishing boundaries after a breakup is an important step towards moving on.

It is hard when both parties share mutual friends, but those boundaries need to be respected.

Redditor Wonder_Electrical encountered this very issue with her ex. So she turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.

She asked:

“AITA for kicking someone out of my birthday party for bringing an unwanted gift?”

The Original Poster (OP) explained:

“So, here’s the backstory: me (30F) and my ex (32M) ‘Tony’ broke up eight months ago.”

“The reason for this breakup was that I was fairly certain he was cheating on me with one of his friends ‘Tammy.’ He denied it, but honestly even if he wasn’t actively cheating, he was not invested in the relationship anymore because it was obvious he had fallen for her.”

“Lo and behold, after our breakup, I moved out and he almost immediately got together with Tammy.”

“Now, I’m trying to be the bigger person and move the hell on with my life, but for some reason both of them won’t really let me do that.”

“Tammy sends me memes, invites me to things, and when I tell her ‘no’ or ignore her messages, my ex decides it’s his turn to tell me I’m being mean to Tammy for no reason.”

“To be clear: I’m not asking if I’m the AH compared to Tony and Tammy, because I know I’m not. They’re being absolutely ridiculous.”

OP explained what happened on her birthday.

“My question is: this last weekend was my 30th birthday party, aka a get-together at a bar with some friends of mine.”

“The grapevine does its magic and somehow Tammy finds out it’s happening and asks if she can come. ‘No, you cannot.’ Cue Tony poo-pooing me. I finally work up the nerve to block them both on every social media platform I can.”

“I told my guests, ‘Hey, if Tony and/or Tammy show up, I’m making them leave.’ My 5 or 6 friends know them both and know the situation I’m in here.”

“So, Tony and Tammy don’t show up, but you know what does? A personalized gift from Tammy that a different friend decided to bring on her behalf.”

“Nobody else brought a gift!”

“We were meeting at a bar! This friend (let’s say he’s ‘Roger’) brought the gift in a bag and told me to ‘extend the olive branch.’ To which I said, ‘No effing way,’ threw the gift in a trash can and told him that he can go home.”

OP was rightfully upset.

“I was so angry that it took a couple of minutes for me to calm down, but he ended up leaving in a big huff.”

“The rest of the night was as good as can be expected but I’m still very upset with Roger for doing this when I think it’s abundantly clear that I don’t want any contact with my ex and his girlfriend.”

“Am I actually an AH for not only rejecting the gift and kicking him out? Am I losing my damn mind to this problem?”

“TL;DR: My ex and his new gf for some reason want to stay in contact with me, and I want nothing to do with them. After blocking them online, AITA for refusing a gift from them and kicking out a friend of mine who presented the gift to me?”

Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:

  • NTA – Not The A**hole
  • YTA – You’re The A**hole
  • NAH – No A**holes Here
  • ESH – Everyone Sucks Here

Most Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.

“NTA, they need to leave you the hell alone. Who the hell does she think he is and who the hell does ‘Roger’ think he is? This just seems ridiculous, if someone doesn’t want anything to do with you, why force it?” ~ zara_moon

“Yeah, this is insane. What Roger did was extremely foolish, and Tammy and Tony in general seem horrible. I don’t think anyone would go to such lengths unless it’s to intentionally piss OP off.” ~ javier_mex

“I definitely had an ex-boyfriend try to push me into thinking our breakup was amicable when it wasn’t. He was incredibly put out that I refused.” ~ BroadElderberry

“Being the salty, bitter woman I am, my brain immediately went to Tammy sending the gift knowing it would upset OP and ruin her birthday without Tammy even having to leave her house. But guilt also makes people do crazy shit, so…” ~ cdaisycrochet

OP doesn’t owe her ex anything.

“NTA Yep, that’s where my mind went too. It’s not OP’s job to absolve them of their guilt, that’s their own mess to deal with.” ~ Dewhickey76

“Yep. Tammy has a guilty conscience and the only way to make herself feel better about cheating with a guy in a relationship is to be ‘all right’ with the former girlfriend.”

“It is pretty obvious Tammy is driving the interactions while Tony is just going with whatever makes her happy as he seems to feel no guilt at all.”

“NTA OP, Roger totally overstepped and deserved to be tossed out. I can’t imagine how he thought that would go any differently and I hope the rest of your friend’s group has your back.” ~ PokeyWeirdo12

“One hundred percent this. The girl my ex cheated on me with attempted to do exactly this with me until I called her on it, and then she made it her mission to tell everyone in my life what a horrible person I was” ~ Blackmaille

“Yeah, Roger probably meant well, but he leaned a valuable lesson about being someone else’s flying monkey.”

“OP did nothIng wrong. It a clear-cut case of enforcing healthy boundaries. Roger had already been told where they were and he thought his enduring belief in the power of love meant that he knew better than OP and he was excepted from the boundaries.” ~ Noirceuil_182

“I was going to comment something similar. This screams of trying too hard to make amends out of guilt. Would not surprise me if they were already cheating by the time OP ended up ending the relationship. Now they’re trying to clear their conscience.” ~ noblestromana

Why would OP want to maintain a relationship with her ex?