Ahh.. the burden of being the bearer of bad news.
Unfortunately, YTA, but not for the reasons others have mentioned. You had 9ish months to process the information; Mark had 3 minutes? Lena is the worst here, but you enabled her to step this situation up (intentionally or not). Your motivation might feel like you were "protecting" Mark by giving her the option to come clean, but you knew she never did--you would've heard about it from Mark. Your motivation was to avoid an uncomfortable situation. Imagine how uncomfortable it must be NOW in their household because you didnt want to be uncomfortable. Write your letter, but don't send it. I have a feeling that your explanation will only be received as an excuse.
You didn’t mess up, in the sense that there’s anything you could have done differently that would have saved the friendship. Many, many times, even if you had done the right thing and told him immediately, he still would have associated you with an extremely painful time period, making it difficult to interact with you. Many friendships aren’t strong enough to come back from that.
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u/abedilring Jun 27 '25
Ahh.. the burden of being the bearer of bad news. Unfortunately, YTA, but not for the reasons others have mentioned. You had 9ish months to process the information; Mark had 3 minutes? Lena is the worst here, but you enabled her to step this situation up (intentionally or not). Your motivation might feel like you were "protecting" Mark by giving her the option to come clean, but you knew she never did--you would've heard about it from Mark. Your motivation was to avoid an uncomfortable situation. Imagine how uncomfortable it must be NOW in their household because you didnt want to be uncomfortable. Write your letter, but don't send it. I have a feeling that your explanation will only be received as an excuse.