full image - Repost: AITAH: For being seriously confrontational with my neighbor about his potential pedophilia? (from Reddit.com, AITAH: For being seriously confrontational with my neighbor about his potential pedophilia? )
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I've lived in this area of town for almost three years now. We moved into our house in September of 2022, and the first friend I made was the wife of the couple across the street. She basically met me at the end of the driveway while I was unpacking the last of my boxes. She was holding a brand-new baby girl and introduced herself very kindly with assertion that she wanted to become friends. I took it very seriously and sent my husband over with a box of brand-new clothes that didn't fit me (I do that stupid thing girls do from time to time, where I buy motivational clothes with intention to work my way into them-never works), and a batch of cookies. The couple seemed super awesome. That year's holiday season was spent seriously investing in our friendship. I would go over to their house (well established security and locks), and she was always welcome to my house and a lot of the time would enter without knocking. I never once felt like telling her no. I came to know a lot of things about them. First, and this was a direct informant from the husband one night in October. I went and sat on the floor next to his armchair as he was watching some behind the scenes documentary for Poltergeist, and I asked him how he and his wife had met. He told me that she was 17 (I believe he was in his early 30's in commonplace), and that when they met she was outwardly gay. She had a girlfriend, and he somehow got her to give it up for a crazy sex life with him (His words). At that, I honestly knew it was a small red flag; but because they were so very much in line with the normal suburban lifestyle, with three kids and a great set up (with the minor exception that they were renting out the back part of the house and the garage to two families). I saw nothing wrong, and I really have zero call on judgment anyway. I mean, I cashed in my V card when I was 14 two months before I got baptized who am I to say a damn thing.Well, the next year came, and it brought huge conflicts. For example, I'm a Latter Day Saint and we have very stringent beliefs on baptism (we don't think you should be baptizing your kid until he/she can make sense of it, we feel the age of consent is 8); but we also have strict protocol on minding your own business and allowing people to do what they do. Well, the wife started taking more interest in the way my family works religiously and was very up front about liking all of our ethics (praying together as a family, going to church.. yada, yada). She hits me up one day and asks me if I can help her fill out the paperwork to get her little girl Baptized into the Catholic faith. I told her I would help, but really those questions about her faith and what she believes needed to come from her. She really strong armed me into answering the questions myself because I understood the language, which made me feel really weird and gross. Still my choice. I let it go, because we were close enough. She asked me to take pictures at the baptism. I did. It was honestly wonderful to see everyone in her family honoring this (honestly beautiful) tradition. It was awesome. Then everyone went back to the house after the baptism, and I noticed another minor red flag. During the couples party hard/sex orgies period of their marriage (long before the kids were born) the wife had a horrible accident revolving around addiction and alcohol. She fell asleep one night on her leg for a long enough time that it lost circulation and curated a horrifying infection. They had to cut a huge chunk of her leg out and it almost killed her. She was and still is on strict physician command to not drink at all, and she's on medication for the cravings that her husband adamantly gives her. After the baptism, I saw her husband break open a bottle of vodka from a huge stash underneath the fish tank and hand rounds to everyone, including her. I was just like, whatever... again, no judgment. It's a little effed up that he's the one medicating her for something that he's bringing into the house... but whatever, it's only a red flag to me because I grew up watching the movie Drop Dead Fred and studied psychology my freshman year. It will always be a bit disturbing when someone medicates someone for the poison they bring in. Whatever.So then we get to around Mother's Day, and I let her in on the fact that I'm having minor marital problems with my husband's superficiality and disregard for my need for personal time (I regret this, things have since gotten much better and I will never be that vulnerable with anyone other than my therapist ever again), she then went into this weird mental state of women's empowerment fight attitude. (I feel like this is my fault, because when you talk up how you're going to handle something that is very intimate like marital conflict with someone who is very much an addictive personality sometimes there can be this construct of adapting to the high that comes from the idea of mimicking another person's situation. It didn't help that she would go for the jugular with him for no reason and then come back and tell me. In other words, I should have kept my business my business.) She went back home and started acting up towards her husband, and it became this crazy escalation that I checked out of mostly because of what happened on Mother's day. Her son came over and jumped on my son's arm, via trampoline. I spent all of Mother's day eve and Mother's Day trying to get a broken arm set and in a cast. We didn't talk for a hot minute after that.The school year and a mass of personal conflicts kept us distant from each other until the end of 2023. Then we spent Halloween together as was tradition, but it was very, again... touch and go. Then 2024 came, and she came over to inform me that she and her husband weren't together. No separation or divorce papers had been signed, but she put me in the know that he had a mistress who was very small (looks like a 12-year-old, acts like a 15-year-old) who he had met online, and he told her she needed to be ok with it. Internally: "That dudes a F**king a**hole, and needs his d**K cut off and shoved down his throat."Externally: "I am so sorry you are going through this, if you need anything I am here." Well, she fell back into addiction and apparently her husband had gone to the hired help they had acquired to help renovate the garage into a rentable apartment space (an old friend), and said, "Hey, if you want my wife, you can have her." They tried to hit it off, but it becomes abusive very quickly because they're both addicts and rip each other right back into the worst of positions while also trying to cohabit in that house with her ex-husband and his mistress. Whatever.I tried so hard to keep my distance from all of this, except when I would be called over for emergency situations like her having a fall (because the relapse into addiction caused her health to decline and be stuck on crutches); or when they needed a baby sitter for their little girl (so that they could bang-which was disgusting to be told after the fact), or when there was a random incident where she threw herself into the new dude and made it look like he knocked her down. I took a huge step back (A. My mother raised me in the drug world, and I have no time or tolerance for that in my life. B. Because any help in those situations is easily manipulated into enablement and I don't have time for that either)Then September 2024 hits and they have moved her (the former wife) out completely and she now lives with her parents. The kids stay with her, and they moved this very sweet (gorgeous, and kind and lovable) black guy who has a background in social service. Like endless superhero credentials- works with the youth in LA, kicks so much ass as a person. He and I get super close, I invite him over for Thanksgiving. I give him a Book of Mormon, he comes to church, he's seriously trying to get his life together, and things are looking up. Then Christmas eve happens, and by this time you should know that he has vented to me a ton about what a BITCH the new girl is (The 12-year-old looking concubine who the husband was banging within earshot of his basically disabled wife), and I told him that I'd throw hands if she got too nasty with him, but he sent me a message on Christmas eve informing me that he was having a really hard time. He missed his children, and he felt he was on the verge of a mental break. I told him that it would be ok, and if he needed to come over and get out of the head space, he was welcome. Then he sent me another random message that said, "And last night I overheard a fight about someone finding kiddie porn on someone's laptop. Please don't tell anyone." *Record Scratch*I lost my absolute shit. I lost my mind. I went into psychopath mode. I called the mother, and I ripped into her. I asked her if she knew anything, and the suspicious reactions were endless. I told her she needed to go get his laptop, not say a word, grab it and take it to the police. Do you think she did that? No.... she confronted her ex-grooming piece of shit husband, and he said, "no, she just caught me liking someone's child's photo on Facebook" ....They then turned the tables on the roommate (the one who informed me) and kicked him out. He now hates my guts, and I completely understand. Then she decides to bring all the of kids into my home to show them to me, while she was absolutely tweaking and with a fresh face that had been picked at endlessly. I should have known better. I deleted the entire family from all of my social networking. I flip off their security camera every time I drive past. I also told my neighbor to my right about why my Christmas was absolute hell, and she told another neighbor who then confronted the husband and apparently over this past weekend the husband had a heart attack over it. All I know, is that I fuckin' hate the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor, and it's going to be a problem for me for me until the Savior shows his face. I don't think I acted properly at all, and I hate to high hell that this was a life lesson I even had to endure. Any advice on how to handle it in the future would be lovely.
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