My Best Friend Of 15 Years Thinks My Boyfriend Is Her Soulmate. She Crashed His Family Dinner And Refused To Leave. Am I Losing My Best Friend Or My Mind?

A Glimmer of Hope

It was sad in a way but also felt stable and safe and I was grateful these friends had stuck around after everything got messy. 4 days later I got a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

My stomach dropped before I even opened it because unknown numbers meant potential violation and more legal drama. But when I read the message it was from Jasmine’s mom using a new phone number.

She said she wanted to update me on Jasmine’s treatment and asked if I was willing to hear it. I called Alex before responding and we decided together that hearing updates from her parents were different from contact with Jasmine herself.

I texted back that I was willing to listen and Jasmine’s mom called me within minutes. Her voice sounded tired but also cautiously hopeful when she explained that Jasmine was responding to medication and starting to have moments of clarity.

I asked what that meant and she said Jasmine had stopped insisting that Alex was in love with her, which was huge progress even if it seemed like a small thing. She explained that Jasmine still struggled to accept full responsibility for what happened and sometimes slipped back into thinking everyone was against her.

But there were moments now where Jasmine acknowledged that her thoughts about Alex weren’t based in reality and that was more progress than they’d seen in months. I asked if Jasmine had said anything about me and her mom paused before saying Jasmine remembered our friendship but couldn’t quite reconcile the person she remembered with the person who got a restraining order.

I told her I understood and thanked her for the update. After we hung up I felt this complicated mix of relief that Jasmine might be getting better and sadness that even with treatment she might never fully understand what she put us through.

The following Sunday Alex’s parents invited us over for dinner. I felt nervous driving to their house because the last time we’d been there Jasmine was sitting on their porch refusing to leave.

But when we arrived everything was calm and normal. His mom answered the door with a smile and his dad was in the kitchen making Alex’s favorite pot roast.

We sat at the same dining room table where the crisis had happened months ago but this time we talked about regular things like Alex’s work and his mom’s book club and plans for the holidays. His mom had made mashed potatoes exactly how Alex liked them and there was apple pie for dessert.

We laughed about silly things and his dad told stories about Alex as a kid that made everyone crack up. The whole evening felt peaceful in a way that seemed almost miraculous after months of chaos and fear.

When we were leaving Alex’s mom hugged me tight and whispered that she was glad we were safe now. Driving home I realized how much I’d missed normal family dinners where the biggest stress was whether there would be enough dessert.

The absence of crisis felt like the greatest gift anyone could have given us. 4 months after the hearing Alex surprised me by suggesting we take a weekend trip to the beach.

We hadn’t left town since everything started with Jasmine because staying local felt safer and we could respond quickly if something happened. But Alex said he was tired of letting fear control our choices and he wanted to do something normal that couples our age did.

I agreed immediately because I’d been craving a break from all the locations tied to the stalking. We drove 3 hours to a beach town neither of us had been to before and checked into a small hotel near the water.

Walking on the sand that first evening felt incredibly freeing because Jasmine didn’t know we were there and couldn’t show up unexpectedly. We could just exist without constantly scanning our surroundings for threats.

That night we had dinner at a seafood restaurant and Alex seemed more relaxed than I’d seen him in almost a year. We talked about things that had nothing to do with restraining orders or court hearings or mental illness.

We made plans for where else we wanted to travel and what we wanted to do next summer. It felt like reclaiming our relationship from the shadow Jasmine’s delusion had cast over everything.

Choosing the Future

On our second day at the beach, Alex and I were walking along the shore when he stopped and turned to face me. The sun was setting behind him and his expression was serious but not worried.

He said he’d been thinking a lot about our relationship and what he wanted for our future. I felt my heart speed up because serious conversations could go either direction but then he smiled and said he wanted to move forward instead of letting what happened define us forever.

He talked about maybe moving in together next year when my lease was up. He mentioned places he wanted to travel with me and things he wanted us to experience together.

He said he was tired of making decisions based on fear and wanted to start building the life we actually wanted instead of the one Jasmine’s stalking had forced us into. I felt tears in my eyes but good ones this time because I wanted all of those things too.

We’d spent so long in survival mode that I’d almost forgotten we were supposed to be building something together. Standing there on the beach with Alex talking about our future felt like coming back to life after months of just trying to get through each day.

Driving home from the beach on Sunday afternoon I realized something had shifted inside me. For the first time in months, I felt actually excited about the future instead of just relieved that each day passed without incident.

The trauma of everything that happened would always be part of our story and I’d probably always have moments of looking over my shoulder or feeling anxious when I saw someone who looked like Jasmine. But sitting in the car with Alex discussing which furniture we’d keep if we moved in together and debating whether we wanted a one-bedroom or two, I understood that what happened didn’t have to be the whole story.

We got to decide what came next and that power felt significant after months of reacting to someone else’s delusions. The restraining order still had over 2 years left and Jasmine was still in treatment with an uncertain outcome but Alex and I were building something that belonged to just us and that felt like taking back control of our lives.

5 months after the restraining order started, my phone rang while I was making breakfast and the caller ID showed it was her dad. My stomach dropped because we hadn’t talked since the courthouse hallway when he apologized for not seeing the signs sooner.

I answered and he sounded tired but less panicked than the last time we spoke. He told me he wanted to give me an update about how things were going with treatment.

His voice was careful like he was worried about upsetting me but he said something had shifted in the past few weeks that felt significant. She had finally accepted that she needed professional help instead of insisting everyone else was wrong.

He explained she was working with a psychiatrist who specialized in delusional disorders and the doctor had her on medication that seemed to be helping. The progress was slow and there were still bad days where old thought patterns came back but she was starting to understand that what she believed about Alex wasn’t based in reality.

I stood there holding the phone and feeling this weird mix of relief and sadness because part of me had wondered if she’d ever get better. He said the psychiatrist explained it might take years of consistent treatment and even then recovery wasn’t guaranteed but at least she was trying now instead of fighting everyone.

I asked the question that had been sitting in my chest for months: whether she had said anything about me or our friendship. There was this long pause on the other end of the line and I could hear him breathing.

He finally said she had expressed regret about losing the friendship but still struggled to fully accept her role in what happened. She knew things went wrong but couldn’t quite connect her actions to the consequences in a way that showed real understanding.

He said the psychiatrist was working on that part specifically because accepting responsibility was crucial for actual recovery. His voice got quieter when he said maybe someday she’d be healthy enough to make real amends but that was years away if it happened at all.

He wasn’t asking me to forgive her or wait around for an apology that might never come. He just wanted me to know she wasn’t the same person who showed up at Sunday dinner anymore even if she wasn’t fully well yet either.

I thanked him for calling and told him I hoped treatment continued helping her. After we hung up I sat at my kitchen table for a long time thinking about the friend I used to know and the stranger she became.

That evening Alex came over and I told him about the phone call. We ended up having this long conversation about whether we’d ever accept an apology from her if she offered one in the future.

Alex said he’d been thinking about it too because part of moving forward meant deciding what forgiveness looked like for us. He said he could probably forgive her someday for what she put us through especially now that we knew it was a genuine mental illness and not just manipulation.

But forgiveness didn’t mean going back to how things were before or letting her back into our lives. I agreed completely because even if she got healthy and understood what she did, the damage to our friendship was permanent.

Too much had happened and too much trust had been broken. We both felt okay with that boundary and it felt good to be on the same page about it.

Alex said he didn’t want to carry anger forever but he also didn’t want to pretend everything could be fixed with an apology. I realized that’s exactly how I felt too, like we could let go of the worst feelings without opening ourselves up to being hurt again.

We talked about how strange it was that someone we cared about became someone we needed legal protection from and how that grief was separate from the relief of being safe now.