I’ll try to keep the context brief, because this is a long story. Essentially, I (26F) have a close friend “Rose” (25F) and another friend “Luke” (26M). A while ago, Luke introduced us to his childhood friend “John” (26M), and he and Rose hit it off. However, they fell into a hot and cold situationship that dragged on for months until John broke it off. She vented to us about everything and to be clear, there was no abuse of any kind between them. He just led her on and she kept waiting for him, but it became clear that he was wishy washy. She would ask him what they were, he’d say some excuse like “I really like you but IDK if I’m ready”, and then still see her exclusively and often (I mean multiple dates a week). It wasn’t a good way to handle things, but he knew he messed up and tried to end it diplomatically.

Anyway, Rose has had a tough time getting over John. The relationship was mutually unhealthy; John couldn’t make up his mind, and Rose kept getting angry at him for not making things official but she wouldn’t break it off. Vicious cycle.

Since John is still Luke’s childhood best friend, Rose had no problem with the two of them maintaining their friendship. She also told me that she didn’t mind if I kept in touch since we had become friends as well. I would text John occasionally to check in and see how he’s doing, but nothing beyond those brief conversations. I just wanted to keep in touch because we were still friendly and he and Luke are so close. Kind of a “close acquaintance” level of friends.

Onto the actual conflict. A few days ago, Rose was hanging out with me and I left to go pick up food. While I was gone, she apparently noticed a message from John pop up on my phone. She decided to open it (my passcode is too obvious) and ended up reading EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE we had ever sent to each other. This wasn’t great, because in the past John had told me about trying to break things off but being nervous that Rose would blow up at him. I validated his perspective in those texts because I agreed with him on certain things, but I never “trash talked” or insulted Rose. I just agreed that she could get disproportionately upset sometimes (she has been like that forever) and it was reasonable of him to be nervous. These convos were from months ago.

When I got back home, Rose was waiting for me with her arms crossed and started asking me about the messages. I understood why she was upset, but I felt really violated about her going through my phone. Checking that text would’ve been one thing, but our entire chat history? I just felt like she was really overstepping and I would never go through someone’s phone like that unless there was some kind of dire circumstance.

Rose was furious that I didn’t “defend her” in my past conversations with John, and I didn’t even know what to say. Sometimes I had agreed with her, sometimes I agreed with him. It was a messy situation and I had simply tried to advise him in those moments.

What’s worse, she found out through our texts that John was invited to one of my upcoming birthday celebrations (NOT the one Rose was going to; I was trying to please everyone by throwing separate events). Admittedly, I should have just told her upfront about this, but I was afraid of her reaction. Since she had no issue with me keeping in touch, I figured I could invite him to one of my parties, but I shouldn’t have done it behind her back. She was so hurt and frustrated (basically saying I’ve been lying to her and our friendship has been a facade) that I uninvited John on the spot to show that I cared about her feelings and made a mistake. (I know that’s an asshole move to John and I tried my best to explain things but it still wasn’t right of me.)

I didn’t even get a chance to express my feelings about the phone because she was so upset, I knew I just needed to apologize to her. Does she have any right to be angry at me, or is it worse that she went through my phone without my consent? It’s a complicated situation and I feel like I didn’t get a chance to be upset that she snooped.