Background: My best friend Terese(39F) and I (35F) have been friends for 7 years, bonding when we had our daughters a the same time (both 6F) they have become best friends. Her partner Kyle(41m) is my friend from my ex husband (39m) and I have known Kyle 12 years. He is also my other friends Saras (39f) brother. Kyle has been with my closer friend group for 7 of those years. Terese and kyle are childhood sweethearts and rekindled 7 years ago. We had always hung out as two couples. I had seperated from my husband early 2024. They were on and off the past year but ended officially December 2025. Custody of our kids ended up being opposite weekends to eachother as her ex kyle has previous kids.

Problem started when I had to see Kyle alone so we can have our girls spend time together. So this was the first time we had not seen eachother outside our friendship group. We just chatted while our kids played. A week later we had a cyclone in our city and my back fence was broken so I asked Terese if I could ask her landscape carpenter ex Kyle to help me fix it. She said no problem. And I asked him directly. It took a few weeks but we agreed on a day we both had off. He came and fixed the fence and left. The afternoon he messaged and asked if I wanted to have coffee with him as I was really easy to talk to.

I was a little taken back but assumed he meant he needed someone to talk to as he didn't have any friends that knows what's going on with everything. I lied and said I had to work because I only wanted to see him around the kids, but if he wanted to get coffee another time if he needed to talk let me know.

A week later school holidays are up and again unfortunately we had the kids in the same week as her ex. So my daughter nagged me to see her best friend so I messaged him to ask to go to a local playground so they can play. He agreed.

This is where i went wrong i believe, That afternoon, Kyle randomly messaged me saying I know we don't have the kids tonight do you want to hang out. I reluctant agreed seeing what he wanted to do. said dinner at the pub. And after asking what tine kyle added he would pick me up at 6.

This ending comment made me feel a little uneasy but did not want to jump to conclusions and rang the guy im seeing Mitch (35m) and asked his opinion. He said just make it clear its as friends and see how he reacts. I rang my friend terese and told her what happend and just to let her know before she thought anything of it. Terese told me she had a fight with Kyle earlier that very day after finding out we had planned a play date and warned him of not trying to hook up with me. This was a shock to me and I felt angry that his first thought was to ask me out alone. I told him just to make sure u know its just friends and you need to talk. KY kyle cancelled. Shocker. I rang Terese back and caught her up. She said she didn't mind us being friends but not to hook up with him. As this wasn't even going through my mind I didn't think much of it. But angry that he could be getting the wrong idea.

The next day terese messaged me and said she cannot be my friend anymore and that I have been hiding seeing Kyle behind her back and a friend wouldn't do that. I was shocked as I hadn't seen him without her knowledge and as far as I knew she didn't care if I were friends with him. She got the other girls in my group (2others which are also his sisters sarah and Nina) against me now and they all have stopped talking to me. I have found out since he told all three that we had gone for a coffee together to chat (which is not true at all) But I have not thought of him like that at all and I felt blindsighted and stupid I did not see that he was hitting on me to get back at her. If that is what was going on.

AITH for talking to my friends ex even though she said she was ok with us being friends?