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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that when you've got a trail of people in your past who you've fallen out with, chances are your the one with the issue?

171 replies

JellyDiamonds · 18/02/2015 12:31

I am referring to a specific person here. Doesn't speak to various family member due to a falling out, fair enough it happens. But this person has also fallen out with numerous friends over the years, has many acrimonious and broken relationships and has either walked out of or been sacked from every single job they've ever had.

This person has a real woe is me attitude, "it's not fair, everyone I meet turns on me", but the thing is not hard to see why. They are overbearing, bossy, they undermine people, take offence over the most ridiculous things, hold grudges etc. I've also witnessed some rather unpleasant behaviour regarding this person completely freezing someone else out for no other reason than the fact they dared to disagree on something. The other person was genuinely distraught over this and still is. But the protagonist in this story is playing the victim once again....

As someone who can count on one hand the number of people I've genuinely fallen out with in my 30 years on this earth and I'm going right back to childhood, and as someone who also can't be arsed with grudges, I think it's unlikely in this scenario that the other people are the ones to blame.

Apologies for being cryptic but I'm taking about someone specific here.

OP posts:
HowCanIMissYouIfYouWontGoAway · 18/02/2015 12:32

odds are it's them.

I mean, there's only so many people you can go through before you have to at least consider the possibility that you're the problem. Grin

Original poster
JellyDiamonds · 18/02/2015 12:40

I would agree, however this person has a real victim mentality and genuinely feels that everyone else is against then. If anyone were to suggest that maybe it's them with the problem the we'd probably be on the receiving end of being frozen out as well.

OP posts:
FarFromAnyRoad · 18/02/2015 12:41

Yes - I know someone like this only she never feels sorry for herself. She does blame others but never herself and her adult life is a long line of broken friendships, failed marriage, estranged family but I really don't think that deep down she actually cares. I think she has sociopathic tendencies - or some other issue. She hurls herself from one interest to the next spending thousands on a 'thing' then just walking away from the wreckage to the next craze and so it goes on. Same with her friends. From one BFF to another and another and so on. Can't say I'd be happy like that but she doesn't seem to mind at all.

HowCanIMissYouIfYouWontGoAway · 18/02/2015 12:45

yeah, people who are like this never take a look at themselves. It's always someone else's fault. Never responsible for anything, ever.

How, er, how much are you against actually getting frozen out...

Grin
LlamaLove · 18/02/2015 12:48

Yes my MIL is like this exactly and now she is widowed pays the poor lonely old me card.

I have no sympathy with her whatsoever. Over 20 years I have watched her be vile to so many people.

Of course - its everyone elses fault and absolutely nothing to do with her!

Jubublian · 18/02/2015 12:49

JellyDiamonds you could be talking about an old friend of mine. I dared speak against her and we are friends no longer! Professional victim with no idea that she's certifiable.

Miggsie · 18/02/2015 12:50

Sadly such people have NO self awareness and wouldn't be able to develop it either.
They downplay their own part in anything. They get stuck emotionally at 4 years old and are emotionally exhausting.

NoStrange · 18/02/2015 12:50

In the case of the person in your OP, it does seem like her attitude might be the problem.

More generally, in a way, YES, when you repeatedly fall out with people, it can often be an issue within you that is causing it - but I dont think that always equates to blame/its their 'fault'.

I never fell out with anyone for the first thirty years of my life because I avoided confrontation and wasnt assertive. As soon as I started to stand up for myself and draw up proper boundaries, I started to lose people from my life. I cut out a toxic step dad and his family, I lost a few friends after arguments and I walked out of two jobs when the atmosphere became vile. So, yes - its ME. I admit it. But I dont regret it a bit Grin.

sparechange · 18/02/2015 12:55

I think most people have a friend like this.
I do (using 'friend' in the loosest sense). She is either the world's unluckiest person, or brings it on herself. In 15 years of knowing her, she has never lived anywhere without falling out with her neighbours. She has never had a job where her boss hasn't been the biggest bitch/bastard in the world who had it in for her, and she has never had a relationship that didn't end in an emotional fireball because he was a total bastard that didn't deserve her.

Having now alienated most of her friends and not had a functional relationship in years, she has decided to use donor sperm to have a baby. While my normal reaction would be 'good for you', I can't help but feel when she can't form a functional relationship with another adult, she isn't best placed to bring a child into the world. Haven't told her that, obviously...

Tisiphone · 18/02/2015 12:59

Yes, it's almost certainly them in the instance you mention, but NoStrange is also right. Women are still socialised to be 'nice' and compliant, and should they decide one day to work on their assertiveness and no longer allow themselves to be exploited or sneered at by friends or family, they immediately develop a rePutation for 'being trouble'.

BeCool · 18/02/2015 13:05

In some ways wouldn't it be a relief to be "frozen out"?

YANBU & it is exhausting having people in your life like this. I guess it's a family member and you can't just dump them?

"Choose your friends wisely" is a great motto.

Stardustnight · 18/02/2015 13:08

Yeah, I think there's a good chance we ALL know someone like that!

Having said that, I do worry sometimes people might think that about me and work as I've had a real run of bad luck since starting teaching Confused I don't think it's me ... But on paper it looks like it is!

ahbollocks · 18/02/2015 13:09

Sil is like this, she CAN be funny and sweet but constantly courts drama and takes things personally, dreadfully insecure, flies into rages and holds grudges.
It is sad because she can be nice but she just causes too much shit for people to bother to stay friends with her

5Foot5 · 18/02/2015 13:10

Would it be a big loss in your life if he/she froze you out? Are you expected to listen to this person's self pitying bleats? If the answers to the above are No and Yes respectively then why don't you take your courage in your hands and tell them it how you see it?

Positives would be:
a) Satisfaction of getting it off your chest
b) Might not have to be bothered with them again if they do indeed freeze you out
c) Very unlikely but, what if it does prompt them to reconsider their behaviour and take a fresh look at things?

Negatives. None that I can think of!

Pippidoeswhatshewants · 18/02/2015 13:21

I have nothing to add, OP, other than I knew a whole family just like that!
They seemed funny and quirky to start with, but left a trail of devastation. The sad thing is that they projected this whole thing onto their children, too. They had to move away in the end. I wonder how long it will take them to fall out with everybody in the new town?

MsAspreyDiamonds · 18/02/2015 13:27

You are not talking about my cousin are you?!! She's fallen out with everyone & is completely partly responsible for the breakdown of her brother's marriage.

thatniceperson · 18/02/2015 13:32

OP is your friend my Mother?! Grin

Behindthepaintedgarden · 18/02/2015 13:32

I used to work with someone like this. Whatever area of the organisation she was sent to (and she was moved around a lot) she was bullied, exploited, someone was 'horrible' to her, etc etc etc.
She never seemed to make the connection.

chundercatsarego · 18/02/2015 13:34

My mother is like this. 6 children by 4, possibly 5 men, and it was all their fault Wink

Feel out with her parents, didn't speak to them for 10+ years when I was a kid, all their fault.

Is one of 9 siblings, fell out with all of them over the years, for periods of years- all their fault.

Is now no-contact with out of her 6 children, including me- all our fault.

Very tiresome. Especially annoying is aunts and uncles who've been burned by her but then believe the crap she comes out with about us 'kids'.....luckily my siblings and I get on well, I have brilliant friends and DH's family are lovely. I have my moments of doubt over whether things were my fault but then I look at the patterns.....it ain't me!!!

chundercatsarego · 18/02/2015 13:34

**4 out 6 children !!

LittlePeasMummy1 · 18/02/2015 13:36

This is my MIL!

TattiePants · 18/02/2015 13:36

I had a friend exactly like this but it took me quite a while to realise. We met as part of a group and she was chatty, life and soul of the party and very generous but she would tell us stories about falling out with her in laws, the neighbours, her cleaner etc. She also had no friends from her past. Then we started witnessing her falling out with others in the group because they dared to have a different opinion to her or for some perceived slight they had made. I remember her husband commenting how groups of women always end up falling out with each other or being bitchy. How I didn't say, "no it's just your wife that behaves like this."

As our children got older she got worse but was so thick skinned that she couldn't see it and there was no point in saying anything to her. As a group we avoided falling out with her but each of us just distanced ourselves and now have nothing to do with her. I am sure she thinks we are the ones in the wrong and we have pushed her out of the group. I do however feel very sorry for her children as her fallings out with people has had a huge effect on them.

dorisdaydream · 18/02/2015 13:42

I had the misfortune of getting involved with a friend like this around 2 years ago. She had recently moved to our area as apparently all her friends ganged up on her in her old home town over something silly and she wanted to start afresh....

Well since she has lived in the town where I live she must have fallen out majorly with about 10 different people, me being one of them! My 'crime' was to not be available to go out with the DCs one day when she wanted to meet up. I got a mouthfull from her and ever since then she has bitched about me to anyone that will listen. We live in a small town so it all gets back to me eventually.

Like a person that another poster has described, this woman too seems to move from BFF to BFF and then falls out with people as soon as they won't be her lap dog and won't agree with every little thing that she says. It's funny because she dishes out so much "brutal honesty" and is very nasty about others, yet is the most easily offended person that I've ever met!

She is currently BFF with a woman that was in my year at school. Current BFF is quite similar to my ex friend so I can imagine there being an enormous drama when they eventually fall out, which they will do....

TattiePants · 18/02/2015 13:45

It's funny because she dishes out so much "brutal honesty" and is very nasty about others, yet is the most easily offended person that I've ever met!

Doris, YY to this!

Bogeyface · 18/02/2015 13:45

I have a relative like this.

Is ok with family now, if a bit distant, but has fallen out with every single friend they have ever had. Her and her H are both as bad so whenever they have had "couple" friends, it hasnt lasted for more than 2 years. I know why they fell out with the last 2 lots of friends and although relative would say it was the other people BU, it really wasnt, it was relative and her husband.

But they dont see that its them, not other people.