I was very good friends with a girl at work for 7 years. We used to go to lunch regularly, confide in each other and bought presents for each other on our birthdays and at Christmas. When I had my son she would buy presents for him at regular intervals "just because".
In October 2015 I went on maternity leave again and a couple of weeks later she handed in her notice and left the company. We still kept in touch by text every couple of weeks or so. In December 2015 she told me she was getting engaged to her long term boyfriend and sent me pictures of the ring. I was delighted for her and sent a card and gift. Over the following months we remained in contact and she would tell me about her wedding, sent me pictures of the dress and the venue and would update me on various other goings on in her life and ask me for advice. In return, I kept her up to date with my own life and sent pictures of the kids when she asked for them.
I didn't get invited to the wedding and I wasn't upset about this initially as I knew she wanted a small wedding of around 30 guests in total.
On the morning of the wedding in September 2016 she sent me photos of her in her dress and I wished her luck and sent her a congratulatory message in return (telling her she looked beautiful etc).
Then I saw photos of the wedding on Facebook. One of the photos was a copy of the seating plan. There were indeed only around 30 guests at the wedding who were seated around 3 tables. I know her husband's family and friends and they, with the bridal party, took up 2 tables. The third table consisted of 3 of our former mutual colleagues and their families. I wasn't close to these colleagues and they were all friends with my friend independently of each other. They all had young children with them (the same age or younger than my children). She didn't invite any other people outside of her parents, siblings and these three former colleagues (and their families). As an aside, one of those colleagues was someone who spread vicious lies and gossip about me at work to the point that I raised a grievance against her which was upheld and she was disciplined. My friend knows all about this.
I will admit to being very upset. But I didn't say anything to my friend and resolved that obviously she didn't consider me as good a friend as I considered her and decided to take a step back. She was entitled to invite whoever she wanted to her wedding and I didn't make the cut. At the same time, I decided that I really didn't want to invest any more time in our "friendship".
The problem is that she still texts frequently (once a week at least) and I have been responding (short messages) but I don't really want to any more. I guess that I'm just too hurt and I don't want to pretend like everything is ok.
So, my questions are:
- AIBU to feel upset about being excluded?; and
- How would you stop being friends? Would you just stop responding to texts or send her a message explaining that I was hurt by not being invited to the wedding and so don't want to continue the friendship. Or would either of those things be childish?
Many thanks for reading and for any advice.