Confronted friend for pulling out of trip

Long shot, but is there anyone in the Lisbon group that hasn’t yet booked a flight? Maybe paying to change the name on the ticket and selling the flight might recoup some of your loss, then you could go to the hen night?

They aren’t your friends! I believe your perception of the friendship and it’s closeness is different to theirs! Id message the group explaining you now only know Jo and it would be great to meet some more people prior to the trip if that’s possible! Make yourself some new friends who won’t screw you over! These two have had conversations and never approached you directly to explain why they aren’t going! Her responses are also incredibly childish and she’s trying to justify being a shitty friend and these over explainations of multiple issues (which were never brought to your attention at any time) proves their guilt and she’s trying to make you feel bad!

A simple, "I'm sorry, I said yes when I shouldn't have, then buried my head. I fucked it up and let you down.", would have been far preferable (to me) to the long-winded defensive poor-me crap she came back at you with.

I have little respect for those who try to control my natural feelings about poor treatment by cornering me with emotional blackmail.
It leaves you with two options; swallow their pish or be hailed a cunt.
Neither suit me so I tend to let them go. No rancour but no effort either.

Mary has acted poorly but her response and reaction, imo is worse and shows that your feelings are irrelevant to her.

Go have an amazing time and don't waste any more energy on the lovely Mary!

Her: "I said that during a very hectic UK trip when we had several A&E trips with (her DD) and have had months of sickness and a nightmare with (her sister) living here since we've been back. And very unhappy children and lots of travel and lots of absent (DH). This trip has been pretty far from my mind most of the time.

People say yes when they mean no. It's just social lip service in the moment. This is not unusual, I find many other people very selfish and flakey.
She let you down and she knows it, hence the emotionally charged, manipulative nature of her text above. Politeness means you can't dispute it any further. A&E, children, illness.

I'd get over Mary not coming on the trip but not the way she has made herself a victim and me some sort of diva. I wouldn't be impressed with this at all. Oily as fuck.

Um how is any of that relevant to me correcting someone on their "PFB" comment, and their statement that there are no circumstances in which a change of plans would not be immediately communicated?

At no point did I say the OP wasn't owed an apology.

FGS don't feel guilty! I think that by confronting your friend in a super nice way hoping to elicit an apology has backfired. She's sensed that this is uncomfortable for you and has cast herself as victim so you'll back down. Do you wish you'd been more forthright? Can you see you yourself still maintaining a good friendship with her?

I’m glad you’re still going on the trip. You’ll probably end up enjoying it and hopefully end up making some new friends so you won’t be so reliant on Mary and Ann. I think Mary asking you to go on the weekend away with them was really odd - she’d already used it as the reason she couldn’t go on the trip you’d booked for and then suddenly it no longer coincided. I wouldn’t worry about upsetting either of them - they’re inconsiderate and have treated you very shoddily.

@HollyKnight or should I call you Mary.
I agree things happen in peoples lives and a trip with friends becomes low priority. However if you are that person,when you realise your friend has spent a wad on flights to go away with people she hardly knows at your bequest do you:
a) apologise sincerely and vow to make it up in the future

b) whinge and moan about how busy and important you are and try to make friend feel guilty for having brought up the topic. Who cares about her having to go away with a bunch of strangers, pshaw you have real problems in your life ?

The friend already has a young child, a child who has been very ill for months, which included making multiple trips to A&E, while her husband was out of the country meaning she had to deal with that on her own, while having other family trouble, and potentially moving/leaving the country before the Lisbon trip is to happen etc.

So, unless you are Superwoman, I imagine all that would push a jolly with your mates down your list of priorities somewhat.

I always find it helpful to turn the whole thing around and ask myself, 'under what circumstances would I encourage a person to book a trip, then not tell them I had changed my mind about going? Or in fact tell the the second I was having doubts?'

I cannot think of any reason at all, for any person, let alone a friend.

Which means that this person is completely self-obsessed and doesn't give a shit about anyone except herself. Her response to you proves this, OP.

If she had an oun ce of decency, she'd be absolutley mortified and bending over backwards to put things right. Instead, she's blaming you.

Fuck her off now, cos she can only get worse - can you imagine what she's going to be like when she's The World's Only Ever Pregnant Woman and once she has a PFB?

This!

YANBU at all. Mary and Ann should really be apologetic towards you and the fact Mary keeps making excuses is pretty poor.

Good for you for saying something.

You've finally discovered that your friend Mary is a self-centred flake who can't admit she's wrong and simply apologise. If your incredibly patient and polite calling out of her behaviour damages your friendship with her, then honestly I think you've done yourself a favour.

It's OK to be miffed with her. She should have told you she wasn't going. She's might have had a difficult time at Xmas but she's still managed to plan another trip she is going on. As for her going on her own last year, well she's good friends with Jo so less likely to be awkward than if you go as you've said you don't know her as well. All the crap about hopes and reality would have annoyed me. She's in the wrong and turning it around on you because she is defensive. Don't let her and stand your ground. She should have told you some things came up in December and she might not go that way you could have weighed up if you were happy to go anyway. You haven't done anything wrong by calling her out on it.

I think Mary sounds like she had every intention of going on this trip when the plan was made, but then life shit got in the way, and she just hasn't had the bandwidth to deal with it with everything else going on until now. I don't think she intentionally meant to forget about you in all this, I just think all of it was put on the back burner then when she did get around to dealing with it, the trip doesn't work for her anymore.

It's up to you if you think this is worth losing a friend over.

Well, it sounds like you might enjoy the trip anyway, OP. So if I was you I'd focus on the positives of that.

After, I wouldn't invest as much trust in Mary or Ann. Like you, I wouldn't fall out necessarily, but I wouldn't commit to anything with them again.

I don’t think either of them ever had any intention of going on the basis they were not keen on Jo’s friends. They didn’t really care about you. They are not really your friends, they are prioritising each other over you. The TTC thing is a red herring. They couldn’t go on this trip due to TTC but can go on another time away a weekend either side and TTC is not an issue with that? Yeah. No.

Go on the trip with Jo, try and start on other friendships, build on those and ditch these ones who don’t really care about you.

she didn't know she would be trying for a baby,

Well, that's rubbish of course but that is her private thing. No need to share it with anyone.

It's why I love travelling solo. No drama! Do my own thing without having to set up a travel agency for everyone else lol.

Mary sounds awful. Why are you friends with her? I feel it might be more of a one sided friendship and she doesn’t really give a shit about you. 🤷‍♀️

I would be super pissed. And not nearly as accommodating as you seem to be in you texts.

I would still go. I've been to things before where I knew no one and made some good friends.

Just read your latest update. She knows full well she’s screwed you over and she is not a good friend. Trying to gaslight you and change the narrative is plain nasty! You’d respect her more if she said, sorry, I fucked up, let’s go halves. You’ve prioritized this friendship and cost over something that would have been better and came up later. She’s done the opposite - what a nasty cow! Get angry and be angry. There’s nothing wrong with telling her how it is and letting her know how hurt and upset you are. I mean, really, who knowingly lets a friend fork out on flights and then doesn’t book for themself?

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.

You know what they've done is not morally aligned with your values, you're being kind because you don't want to lose your otherwise good friendship but I think you need to unapologetically distance yourself from them. X

I’d be fairly pissed. She could have 100% told you that she was not fully sure, didn’t even have to go into reasons, and you could have held off booking. Go, have fun, learn for next time.