Friendship group split unexpectedly wwyd?

These people sound horrible. It's incredibly immature to be miffed that someone turns up a bit later to a birthday thing, it's supposed to be a fun night out with friends, isn't it? If I was the birthday girl I'd just be glad that my friend was able to make it, especially given your current circs. Pathetic. Hope everything works out for you and yours xx

Are you often late reading OP’s comments? 😊

birthday bitch and co have outed themselves as utter monsters. Think of it like that - a clean out of nasty bitches from your life.

It felt like I was being ganged up on at the time, it was genuinely horrible.

It felt horrible because they were horrible.

Do they know you're still feeling wobbly after surgery & that your DH has a life-limiting illness? Those are big things - especially your DH's ill-health. THat's really big. Friends would cut you slack.

Although ... when did you text to say you weren't going to make drinks? If it was at the very last minute, maybe that was a bit thoughtless, but really it's minor.

They are horrible @Summerdays24 . Have a big hug.

Fu*k them. So glad you sent that message. Look after yourself and your family OP. These people r not worth your time or efforts.

You’re well rid to be honest. They sound like a gang of mean girls who still haven’t left the gates of High School. Also what was that all about with them all piping in. Can the Birthday Princess not argue by herself. I fuckin hate that ganging up on one. One good thing op if you ruined her Birthday by being late at least you know you must be amazing company.🤣

Yes who needs crappy friends like those op. The ones going along with it are as bad. Hope u ok. I meet one to one now just find its zero drama and works well.

Also…..you say you have a 7yo, do the others have kids that age? If not maybe they feel they’re moving on, and don’t want to hang around with someone encumbered by a small child. It’s still not nice and they’re not good friends. At least you know that I guess.

💐

Are you hoping they are on MN?

What a disgraceful post.

I can't believe anyone would be so self-centered about their own birthday. It's just a birthday for goodness sake; it's not like you rolled in halfway through her wedding ceremony and ruined it. I'd be delighted that you still wanted to come to my birthday dinner at all in the midst of a general tough time, plus train issues on the day. She should have welcomed you, given you a big hug and told you not to worry about being late.

Eveyone is right about finding out who are your real friends. It doesn't stop the feeling of regection hurting badly though. Perhaps worth remembering it's often not as personal a rejection as it feels - when people are being very self-centred it is literally because they are thinking exclusively about themselves and their own feelings. The queen bee friend hasn't sat there and considered things from your perspective and then decided to stick the boot in. She hasn't considered from your perspective at all, just her own.

I've read your updates and you've handled this beautifully.

It's so unfortunate that many people seem to think that "tragedy" (sorry if that's too strong a word) is highly contagious and freeze out anyone with a problem. Just rest easy in the knowledge you're a better person than them

Nothing to add OP but I just wanted to send you some love and a huge hug, you don't deserve all of this on top of all you're dealing with, I hope you are able to let go of these people who have shown you who they really are and concentrate on the ones who empathise and care. Be super kind to yourself xxx

Wow, how old are these women?
Mandatory birthday drinks and meal, huffing over lack of presents?!

You don't need that kind of friendship. Tell them to seriously grow up.

She sounds like a narcissist with flying monkeys. Maybe she thinks with an ill husband, you may not be a fun friend anymore, but it may also be that you and your husband would be the focus as friends would be inclined to help you, which would take the attention away from her and impact her queen bed status.

Yep. Like hell I'd have stayed after that. Block the mean ones and thank the others for having your back.

Leave it a day or two and apologise again (you owe one regardless of how reasonable your explanation for not attending was) then ask the birthday girl what prompted such a negative reaction.

What the actual fuck? Do NOT take this terrible advice OP, the 'birthday girl' needs to grow the fuck up and stop behaving like Verrucca Salt, she sounds vile.

@Delphinium20 Absolutely nuts. Queen bees often thrive on the insecurities of others. They may target those who are unsure of themselves, creating a situation where others feel they need the queen bee's approval to feel good about themselves, they feel important and validated in this way, when underneath they are nasty and pathetic.

With friends like these...

They should have said what @Wonderfulstuff wrote above and not taken their mood on you @Summerdays24 I really hope your recovery from your op is going well, try and take things easy at operations take a lot out of you for much longer than you realise. I also hope your dhs treatment goes well💐

OP, well done in sending that message.

TL;DR I lost a group of friends some 15 years ago in similar circumstances and got over the hurt pretty fast once I had distance to realize how awful some of them really were.

Longer form:
About 15 years ago, I lost a friend group over something not too dissimilar. I was in my late 30s (almost 40). I'd been close with them for about 7 years. We had so much fun together. There was one queen bee who had form for wanting to control others outside normal boundaries, but I let that slide as generally we all had so much in common. Queen bee and I and a 3rd woman had a shared competition together. I'd just moved into a new home and our electricity went out due to some other repair mistakes that broke the system; we ended up living like we were camping for about 1 week. As a result, day of the competition, I was about 30 minutes late to our meetup as our alarms didn't go off (electricity powered down in the middle of the night unbeknownst to us). The early meetup was her demand, not mine, but I was still at least 30 minutes ahead of the race time, so I didn't ruin the event, I just 'stressed out the Queen Bee' cause she likes her pre-race prep to be very specific.

DH and Queen's DH were very good friends. Race started, all went well, but then after the event, Queen Bee snubbed me and family and said she had plans w/ Friend 2 and her family. "Friend" 2 couldn't look at me and just quietly followed Queen Bee. Queen's DH seemed VERY uncomfortable. I shrugged it off, but my DH was furious. He kept saying how she was purposely trying to edge me out.

At a later get-together, she had her flying monkeys in our group ambush me me while she sat enthroned in some middle chair (frankly fucking bizarre once I realized how she'd set up the room arrangements) They went round on how I'd ruined her life due to this race and I was supposed to undergo some kind of atonement to 'prove my worth'. We are sporting amateurs, there's no prize $, it's just for fun, or so I thought (frankly, I'm the better athlete, so I pull more weight than she does on our team, but again, I don't care, it's just for fun). I wasn't going to be bullied into prostrating myself over something so trivial and told her so. I think this shocked her. A few in the group who weren't involved in the ambush seemed shellshocked. My refusal shut this down and we went back to 'normal' for a few weeks.

Eventually, I realized some in the group were her lackeys and the non-ambush members started to realize how toxic the friendships were, so fractures were beginning to show. A few months later, I got pregnant and decided the possible stress on my baby wasn't worth dealing with this group. The Queen bee was highly neurotic anyways and some in the group were too happy to be her underlings, so we normal women just left on their own.

About a year later, Queen bee cheated on her DH (my DH's friend) and hightailed it Australia to be w/ new man. So, I happily don't have to run into her anymore. Looking back, what a waste of my time...I could have been developing healthier friendships rather than dealing with women who never seemed to mature out of their 12-year-old psyche. Too bad Lord of the Flies was already written, I could have been a famous writer based off that experience.

Having been on the receiving end of similar public humiliation from a so called friend, I just wanted to say I’m sorry and give you a big hug.

I also thought ‘I should have said/done…’ in retrospect but when you are in complete disbelief that the situation is what it is and don’t want to be the one causing drama, it’s much easier not to walk out. You have articulated yourself perfectly in your final message.

In the long run, you will be so grateful you dropped these friends, they clearly lack any ability to consider anyone else

Wishing you and your family all the best

What your friend should have said when you arrived for dinner was 'I'm so glad you made it. With everything going on, I really would have understood if you skipped it. How are you?'.

OP, with all my respect I think they instead of enjoyed the drinks and the dinner, make a drama of nothing with you on the centre. Imagine you can't make it on time because you got a flat tire. The outcome is the same. You don't go to the drinks.
I also think that because you are overwhelmed by your own recovery and your husband condition, you just broke down. Very unfortunate, because your break down gave them fuel for the fire.
I would have a long bath, chill out for a bit and tell them to f@#*& off if I were you.

I hate people being late, I really do, but I don't have a go at them and lecture them I just stop seeing them if they are constantly being late.

And we don't know HOW old the kids are anyway so stop projecting

@Nanny0gg there’s something really tedious about posters who repeatedly quote tweet their pearls of wisdom without bothering to actually read the thread. It’s so arrogant.