Friend is so bitter!

OP I was the bitter one if I'm honest. My perfect life was blown up.

God only knows how my friends put up with me but they did - they must have listened to HOURS of all this bitterness and hate coming out (I apologise a lot for this!). 18 months is not long to adjust to a new life, betrayal and all the upheaval. Throw in a hideous divorce and all the legal wrangling - sheesh - poor woman.

It's been 6 years for me and I say it's only in the last 2 I'm back to myself. It's come with indifference to the situation - my life moved on (for the better - never thought I'd say that) and when things settle for your friend and she carves her new life, which hopefully will be better, you'll have her back and she'll be stronger.

All this back away, distance yourself advice...very cold and cruel - probably ones that have never had to go through it. It is arduous but I'm now there for two of my friends that are going through separation and i will be there no matter what and listen to all the hate because I know that's what's needed to process it all.

I have read the whole thread and therefore won't take what the OP's friend claims at face value.

Consider this. Why would a man who doesn't want "his woman" working run off with a colleague who herself is still working 18 months later?

The OP has also told us her friend never worked, not even before children, and revelled in her role as a SAHP.

I think it is far more likely that the OP's friend refused to work, her husband lost respect for her and went off with a colleague and now she is in the phase of the breakup where she is still making every excuse under the sun to not work.

I wouldn't put someone with her sharp tongue above slandering her ex for sympathy either.

Nail on the head. All too often I see cases with a "SAHP" who benefited from cleaners, gardeners and even nannies. That's not really a SAHP and the people supporting this kind of lifestyle tend to have a breaking point.
Hat tip to real SAHPs though

Read what the OP has to say about her friend's relationship:

Not to drip feed but would it make any difference if I said we also found out her dh was awful behind closed doors, this is why in part she has never worked. We all work, mixture of pt and ft. I always assumed she was happy not to work, but obviously she didn’t have the choice, he wanted a ‘proper’ wife and wouldn’t hear of it.

You need to read the whole thread. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that the OP's friend is lying about this.

Read the OP's post:

Not to drip feed but would it make any difference if I said we also found out her dh was awful behind closed doors, this is why in part she has never worked. We all work, mixture of pt and ft. I always assumed she was happy not to work, but obviously she didn’t have the choice, he wanted a ‘proper’ wife and wouldn’t hear of it.

"She has never worked, she met dh at university and they got married soon after and did some travelling. She had never had a job so it’s a big task now."

Ok this makes a LOT more sense now.

She's angry at herself for leaving herself so vulnerable and dependant. And she's taking it out on those closest to her.

Someone needs to actually say this to her. Someone who she won't abandon if they say it. I maybe have three friends who could say anything to me and I'd just have to listen... people who have known me since I was primary school age. Does she have anyone like that? What about her parents? Are they well? Does anyone know them well enough to intervene? What about a close siblings

I think it's important to recognise that she may well be extremely depressed, and depression can present as anger (and of course negativity). That's not to say that you have to accept her nasty behaviour, and certainly you could distance yourself. But for all the PPs saying things like she's 'revealing her true self', have a read of this
https://www.priorygroup.com/blog/why-depression-may-look-like-anger

It's unfortunate that she won't go to therapy or counselling.

Her whole life has been shattered by this, all her future dreams of a life with her partner, her confidence in herself as a good judge of character, her trust in people, having to see her young children suffer the break up and answer their questions and support them when she's feeling devastated herself, of course she's struggling, and 1.5 years is no time, when she's reminded of everything she has lost all around her.

Your life isn't hers, though, and never has been or will be. You are two separate people. Nobody has a 'right' to someone else's life, that's just massive entitlement. She sounds like a spoilt PITA tbh. I think you need to distance yourself for now, because you shouldn't be her emotional punchbag, and she needs to wake up and see that she's going to lose her friends as well as her husband if she takes her rage out on people who don't deserve it.

"She has never worked, she met dh at university and they got married soon after and did some travelling. She had never had a job so it’s a big task now."

Ok this makes a LOT more sense now.

She's angry at herself for leaving herself so vulnerable and dependant. And she's taking it out on those closest to her.

Someone needs to actually say this to her. Someone who she won't abandon if they say it. I maybe have three friends who could say anything to me and I'd just have to listen... people who have known me since I was primary school age. Does she have anyone like that? What about her parents? Are they well? Does anyone know them well enough to intervene? What about a close siblings

Au contraire while I don't condone cheating - it doesn't sound like their values were aligned. Sounds like he was going to leave anyway with or without someone else lined up. I'm not saying she is to blame or that he isn't a cheating POS but...

As PP have said few men will pay to keep a woman at home baking, gardening and whatnot. Most SAHM I know are incredibly busy, either caring for SEN children/elderly parents, or economising as much as possible. They don't have this much free time.

Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. Now that it's all crumbled she's revealing her true thoughts about her friends. Mental health issues/depression/etc magnifies underlying tendencies, that are masked in the good times. It doesn't create them.

In any case her friends have to protect their own mental health whatever the cause of her negativity, they're not obligated to put up with it.

Especially as her comments might have hit a nerve with other people. I for example struggle with my weight and being told I'm too fat would be an unforgivable blow. I'd have dropped her like a stone.

When my mum was widowed she spent the next 2 years slowly dumping almost all of her friends and creating a whole new social circle.

She is still friends with 2 of the original group but no idea why those two.

She isn't woe is me, but something about being with the original group just didn't work for her in bereavement or after.

If I were you, I wouldn't be able to shake the feeling that she'd been feeling rather smug and superior in her life and spent your entire friendship looking down on you all. Now it's all fallen apart she cannot comprehend how YOU or your "fat" friend could possibly maintain your marriage and she lost hers.

These thoughts she's verbalising, this vitriol she's spewing, it's been there all along. It's just been cushioned with the knowledge that she's got it all, she's never had to say it aloud until now how much she sees you all as beneath her.

I would distance myself. You've been a good friend, you've done your part. I wouldn't put up with any more abuse.

When my mum was widowed she spent the next 2 years slowly dumping almost all of her friends and creating a whole new social circle.

She is still friends with 2 of the original group but no idea why those two.

She isn't woe is me, but something about being with the original group just didn't work for her in bereavement or after.

What a nasty, jealous, reverse-snob post.
"Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. " That's total projection, you know nothing about her.