NC to avoid outing. Sorry this may be long.
My DD (14) has been competing in her sport since she was 9. She is not outstanding but she is pretty good. A new girl of similar age joined our club last year. She was fairly inexperienced but clearly talented. Her parents didn't have much idea about the sport. The girls get on quite well and the parents seemed nice enough so I kind of took them under my wing, explained a lot of stuff to them, gave them the heads up whenever I heard about a training opportunity or competition that might be of interest and that kind of thing.
Then this Spring I was taken seriously ill and unable to take my DD to a lot of training and events. I asked the other girl's parents for lifts a few times but there was always an excuse why they couldn't help. It felt a bit weird, given they live close by whereas other parents from further away were willing to pick up DD. Plus their attitude changed a bit and they started being a little less friendly in general.But the reasons given were always legitimate sounding so I put it down to bad luck.
A couple of weeks ago both girls were invited to join a regional training squad. It is a smallish sport and we live in a geographically large region so the training would involve a lot of travel and it is on a school night. If I was well, I might have considered it but I told my DD I really didn't think we could manage it and she took it quite well. The other Mum told me that she felt the same and they weren't going either.
Which was all fine. Until today I was told by a reliable third party that the other girl is actually going after all. Not only that, but she has attended some other events that they had told me they weren't going to over the last couple of months.
I am gutted on my DD's behalf, and feel quite betrayed to be honest. I have been generous with my knowledge of the sport and before I was ill I offered a lot of help to their DD, as has my DD. I can't come up with any other rational explanation for their behaviour other than that it is deliberate to give their child an advantage over mine. Their girl has become the coaches' favourite too. My DD has accepted it all and is always complimentary about her friend. She is talented and has exactly the right physical attributes for the sport. They really don't need to resort to this kind of thing.
I don't know what to do now. I can't get my DD to the training independently and I don't feel like I can ask them for lifts. They have made it clear that they don't want to help us. They will literally be driving across the end of our road on their way and they know DD wanted to go even though I had reservations. If it was a one off I could perhaps believe that they didn't ask because I has said I was concerned about the late nights, but with all the other stuff I am struggling to see the best in them right now.
I am not sure what I want from this post to be truthful. I considered putting it in AIBU to gauge if my reaction is rational, but I am feeling so upset about it all I couldn't face the probable savaging. Hoping people might be kinder here.
Do I say anything to them? Do I let my DD know or just leave it and see if her friend says anything?
I feel so rubbish. I felt I letting my DD down by not being able to get her there initially but somehow the fact her friend couldn't go either made it seem less bad. Now she is the only one left out and we have been deceived as well. By people we helped and I thought were friends.
I know it isn't the end of the world but on top of the generally crappy time we've been having with my health and following on from that, finances, it really feels like we are being kicked when we are down.