How should I handle being edged out of my nursery mums group?

There isn’t anything to navigate. You were friends and now you are not is the long and short of it. I would just carry on with my life and not get het up about people.

I guess you could apologise on the group to the whole group and say if you've upset anyone you're sorry and you'd like to be friends again. Blame it on early days baby brain maybe?

If it doesn't work it's not the end of the world. By the time your baby starts reception most of those mums will have moved on and a new set will be in place.

You literally wrote this a few weeks back, I am sure I read this exact thread!

Have you've posted about all this before? It sounds very familiar. The intense friendship, the baby shower and the bringing food round, then the distancing and the cutting you off.

It's happened to us all at some point, when circumstances meant we didn't the time or opportunity to engage with a specific group which subsequently moved on without us. I mean, you can't make people want to be around you. What exactly do you mean that you 'haven't been an angel' in this?

I agree with PP sorry.

I know it's very hard but you can't force people to be friends with you. You'll have to find a way to make some new friends.

Perhaps Annie felt like she had put in a lot of time and effort with you and you didn't reciprocate when she was in a bad place and having a hard time. It sounds like you distanced yourself from her with her poorly family member to give her space but did she actually want space? Maybe she wanted to be cared for and supported in the way she supports others.

Maybe eventually you will be friends again but right now you need to try and let it go.

Did your previous thread not give you the answers you were looking for?

OP, this is rough but by no means unusual. Annie went over and above to be friends when your situations matched and it suited her, and then when they didn't I think she probably did something very similar with someone else leaving you surplus to requirements. This has also caught you at a vulnerable time.

All you can do here is remember that nobody has actually done anything wrong and you can choose to be friends or not friends as you see fit, but I appreciate this probably feels pretty wounding.

Go to baby groups, look for people who aren't in this social group and befriend them. You are a mother of 3 and could be a great support to some new mums. Make other friendships.

My prediction is that in ten years time you'll be able to identify a string of people who Annie has treated exactly the same and then it won't feel quite so personal.

When your eldest starts school you'll have another chance to get to know new mum-friends. Avoid Annie and her entourage. Find other people to hang out with. In time you might even feel she's done you a favour.

This happens a lot. I don't know why having children seems to reset some women's behaviour to the way they behaved at school, and it wasn't very nice to be on the other end of it then, as you have found out.

Give Annie enough rope from afar and her true colours will show, except to the few she keeps in her inner circle who are so desperate to be there they can't see it. Go and make your own social circle from the nursery mums who didn't make the first edit of the WhatsApp group. It sounds to me like some people opted out early doors having perhaps sensed the flavour of friendship on offer.

Well it isn't now and hard though it is you have to accept that you're not part of that group any longer. It's hard to believe you haven't done anything to upset them. Your ex friend did nice things for you. Do you do any nice things for anybody.

Well if it's all her friends locally she's probably still pretty sad about it.

Did you ever reciprocate the attention she was giving you?

It seems like she is very thoughtful - you sounded a bit dismissive when you say she likes to ‘splash the cash’.

Have you ever taken something round to her when she’s sick - soup etc

Or send her some thank you flowers for the baby shower?

Maybe she felt all the energy was going one way?

@ellee233 I'll put it to you that there may be things you don't know about. The only way you can know is to speak to the people (starting with Annie), and ask questions and just listen without judgement to whatever they say. You can ask Annie why she distanced herself. You may be surprised by the answer.

I've ghosted / ended friendships twice and I know both times the other person has been very sad about it. Neither ever asked the reason and if they did I would tell them. Both would be surprised.

One was that I'd had a bad miscarriage around the time she'd had her second child. She was so wrapped up in her own pregnancy (and kept bailing on me whenever we tried to meet up because she was busy with her toddler and being pregnant) I'd never even got a chance to tell her I was pregnant too. So then when I had a very late miscarriage (including funeral etc), it kinda felt like the boat had passed to tell her when her only texts were did I want to meet up and see her new baby. There may be something you don't know because you've been busy with your own life.

The other friend it was just the drip drip drip over years of an unequal friendship where I paid, and hosted, and visited her, and helped with her kids and eventually it just felt easier to spend more time with other people for whom the friendship was reciprocal when I'm super busy, work full time and just have limited capacity.

Basically what I'm saying is you don't seem to have considered either of these two scenarios - either information you've just missed, or a slow burn of a friendship that wasn't as great from the other person's perspective as it was from yours.

Unfortunately if this person is a queen bee she will be the cornerstone to being part of the group.

I think there is not much point in keeping starting threads on it, maybe add to your last one, but it seems she went out of her way to be kind to you and support you when you had a baby and when she needed support you distanced yourself, and even refused to accept her caring responsibilities whilst expecting your own to be acknowledged, and then when you wished to come back and found the group had moved on, you got arsey with Anne, and made her the problem.

I think you did this to yourself to be honest and I can see why th group have taken her side, it’s not ok to say I can’t come as I’ve had a baby and am overwhelmed but you need to make time for me when I’m ready irrelevant of your own caring responsibilities and then get the arse with her as she took time to see the friends who were there for her.

Sure, but the advice is unlikely to have changed unless some circumstance has altered in the meantime?

Come to think of it, I think I remember the other thread as well, at least the details about the other woman in the group throwing a baby shower and bringing around food, and the implication that it was some kind of lovebombing situation, so the other person was at fault?

I think it's up to the OP if she wants to start a new thread. She's obviously still upset and wants some new inputs. I bet you'd be upset if your whole friend group started ghosting you, I know I would.

Yes, sorry OP, but you posted this before.

The bottom line is that this particular group of people have decided you’re not for them.

Maybe you missed unspoken cues to reciprocate gifts/parties & they think you’re a bit quick to take but not give?

Maybe they think your voice note was too much?

Maybe Annie is just a fair weather friend?

Regardless, you need new buddies. This lot are clearly not your current people.

I would step back from the drama & stay pleasantly friendly with everyone in the wider group, because you’ll be bumping into each other for years to come at swimming/scouts/parents’ evening.

But pull your horns RIGHT in & cultivate new friendships. If & when you encounter any of the original group, they’ll at most vaguely recollect that you had some ancient & long forgotten fall out with Annie, & who cares.

Your policy needs to be zero drama, move on.

Sure, but everyone will be telling her the same thing as they did last time.

Well I didn't see the last one so hopefully she got a new perspective from me. I feel sad for her, I'd be gutted if this was me.

I swear this isn't even the second thread like this there have been several
and the op changes details fractionally each time to make herself look better
it's bizarre

I actually think it’s unfair to classify Annie as some kind of manipulative Queen Bee - she just seems to be one of those people who work quite hard at the social side of life.

She set up the initial what’s app group, she created the breakaway ‘going out’ what’s app group, she threw all the parties at her own home. She found the time to throw baby showers for others, bring gifts and care packages to others.

There would be no group without her - she’s the glue holding it all together. While having her own family to look after.

I guess when we are part of semi organized social groups like that we need to consider what we bring and put into the group, not just what it does for us.

Bit like a community garden if you want to pick the fruit you have to do a bit of weeding every now and then.

How long were you "in" the group before she started distancing herself? If it was just a few months or a year, I've noticed there is sometimes a pattern with the queen bee. She will befriend and flatter a new person while she works out if you're the sort of person she would want as a friend, a useful person to keep on side, or a threat to her position, or of no real use or interest. If she decides on the last category she will drop the person. I have seen this happening a few times. It's very hurtful and confusing to the dropped person if they feel they've done nothing wrong/different after someone has been so nice and welcoming initially.

You mentioned going for drinks. Maybe once you'd had your baby and couldn't do that she lost interest in you because she wanted fun boozy friends not dull mumsy ones (sorry). So that would be a variation of the above but triggered by your change in circumstance.

Or can you think of anything that might have come from you. Did you disclose mismatched political views? Interest in conspiracy theories? Different parenting approaches? I've seen "lifelong" besties fall out catastrophically over these sort of things.

Were you not there for her in the ways she was for you? Some people are very giving and don't expect a transactional number of favours back but it can get wearing when the other person takes you for granted and never does anything nice or thoughtful in return.

I don't know the answer and it might be that she's just a cowbag. A few ideas though ...

Yes, it’s difficult. And horrible. And awkward. But you don’t have any other option. If you keep trying to be friends with them, they will double down, shut you out completely and you’ll be lucky if they don’t start diving into hedges to avoid you. These friendships are done with. Completely over.

It would be nice for you to have some closure so you can understand what happened, but you aren’t going to get it. I suspect Annie has her favourites and once you’ve fallen out of favour, you’re done. She’s never going to admit she’s fickle with her friends. Start thinking of these women as a group of individuals who just happened to give birth at the same time. That is all that connects you. And that’s not a firm basis for a lifelong friendship. And theirs will fizzle out as life moves on and their children get older and make new friends.

Encourage your child to make other friends and join other clubs. Maybe do something similar yourself 💐

5000 posts and pictures daily? Assuming she’s awake 16 hours a day, that’s over 300 posts an hour, 5 per minute. Sounds like an AI bot.

So what??