One of a group of friends spent weekend away being awful to me

[Askingabouttreesy67]

Went on a group weekend away with a group I'd known for years.
I've recently suffered a really traumatic bereavement so just needed to have a nice time.

One person in the group just made some awful comments to me throughout the weekend. We were hiking and saw a large toddler being carried and I commented it must be tough on that parent and hard to enjoy the activity. She said well your answer to everything is to leave the kids at home isn't it, you'll do anything to be apart from them.

I have no idea where she got this idea. I did say that our older teenager may not come on our next holiday with us but that's his choice. I said he mostly does his own thing but he's always included in our family life if he wants to be. Surely that's normal as kids get older?

I said my perfect day out is a walk around a National Trust property and she said well you won't want to do that anymore when your kids grow up. Even tiny little harmless things I said like that she turned against me.

She just wants to come across as so perfect saying she still does everything with her teenagers which just isn't realistic. No one else in the group seems irritated by her but I couldn't even look at her by the second day as she was so vile to me. Everything I said she would twist my words and paint me in a negative light.

I said we were taking the kids to Florida and she rolled her eyes and said she looked down upon people who enjoy those sort of holidays.

We drove past the place where my family have a holiday home and I said to another woman who I have a lovely mutual friend with that we should go sometime, the three of us. She was straight on this and said how could I be talking about going away with just one member of the group and how rude I was. I had previously offered the holiday home for our weekend away and she'd said she'd never stay somewhere like that as it wasn't nice enough for her.

My mum messaged me on the way back offering for me to come for dinner with all the family and she knew how happy and eager I was to get back so she deliberately went out of her way to make sure I was last to be dropped off and even then dropped me half a mile from the house with heavy bags to carry. Everyone else got dropped off at their houses.

There were loads of other comments and digs at me which I just tried to ignore. I have other friends who also can't stand this woman as she acts so superior to everyone and like her life and kids are so perfect.

I have loads of lovely friends who I can spend time with and not come away feeling like they've been negging me the whole time.

I really wish I'd spoken up for myself to be honest. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed how awful she was being as she always put it in a jokey way but it was really hurtful.

Is it worth saying something to her or just withdraw from the group? There's one member (who I was on about the holiday home with) who I have a separate friendship with anyway but the rest I'd probably lose touch with.

She sounds awful - why is she in the friend group / included ?!? I’m sure the other girls picked up on it and would gladly avoid her in her future. Life’s too short to put up with this kind of BS tbf

Something similar happened to me.
As it was in someone's home I said nothing as I didn't want to cause drama at someone's party.
I was actually roared at by a drunken member of the group.
Not one person stood for me,including my so called best friend.
I never went to any of their meet ups again and avoid them all.
My advice,leave the group.

Thank you for all the comments. I'm tempted just to walk away and make contact with the other woman in the group (SEN mum) who I really like and just ask her to keep in touch.

If I call her out publicly or otherwise she will gas light me and say I misunderstood her.

I'm not bragging but because I've put the effort in to look after my friendships well and be a generally caring person, I do have enough friends already so it's not like I'm leaving myself with no friends by walking away. I just know that my other friends outside of the group would have called her out and wouldn't tolerate her in the first place.

There's something about me that seems to really rankle her. I have a lovely supportive family and husband whereas hers is not around. I'm not really career focused but have a full life of family, hobbies and an enjoyable part time job. She's made different choices to me. Maybe that's why she puts me down.

What is this need to do group activities? Why?

Please remember the nasty things people say is a reflection on them and their situation. Just say next time something like: Do you have a problem with that? And when they answer or look for an answer the respond with Well, why did you say it then?

I don't think that you need to leave the whatsapp group (with all of the drama that will entail) - just stop posting in there or archive it if its upsetting you.

I'd work out which of the group you genuinely want to be friends with and invite them each individually for coffee or lunch or a walk or something over the next couple of months, gradually moving to doing things one-to-one.

Avoid things including difficult woman for a while, and definitely never go away with her again!

The holiday home is not good enough for her anyway so this should work well. Provided the others in the group don't take sides with the unfriendly one. Honestly these group situations can be a nightmare.

I had a similar problem and felt really confused and angry. I withdrew from anything nasty bitch was attending, but maintained contact with the rest.

Eventually, there was a huge bust up between my frenemy and the dominant group member so she was no longer invited to things and went her own way.

On reflection I think she was jealous of me.

Never make major decisions when recently bereaved if you can avoid id. This is a group you have known for years and you shouldnt leave over one person. If possible drop out of events temporarily and if people reach out to ask why say ....'s bitchy comments are too much to take when dealing with bereavement.

I had this situation in my 20s. One girl was nice to everyone except me, constant nasty digs and it went in for a year and i sucked it up to keep the peace. One day we went to an all day drinking event and ended up all drinking in the pub afterwards. She said one thing and I just flipped and told her all about herself. She started crying and people around us were even getting involved as I must have looked like a lunatic going into one at her for her one comment. But it was a build up of a year of underhanded bullying.
She was as nice as pie to me after that and never said another shitty remark to me.
Next time in a group just tell her to stop making comments, you don't appreciate it and won't stand for it. She will probably create a scene but stand your ground.

Maybe its should go nc but in a weird way, I think she would actually love it, as it will cause loads of drama
It would almost be like playing into her hands

Sorry wrong thread

I would just message the others saying I'm going to take a step back from this group because I don't want to spend time with x because we don't get on well, but that I would welcome maintaining contact with them together or individually.

Well, why not? Generally people do things they enjoy.

OP, has this come out of the blue? Is it a new thing, or has she always been aggressively rude to you?

How many are in the group? Is it big enough that you could still go out but just keep away from her? It seems a shame to remove yourself from a group of friends whose company you enjoy (assuming you do enjoy their company!) because of one judgemental person.

I agree with all of this.

I would have not just continued to listen to her shit. After the second time I would say is there a reason you're an unreasonably rude cunt? Do not bother to give your unsolicited opinion on things I say - in fact do not fucking talk to me again - then enjoy your time with the others.

She said well your answer to everything is to leave the kids at home isn't it, you'll do anything to be apart from them.

I have no idea where she got this idea.

For me the issue would not be where she got the idea. It would be that someone on a nice group trip felt the need to make such a horrible comment at all, whether it was true or false.

Obviously it's too late now, but I quite like a PP suggestion of asking "Are you OK?" when this happened. Maybe she had got some really bad news that morning and was under a lot of stress. But more likely she's just not a very nice person and this is common behaviour for her. The need to judge others is not far from the surface and sometimes it just bubbles up and out of her mouth.

As a very wise psychotherapist told me once (in a social context), "Once you learn that people relate to others the way they relate to themselves, you stop worrying too much about what they say about you". I've found that very useful advice ever since.

She's always had little digs at me but when you're only meeting as a group for a few hours you can ignore it more. This is the first group holiday and obviously I'm less able to handle it as I'm grieving.

Er because it can be very lovely, what a weird take ...

Don’t walk away/tell everyone the issue, it creates drama that you can do without.

Give yourself some space and when you’re feeling stronger make sure you challenge her: “are you ok”,
“that’s rude”
“what do you mean”
“wow, harsh”

all work and when she inevitably says she was joking,

“I don’t get it”,
“why’s that funny”
“can you explain”

push it back to her, no big drama, or argument, simply make it clear you know what she’s about.

Then I think you should stay with the group and tackle her assertively next time she makes one of her remarks. Just begin by saying neutrally ‘What did you say?’ so that she either has to repeat or recant, and also has the effect, often, of drawing other people’s attention to what was said. If she says it again, then ‘What a bizarre thing to say. Are you ok?’ is a useful progression before you advance to ‘X, would you ever fuck off?’ territory. If you’ve never responded assertively before, it’s not possible to predict how she’ll reply. But ignoring hasn’t worked, and there’s no need to leave a group you otherwise enjoy, if there are other options, and there are.

@Askingabouttreesy67 she is vile.
Inscrutable and jealous is what’s wrong with this “women”
Keep being you .
Do as you have now said and tell the others you get along with that you are withdrawing and why and it’s up to them if they would still like to keep contact with you going .

Defo don’t just exit the group. Why should you?

Definitely stand up to her! See what happens.

In my twenties there was a girl in our group who didn’t like me. I think it may have been because I became part of the group through my best friend (who was already in it) so I probably seemed like an interloper. No one else had a problem though. I said to her once, you don’t like me do you and she just said no. There wasn’t any personal reason for it, I hadn’t done anything. It stressed me out though so I just saw the others separately.