I’ve been friends with a woman in a wider group setting for 10 years. We have a shared hobby - knitting if you must know 😆.
We have been in a WhatsApp group with 12 women since Covid. It’s a very active WhatsApp group and until recently we probably only met once a quarter or less in person despite talking every day on our phones.
One of them is quite negative but I thought nice enough to pass the time with in a pub whilst waiting for everyone else to arrive.
However I’ve been forced to become close to her by virtue of having a baby in the same academic year and living 2 streets away.
Mine born in the September and her baby born the following August.
Since then (and she has every right to) she has:
- Joined the local mum and baby group I set up.
- Started all of the same baby classes as me (and gone on about why they are better at the different time she does, compared to me/better for younger babies/better if you drive than go by foot/basically better if she does it)
- Taken up a plot on the allotment I’ve been on for 15 years (and said how and why her plot is better than mine)
- Put her daughter in the same nursery as my child, despite at first saying it was “grotty and working class” and then finding all the others nurseries full and having to “resort” to our nursery - where btw my child is very happy and thriving.
- Booked herself onto my other hobbies - hobbies she didn’t previously share.
- Booked herself in with my hairdresser, eyebrow woman and massage therapist.
- Bought loads of the stuff I have bought for our house.
- Applied for a job at my workplace - I would be her head of department.
- Said I shouldn’t be upset about being a victim of a crime and I was making our area look bad.
Other things:
- Slagged off my child’s hair - good luck doing your daughter’s hair when she’s 20 months and running around the house.
- Slagged off my child’s nursery clothes, nope I’m not giving her Organic Zoo clothes to spill ravioli or paint down.
- Slagged off nearly everyone in our mum and baby group.
- Slagged off my child for saying the shortened version of a word they have learned.
- Slagged off the positioning of my house on my road 🤯
- Told me that the days she’s going to return to work are “better thought out” than the days I work.
- Told people she “knows my dogs better” than me.
- Told people that I don’t in fact hold the degrees that I do. My education has no impact whatsoever on my working life, so her saying that doesn’t actually cause any issues it just makes me look like a liar and I JUST DON’T GET IT.
She is pivotal to my knitting group and I have some very close friends in that group but they have NO idea she is like this because they aren’t subjected to spending time with her ALL THE TIME.
All my peace and tiny bits of “me time” are either taken up with her being there or me feeling tense fearing she will turn up somewhere I am.
Now I don’t feel like I can do to my allotment because she’s always texting to comment on my fucking weeds, meaning she has let herself through a gate and into my plot for a look around.
I don’t want to leave these baby groups because 1. I set some of them up 2. I really enjoy them and so does my child. 3. They were pivotal in helping me deal with post natal anxiety and do the same for other women that I like to support.
But she fills me with an overwhelming sense of dread.
I’m absolutely exhausted by her constantly telling me why her and her child are better than me an my child. I’m having a rough time at work and with my wider family, which is causing depression so I’m probably letting this overwhelm me more than I would before I had a baby but truthfully I’m struggling.
This evening I took my child for one last go on the roundabout in the park close to our house. She turned up and proceeded to tell me I was wrong for getting on the roundabout with my child. Blah blah fucking blah.
Even if I don’t invite her around me she just shows up and tells me why I’m wrong.