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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to be furious that my friend made us spend £40 for 15 mins in a museum when she got in for free?

37 replies

emeraldgirl1 · 21/03/2011 16:15

... not to mention DH and I had to queue for 45 mins to pay £40 for the privilege when my friend (or as I am calling her today, my 'friend') who has a frequent visitor card so gets in free, waltzed through the special door without queuing.

A brief b/g - we are godparents to her son, so we suggested meeting them in the park for a catch-up this weekend. She called on the morning and said her son wanted to go to the museum. I agreed. DH and I (who have no children so no particular need to go to a kids museum on a Saturday morning ourselves!!!) arrived early and got in the queue. She called us to say she was running 30 mins late. We carried on queueing. We eventually got in, paying £20 each for a ticket. She arrived, got straight in for free, and then announced her little boy only wanted to go to the museum to pick up a special badge from a vending machine there. We went straight to the vending machine. He got his badge. She said he was hungry and wanted to go for lunch. We left the museum. We went for lunch. When we had to leave, she said it was a shame we couldn't spend longer and that they were disasppointed. This after being 30 mins late.

What would any of you do about this? She is going through a nasty divorce, so we forgive a lot. But this is typical behaviour (and tbh always was, even before the divorce). She has lots of money, so didn't even think about the £40 for us. And she doesn't have a full-time job, as we do, so it didn't occur to her that Saturday would be our usual day for a much-needed lie- in.

She has, frankly, been a rubbish friend for the past few years. When DH was redundant, she was utterly unsupportive, despite my asking her for support specifically. Just a chat on the phone etc would have helped at the time. I have gone out of my way to support her throughout divorce, even at one point having to get a taxi to her in the middle of the night because she was upset about an email her ex had sent, and I was worried about her alone in the house with her son. But am getting tired of utterly selfish behaviour like this weekend's.

She is my best friend (supposedly) so though others have told me to just ditch her, it's not really an option. She isn't the kind of person to whom you can gently say she's being unfair, because she gets hysterical.

I have to be honest, I'm wondering what I'm doing with a friend like this!! I know it reflects badly on me that I let myself be treated this way. But I am her son's godmother and have known her for almost 20 years.

Any advice much appreciated.

OP posts:
anonacfr · 21/03/2011 16:47

I have a friend like that emeraldgirl1.
We met at uni and are still friends even though over the years she has been rude abusive and completely self absorbed with all of us (uni friends) at one time or another.
Strangely she's very persistent in staying in touch so we are still in contact but overall she's one of those people who you tell other people about just to see the Shock look on their faces.

Sometimes the more outrageous people are the more they get away with.

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 21/03/2011 17:37

The kids eureka museum in thingy was bloody expensive to get into iirc

fluffy123 · 21/03/2011 19:07

It may be hard to accept but I think the friendship has passed it's sell by date. Just because you have been friends for 20 years doesn't mean you have to carry on being friends. End it now by simply not contacting her, she may get the message or if she is really self absorbed she may not . That is her problem , I don't think you need to say anything to her , plus you may say something you regret.

MissyKLo · 21/03/2011 19:16

She treats you like shit and YOU LET HER treat you like shit

Stop letting her do this. Grow some balls and tell her and if she doesn't like it that's tough shit! Stand up for yourself woman! Do it now!

FreudianSlippery · 21/03/2011 19:25

You have to tell her how expensive the tickets were. If she freaks out and ditches you... Well, job done eh?

foreverondiet · 21/03/2011 19:55

She was totally unreasonable - I had season tickets at one point for a family farm place and whenever I went with others who were not members I was very aware how expensive it was so planned to stay for whole day. I think you should tell her that her behaviour was unacceptible.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 21/03/2011 20:03

Sorry emerald, I didn't mean to quiz you Blush. My radar just zones in on the word 'museum' :)

Happylander · 21/03/2011 20:12

Blimey I would do what other posters have said and phase her out. I would not expect my DS godparents to pay for anything unless they chose to take my son somewhere i.e. they rang and said we want to take DS to blah blah. How rude of her and I am also not sure what she is teaching her child in regards to going to a museum to buy something.

theITgirl · 21/03/2011 20:43

You have to say something to her.

I had a similar conversation with a friend today (but I was your friend). We have Merlin passes and intend to get our money's worth this year. Friend suggested we all go to a theme park together, I said wonderful and that I could probably save them money on their tickets. She also suggested London aquarium but we decided against that as I explained that DS wilts in the heat in there so we would only be able to stay about an hour.

So I was totally upfront about it, so that my friend would get her money's worth out of any trips we do together. BTW I have a car so I can take them easily with us to any theme park.

MrsSnow · 21/03/2011 21:32

I think the point is that YOU are her best friend but she is NOT your best friend.

Time to distance yourself and be godmother but not best friend.

redexpat · 21/03/2011 21:41

YANBU. You need to decide whether you want to work at this relationship, or cut your losses and run. You sound reluctant to do the second. If you do want to work at it, you have to explain calmly in a non confrontational way (I have no idea how to do this) why she has upset you.

podsquash · 21/03/2011 21:53

in my experience there is no getting through to some people. You could say something but you seem to expect an ugly drama, which is frankly exhausting for you and pointless as it will make NO difference if she's the narcissistic type. People like that do not think like others, they don't see reason, and there's no point arguing or expecting them to change. But there's also no point wasting energy on the 'friendship'. My advice would be to be civil when she contacts you and follow through on all formalities like cards and so on, but detach yourself from the emotional content of the relationship.

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