I posted a while ago about a friend of mine who I was considering quietly dropping (not very hard at the time, as she was ignoring me because I couldn't attend her birthday party (my kid was sick). General advice was that she was an evil toxic cow and I shouldn't worry about sloping off and avoiding her.
The background is that we've been friends since we were children (about 25 years now!), but she's often put me down in front of other people, told all her husband's friends about my private life so they can noisily take the piss out of me at parties, dropped me for nights out when she's had a better offer.
On the other hand, she was really there for me when I got divorced, when my mum died and gave me loads of baby clothes and stuff she didn't need anymore.
We did previously have a period of not being in contact for a year after she really (and I believe deliberately) upset my sister at my wedding to the point that my sister had to leave. She knows that my sister finds weddings difficult since her own divorce and that she has a bit of a tendency to go off the deep end at family occasions when she's had a few drinks. She also doesn't know my sister that well.
My friend was, I later found out, deeply offended I didn't ask her to be a bridesmaid (in context, I have been her bridesmaid twice, but with only twenty five guests at my wedding I thought 3 flowergirls (including her daughter) was enough and she had told me she was alright with this, even though she wasn't).
So, at the wedding, she cornered my sister and started asking her if she was finding my wedding upsetting, because it must really remind her of her own wedding and must be very difficult. My sister kept trying to change the subject, but this friend wouldn't drop it. Eventually my sister fled in tears.
After about a year of not speaking, she made contact and I thought that - given how good she'd been to me in the past, and how long we'd been friends, and being her bridesmaid twice - I could take some responsibility for not realising how hurt she'd be not to be a bridesmaid. I apologised for not realising how much it meant to her.
We've since seen each other now and then but, since I had my baby, it hasn't been that pleasant. Everytime I see her, she spends ages telling me all about problems at work and fallings out she's had with people and then, before I can get a word in edgeways, she's making snide remarks aobut how I'll never get my figure back now I've had a baby and 'everyone will know you're wearing control pants', how all breastfeeding mothers smell of 'bad cheese, not even the nice kind' and how my baby girl looks like her Dad 'and it's not a good look on a girl'.
Anyway, sorry it's so long, I didn't want to dripfeed (and have no idea how to find my previous post and link to it!).
The point is, she recently started texting me and I've been trying to politely put her off, tell her I'm busy, or just not respond, but then she emailed me to ask if my phone was broken and why wasn't I getting back to her? There's only so much ignoring you can do so I replied and outlined, with as little bitterness as possible, that I had tried to move past her behaviour at my wedding but couldn't and why i'd got the impression lately that she didn't really enjoy seeing me either. I suggested the friendship had gone past it's sell by date and maybe we should move on.
She's sent me a text in reply saying that she's really sorry, she doesn't have any idea why I think she would deliberately try to wind my sister up at the wedding and all her comments about my weight, etc, were just jokes and I've taken them out of context and she loves me and wants to remain friends.
I replied that I wish her and her family all the best, but I think it's best if we give each other some space for the mo.
Now I am racked with guilt and conflict. What if she really didn't mean to upset my sister (although I find it hard to understand why else she'd hammer on subjects she knew would be upsetting, with my emotionally volatile sibling)? Were her comments meant solely in jest and she thought I'd get it? Should I give her another chance? I even had a dream last night that I went to see her and we hugged and agreed to forget it all.
Argh! Racked with guilt! AIBU!