More WWYD ? am i being too sensitive re DS/Mothers group?

[kiwimumof2boys]

Hi, my first post here so please bear with me !
Anyway, My oldest DS is 4, and before he was born I joined an ante natal group. We met up fairly regurlarly, and while I wasn't buddy-buddy with anyone in particular, (Everyone else is older/richer than me) but that was OK.
However, a few of the others are getting pretty chummy and I have essentially been 'dumped'. At the end of last year the 'leader' who does the roster of when we meet up, who organises etc said she'd do another roster, but I haven't heard hide nor hair from her since. Well actually, I did email offering to organise and asking when did she think suited else but got a terse reply stating she 'would try and organise something after easter.'
Anyway, what has kinda hurt is that in the last month there have been photos put up on Facebook of the others having playdates from earlier this year, I drove past the one who lives close to me and saw the others' cars in her drive, and now there have been photos of birthday parties been put up on Facebook - one with every child except my DS invited !
Now that hurt. The thing that gets me is that I was always nice and helped organise things, really made an effort, where another mum wasn't keen on meeting up (Sent and email saying we were meeting up to often for her. I got the impression she thought some of us were 'beneath' her), never helped out and now shes been bloody invited to all the parties !
Anyway, hopefully meeting up with 2 of the others tmrw, really want to say something, but I know I'm gonna be told by MN-etters not to ! esp re parties.
Any advice would be great ! Hope this makes sense !

I never joined the nct as I knew what sort of mums it attracted in our area, and I am very glad I didn't. I have met for various reasons the mothers who met through the nct at around the time DS1 was born and I know I would have loathed them all as a group. Meeting them one at a time has been fine though.

Now DS1 is at school it's miles easier and the children actually like each other too!

Go to your meeting with them, and feel glad that you have seen the light and no longer need them as friends!

If your ds is 4 he will be at school soon, if he's not already. Then you will have the opportunity to meet Los of new people all from different backgrounds. Focus on them instead.

This is exactly the reason why I rarely bother with female friends these days; inevitably it all ends in someone being ostracised or left out or talked down to. It's horrible and always results in someone feeling rubbish about themselves. I really don't know why women do it to other women, they'd all be the first to moan if they were the left out one.

My advice would be just to ditch the lot of them. Decide in your mind that you have decided that you are far superior to them! Let them wonder why you don't want to meet up with them any longer! You sound nice OP, I'm sure you have other friends too, and even if you don't surely it is preferable to have no friends than friends that behave like that?

And to whoever said that people at their NCT group made snidey comments about their DS wearing supermarket clothes, that's awful. I hope you ditched them after that! Nasty bitches!

It does hurt, OP.
But try and look at it from the outside - they, maybe, just have more in common and have become deeper friends. They may not have deliberately 'cut' or dumped you, they just don't see you as such a good friend. I don't mean that to be harsh but just trying to get some perspective - it's not that you have done anything wrong!! Just that friendships change - like how you didn't become good friends with everyone at school (another selection of peers based on age rather than new motherhood). SOme of them may have been perfectly nice but you just didn't click.
I've just been through a similar thing -stopped going to a playgroup because I started to feel 'left out' after 4 years (and a non birthday party invite for DC!). It was a few months ago and now I have made the decision to 'stop' trying to be friends it's such a relief.If I bump into them would still ahve a friendly hello but I realise that the so called 'friendship' was v superficial - just based on our DCs age and I had nothing in common with the others and they no longer added anything to my life. The fact that they had formed deeper friendships was great for them but not really anything to do with me.
Agree with NCT - try volunteering or joining pta or similiar.

Hi, thanks all for your messages.
Anyway, update: went to soft play with the nice one, and she then invited me back to her house for lunch which was great - conversation revolved around DC's and work (we work in similar fields) - nothing about any of the others. Great.
But was just on bloody facebook again and yet another bloody party that several of them were at had photos put up !!!! was a little boy that my DS got on with really well, when we used to meet up regurlarly and seemed to be a huge party with lots of kids.
Was feeling really hurt, also I'm 20 weeks pregnant so feeling a bit hormonal, so please forgive me for sounding like an over sensitive idiot, but it is soooo mean!
Sorry - just had to vent ! I know others had been through this too.

I think for your own sanity you'd be best off hiding all these women from your facebook feed. That way you won't know about any of their meet-ups/ parties and it will be quite liberating.

You're focusing in on this one group of women too much - let them go and go find some new friends, real ones! You can still stay in contact with the one you saw yesterday if you want to (and she wants to) but forget about the rest or you'll go crazy.

Facebook is the work of the Devil. Stop looking at what you think you've missed out on & concentrate on the really nice people you can meet. Like The Nice One!

Seriously, stop with the FB. Get rid of the stress. It'll keep ambushing you and you'll never move on. Go back to the beginning of the thread and re-read. You're not alone, it happens to others, these women are not your friends but don't use it as a judgement on your ability to make friends with new people.

op, DEFRIEND THEM

ignorance is bliss, and why be friends with people that hurt you?

you deserve better x

Same thing happened to me, even though I am/was the same social/financial position as the other mothers in my NCT group. I defriended them as it became silly seeing their meet-ups on Facebook all the time. Now I just say polite hello when I bump into them on the street. It really doesn't matter because DD started preschool at 3 and she starts school this September and I've made friends with the school parents.

I can understand you are a bit miffed, but after four years, people have every right to establish firmer friendships with some of the group and not others. I don't think it's realistic for you all to hang out as a group like this for 4 years, some better friendships are bound to have formed.

Why do you even have them on Facebook when looking at their pics makes you feel like that? Move on (by defriending).

It's horrid to feel excluded, I felt the same with my NCT group after 7 months! (they really were bitchy). But I also realised that we were never going to be great friends, except with one really nice lady who I liked a lot.

I think you've got to stop thinking about them in any shape or form, and as others have said, school is coming up, perhaps get a new career/set up a playgroup yourself/do something other than focus on hanging out with uber-mums who make you feel bad about yourself.

YABhormonal!

Your DS may have been friendly with one of the others but that is only because he was forced into that situation. Soon he will be at school where he can choose his own friends and you will find friendships for you develop out of this.

Stop torturing yourself with Facebook!