To delete a friend from my life who repeatedly called me 'ugly'?

[HexagonalQueenOfTheSummer]

I have known my friend for about 20 years, since we were in our mid teens. She's always been quite a jealous and bitter type of person but has got worse and worse with age.

A few years ago, I spent a lot of time with her, and we got on well most of the time. Our DCs are similar ages and they all got on well too. She would keep slipping into conversation though that she thought I was ugly, but in a passive aggressive way. Things like 'I don't think you're very pretty but you have a nice personality and that's what counts so don't think I don't think highly of you'. And another time someone said I looked like one of the Appleton sisters from All Saints, and my friend cackled and said 'No you don't look like her at all. She's pretty'. My confidence wasn't particularly high at the time, it hasn't really got much higher until the past couple of years, as I've had counselling, and have started to cut people out of my life that hurt me. I've always kept this friend in my life though, even though she lives in another town, as we've known each other for many years.

I think a lot of it is jealousy as she has often said she is jealous of my life, my house etc, and like I said she is a jealous person. However, through my counselling I've actually admitted to myself that actually I have spent all this time thinking I'm ugly because of what she said. She slowly ebbed away at my confidence at a time when I had low self esteem anyway. And I suppose I 'enabled' her behaviour by continuing to associate with her and spend time with her. I am actually starting to realise that I'm not ugly at all, and that really she is the ugly one for behaving as she does/did.

Anyway, as I said, she lives in another town but keeps coming back to my home town and wanting to meet up and I keep saying no and that I'm busy that day/evening, but I am seriously thinking of deleting her of facebook and having no further contact with her, and ignoring her calls and I really do see now that she did a lot of damage to my self esteem and I don't want to be associated with her in case she ever says anything again. She constantly comments on other peoples' FB pictures 'oh you're so gorgeous' and 'you're such a pretty girl' and that kind of thing so she is capable of giving compliments, I think she was jealous and wanted to bring me down, and she succeeded. But it makes me feel quite sick actually to see her make these positive comments to people.

I know this sounds like an odd AIBU, but AIBU?

There is nothing wrong with getting rid of people who cause you distress.
I don't think toxic people really need or deserve an explanation .
Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who are just out there to get what they can from people.

real friends don't think their friends are ugly or over analyse their looks fgs, she sounds mental

OMG, you poor thing, she sounds horrendous. (And you sound lovely by the way).

Friends should pick you up not put you down. If they do, they are not friends, they're just sick toxic people who are trying to overcome their own insecurities by picking on others.

Like my friend says:

<img loading="lazy" class="inline-flex mumsnet-emoji" alt="Grin" src="https://www.mumsnet.com/build/assets/grin-D7Eg_B6y.png">

Thank you again everyone for the lovely replies.

I don't think I will confront her, as I've confronted a couple of others during my friends 'purge' and it just creates bad feeling and I've ended up wishing I'd just cut contact rather than confronting.

I had to ditch another so-called friend a few months ago as every time we met up she made unkind comments about my DCs and put downs to me; laughing when I said my DD wanted to be a hairdresser and saying that she clearly takes after me in the academic department. (not saying there is ANYTHING wrong or thick about hairdressers btw, but said friend perceived it as a rubbish job, i know that's not true though and am more than happy for DD to pursue it as a career), and trying to make out my youngest was backwards, and basically everything she said had a sting in the tail.

As I said before, I attract these oddballs!

I think you'll feel great when you ditch her. Liberating.

I've never had a friend who was quite like yours, but I do have a couple who deliver a few "stingers" every now and then. I always distance myself for a bit if I leave their company feeling worse not better

YANBU at all and I'm pretty positive you're not ugly either. Ugliness often comes from within, it's your "friend" who is the ugly one, so don't listen to her ever again, hold your head high and smile .

Oh and get some photos taken of yourself, it's one of the most confidence building things you can do

Hex I just want to say - it's not that you attract these people, it's that in the past you have been aware enough / confident enough to immediately dampen down the flames of 'friendship' where as other people would just have walked away at the beginning and not stood for being put down. It's not that you are a magent for these frenemies, it's just that you need to work on repelling/rejecting them.

You are right to cut contact with this woman, she is in no way a positive influence in your life so just delete/block her.

I agree boredandrestless. If this all started when you were young, and no one in "power" pointed out how unreasonable the nasty comments were, no wonder we don't develop the skills to protect ourselves more

you have been a magnet to these sort of idiots simply because your low self esteem made it easy for them to victimise you to make themselves feel good. The great way you are addressing your self confidence is making you reconsider what you want / need from a friendship and they are falling way below the mark so cull them and look for people who value you for who you are not what they try to make you. good luck and don't look back. their loss for not valuing you in the first place.

You sound lovely OP and that's the reason frenemies try to put you down. I don't think you're a magnet for them, but it's more like they mistake your open-ness and kindness for weakness.

X-posted with Ecclesscakes, I hadn't thought before about frenemies zeroing in on people with low self-esteem.

I doubt your ugly, sounds like she was jealous of you and wanted you to feel as ugly as she is. She sounds like a very nasty piece of work.

Good on you for avoiding her so far, now do yourself a favour and delete this toxic woman from your life.

Ditch her. She's a nasty bully, not a friend. Doubt you'd need to tell her why, she must know she's a nasty bitch with an ugly personality.

Several years ago a friend and I were arranging to go on to a speed dating night. As we were talking my friend's younger prettier sister and her even prettier friend walked in and said it sounded like a good idea and wanted to come too. As my friend and I realistically could not handle that sort of compensation I said, after they had gone, that I really didn't want them coming as every time we all go out they get all the attention and it would be a wasted night as they already had partners. I also mentioned that they were far too pretty to be in compensation with. We were a bit over weight after having babies and they were very slim and full of confidence this bit I didn't say. My friend took offence to this and after that night we really didn't have a friendship. I found out through another friend that she thought I was putting her down, when in actual fact I was trying to give us both a chance of building up are self confidence without having another night of watching he sister getting all the attention and us being ignored.

I think you need to speak to your friend about what she's saying. She may think that it's a running joke between you two. If that's the only thing that is bothering you, you may find that if you clear the air you could become closer. If my friend had come to me I would of told her what I meant but instead she choose to talk about me behind my back and that's worse in my eyes.

Once you remove people like this from your life, you will find the people who are worthy of your friendship. It can be difficult to make the move but very worth it.

Get rid of her

BUT

YABU to say cutting her out of your life= deleting her from Facebook!!!!

It sounds like you need to get rid and find a new friend, one who is nice! I just don't bother associating with people who cause problems. It means i have a very limited ammount of friends but i am quite happy with that.

"Deleting" someone from your life sounds awful.

Do you want to be the kind of person who "deletes" friends?

I think the saying 'treat others as you would want to be treated' is a good one if you want to feel good about yourself. You mention having self esteem issues, I don't think that treating someone else in an angry and disrespectful way will lead to you feeling better about yourself in the long run, no matter what they have done to you.

Surely the more mature thing to do, and the thing that will leave you with more self respect in the long run, is to speak to your friend about the issue. That might then lead to you saying to your friend that you won't be returning her calls in the future, but better to have a conversation and treat her with some decency. You say you've confronted friends in the past and its not worked - this does not need to be a confrontation, just a conversation where you say how you feel.

Damn you auto correct... Competition not compensation

Thanks everyone

I'll definitely be going with my original plan. Am definitely certain it wasn't a running joke (and if it was a running joke it's not very funny is it)

narnia, I really don't feel this friend deserves respect and I certainly don't feel that it would make me a bad person to not want to have anything to do with her after the things she has said, just a sensible one

I also agree with cutting her out of your life.

If she was a good friend that generally made you feel good but just 'slipped' up, then allowances could be made.

But IMO, even when a friendship is 'tested', I personally think a true friend will temper honesty with diplomacy and discretion.
She is an adult, and not a child that needs teaching how to behave. If she can be kind to others, she can be kind to you. She sounds quite mean spirited. If she then asks why contact has dwindled, you can formulate what you want to say.

I can not imagine telling anyone they were unattractive, let alone someone who I thought of as a friend.

get rid of her and ignore her if she contacts you or jsut tell her straight you only have room in your life for people you like and the respect is mutual

she is not a friend she is a nasty bully. what a horrible person no one needs someone like that in their life

It sounds like passive agressive spitefulness to me. I'm sure she has issues, most people who behave like this do. BUT she is not compelled to make hurtful comments to make herself feel better. It's selfish and wrong.

I had a 'friend' like this, at first I just thought she was insecure and ignored the comments. In the end I blanked her out completely as every time I saw her or talked to her she would just drag me down. I don't like confontation though a few times I let her know she had hurt my feelings and she didn't change.

If she drags you down then ditch her.

confrontation

OMG... It is like you are ME!!!
Major double here... in so many ways.
I had the same exact situation with a toxic best friend - who, unfortunately lived directly next door to me. Everything you said in your first post, is me and her!

I began to try and put a little bit of distance between us, (hard, I know, being next door... Kids in the same year at school, same school mum friend's!)... but, being preggers with my 3rd baby and starting up a new business (that was doing really well) - I had my hands full. And, I was growing tired of her controlling, critical and majorly toxic attitude to everyone around her, mostly me and my daughter. She would also have 'flavour of the month' friends... some really quite unsavoury... but, she would all play us off each other... bitching about one at a time... then turning on someone else. I didn't like what she was doing, and even though we saw each other every day, school run etc... - I began to stay at home a bit more (early pregnancy too, super sick all the time) and made a couple of excuses to not go around to her place.

She did not like that we were not seeing each other day - and that I wasn't sitting on her sofa everyday bitching about other mums and kids (some being very close friends of hers!) And, that she losing 'control' of me... and that I was friendly with other mums in the playground. She moaned that I was 'distant', and kept on asking what was wrong, what was wrong.

As I didn't want an almighty fall out, and felt that maybe she was going through a tough time herself (being majorly toxic) and quite frankly, where the hell would I even start to explain!!! I said that I was sad that our friendship was not what it used to be and I blamed that on us both having different things going on... (her with different friends and me with feeling low with extreme morning sickness and my adoptive family were causing stress..) but, I was going to concentrate more on getting myself better. She said, okay then, sleep well, I'll speak to you in the morning.

Anyhoo.... the next morning.... I get a 'dear john'.. stay out of my life, 'best thing you can do is move away from here' email the next day! Very nasty, very personal... and it completely pulled the rug away from under me. Devastated.. not only at this betrayal, but at how black and white she was being... not thinking practically through how we were all going to carry on our lives, living right next door.

Me and my husband spent the next few weeks trying to (sadly, I can see now) make amends/get peace etc...for the sake of the kids who were going back to school next month. Even our husbands were good friends and went mountain biking together! It was such a mess and we were DESPERATE to make somekind of contact and reconciliation for the kids. But, it had the opposite effect... she became 'top dog'... it's like we gave her the power (with our desperation) - and she began acting even more irrationally.

She began dictating things that we could and couldn't do!!!! Involving the kids too... how 'your kids can not associate with our kids'. My daughter could not play outside when her kids were outside.. which was a nightmare, as all the kids on the cul de sac played together,,,, and when me and my daughter came out to play (on bikes/scooters etc) she would pull her kids in and put her lounge blinds down. And of course, that would mean pulling in the other kids on the cul de sac aswell... so me and my daughter we just standing there. (We decided to not play outside, but play in our garden. Which was hell to be honest... my daughter hearing all her friends playing together without her!!!! So, we just never went outside! Became prisoners!)

Well... school started back again... and me and my husband pulled ourselves together and became determined to carry on our life, for our daughter's sake, and put a brave face on and ignore what was going on around us.

My ex-friend and her friend, who lived the other side of my house (a rather nasty piece of work) systematically between them, and their own kids (all under 8 yrs)... put us through 8 months of hell!

Nasty games involving other (neutral) neighbours and their kids... bullying on the way to school and on the way back from school... They were always very clever, and things always happened out of school.

I would walk around the corner in the playground, and there she was... holding court in the playground.. with the mum's who she hated and slagged off constantly to me. I would always smile and let everything go over me... and luckily, my beautiful daughter didn't really work out what was going on, bless her! (She's a bit away with the fairies sometimes.. like me!)

Just pure hell basically... There was even a time - one of their kids got lost and no-one could find them... and I came running over, and offered to help... I even walked her daughter's home.. so she could stay and look for the other child... Thankfully, the child was found and we all walked back together - like nothing had happened... it was wonderful.... and I said goodbye to them, like I used to.... then, on the Monday.... the games started back again. I was heartbroken - all over again... thinking that one day, things will get better. And they never did.... they got worse.

It all came to a head, exactly a year ago... with my darling daughter in floods of tears - being horribly upset by my friend's actions. (Inviting all the kids on the cul de sac for an 'impromptu' play in her garden (as she saw us come out to play)... all my daughter's friends went into her house... and then this woman (who was the first person to hold my other daughter after she was born) went and slammed the door in her face!!!!!! I couldn't get to my daughter in time,,,,, my daughter thought was was included too... and practically got a door slammed in her face. I will never forget her face and how upset she was. Infact, the older neighbours - who lived opposite to us, came over and asked if she was ok..... and said that they had witnessed what has been going on for months!!!

We decided, that was it.... We put the house on the market... sold it within 3 weeks and moved my daughter to another school 1 mile away. She started 3 weeks before the end of the summer term. Then, after a few weeks in temporary accomodation, we moved into our lovely new home, right next to the new school. Everything just fell into place./... like it was meant to be!

Luckily for us, it was a step up... a really lovely house in a much nicer part of town and the school is one of the top schools in the town.

My daughter is thriving at the new school.. and has settled in wonderfully, with lots of lovely friends. She says that she loves her new school and that it is much better than the old school. And, she never talks about our old house or the so called 'witches' 'friends' we left behind.

We moved last August... and it's not been easy sometimes.. having to start again in the playground. Seeing my brave daughter make new friends.. worrying, did we do the right thing by her.

I even bumped into the ex-friend before christmas, and actually touched my arm and spoke to me... if nothing at all had happened!!!!!!

Well.... it was a rather Jeremy Kyle moment I'm afraid! In the middle of Next!!!! In a nutshell... I told her to never speak to me again... and that I hoped that she and her rottweiler rot in hell for what they put us through!

We said goodbye to our life, 9 years, in that house (where all our 3 children were conceived). 9 years of companionship with my friend and her children. We keep in contact with a couple of the mums from the old school.. but, even that is dwindling now. Life carries on....

I can now honestly say that I am at peace with everything that has happened over the past 18 months. And, that I would even want to thank those two women - as we are truly happy here and love our new life.

Forgive me for using your thread Hex... This has been the first time that I have written any of what has happened to us down on paper!

You sounds so lovely... and so beautiful, inside and out. Let this woman go.... And, surround yourself by good people.

It is better to have one friend of great value than to have many friends of little value.

xxxx