Ok, I have been friends with a group of other women for about 5 years. We all meet up regularly. One friend, lets call her Friend A, is the alpha female of the group. She is quite self absorbed, demanding and is actually quite unpleasant a lot of the time, both behind peoples' backs and sometimes to their faces. One girl in particular she gives a very hard time to as this girls' husband has been out of work for a while and they are on benefits.
Friend A will also seem to be picking on one person at a time, for a few weeks, with her backstabbing and nastiness. She will even go as far as to go on Facebook and do a group chat about that person, excluding that person of course, and try to get others on side and to back her up. Often too she will stir up a hornet's nest, and then say she's got too much going on in her life to be involved, or say that it's nothing to do with her. For example at Christmas our group did a secret santa, and Friend A decided the gift that one friend got from another girl (who was Friend A's bullying victim at the time) wasn't up to scratch and then started having a go at the sender of the gift, and got an argument going between the sender and the recipient then made out it was nothing to do with her. Friend A also tells people that others have said things when it was in fact her that said the negative things, not others.
In recent months, several other members of the group have spoken to me and said she's upset them, they dislike her, and they wish there was a way we could arrange meet ups without her.
Anyway, I have always stayed on good terms with Friend A. I've kept out of bitching, and basically just gone along to the group meets, as I've enjoyed the company of the others. However, at a recent night out she was giving someone her opinion, which was actually just an excuse to be rude and bitchy, and she, out of the blue said "MiniEggsJumped agrees with me and said the same things!" which was totally untrue. The person being picked on was really hurt and seemed cross with me, so I said "Actually no, I didn't say any of those things. you seem to have a habit of making things up and causing trouble", at which point Friend A burst into tears, and one friend, the one who is on benefits and has been given a terrible time by friend A, actually leapt to her defence, and started verbally attacking me. I walked out, and went home.
I heard from one person later that night, who agreed with me and said she was going to stop meeting with the group. Apart from her, I've heard from a few others, who have all basically sided with Friend A. These are all women that she has upset and who have said they dislike her and wish she couldn't come to our meet ups anymore. Some she has been extremely unpleasant to. But it seems that they liked things they way they were, and are happy for her to behave that way. Apparently Friend A is extremely "upset", and is exagerating and saying she feels I attacked her, and was out of order.
I feel really disappointed that none except one of my friend have backed me up, and also that all these people she has been horrible to have sided with her and seem to think her behaviour is acceptable.
Sorry this is long!!