To ask for an apology or just leave it

[Mrsdavidcaruso]

Last year some friends came for a Holiday with their 14 yo DD. Quite frankly the girl was nightmare but assume no different from any other 14 yo's forced to come on holiday with their parents traipsing round stately homes and the like. She spent all of the evenings on her ipad but again I guess that's normal teenage behaviour.

She perked up a bit when I let her look at my jewellery and was very taken with a gated bracelet in rose gold with a lozenge dangling from it that used to hang from my Great Granddads fob watch.

The day after she saw it when we were out I noticed it on her wrist I was a bit upset as its a family heirloom and didn't want it to get lost, I didn't make a thing about it just told her I never take it out and put it in my handbag.

The day they left just when they were about to leave I suddenly had a 'feeling' looked in my jewellery case and it was gone.

I tried to ask her away from her parents if she had it but she went into one took it out of her pocket and threw it at me her mum was so embarrassed but as they had to leave to get their ferry I had to leave it.

I had assumed she had disciplined her DD and had hoped that I would get a least an email saying sorry but the incident has never been mentioned again.

Now they want to come again in August I asked my friend if her DD was happy about coming but as she said they don't have much money and coming to us with no hotel costs was the only way they can have a holiday by the sea.

AIBU to at least expect an apology from the girl when she is here, am assuming that at age 15 she might be more willing to do so.

I am happy for them all to come but TBH I am still a bit upset by it all.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this. You sound like a nice person put in a difficult situation who was trying to please everyone. Stealing is just not on, and nor is hanging up on people. Time to move on.

i'm dying to know the details.

blimey you lot are very harsh.

I like having people to stay and taking them round. I would be happy to have good friends back for a second year if I knew we would have a nice time and they couldn't afford a holiday.
I don't see why that makes the OP a pushover? If she likes having people to stay! I am happy to say no when I don't want people.
She has said there were good friends, when I have a good friend I don't lay down the law, I allow for people to be human.

I think the parents were mortified and embarrassed, gave dd a hard time on the way home insisted she wrote and then didn't follow up. That was their mistake. Personally I would have sent an apology from me as well as from her, but that isn't a mistake to loose a whole friendship over, if the friendship mattered to me, I would ask them. I would think they didn't follow up because they were dealing with other examples of her bad behaviour.

My guess is that mum burst into tears because she is struggling with her dd, and she knew that her dd had effectively just blown her friendship with OP apart. The emails and responses from the friends sound to me like parents doing damage control around a child they don't know how to deal with.

No, I wouldn't have them back this year, because it is still unresolved, and I wouldn't trust their dd. But do I think they are crocodile tears and that it is all about loosing their holiday? No. I think it is about a family dealing with a difficult teen. Is some of that a consequence of their parenting over time? probably.

Steppe, I agree. I have friends who visit as a cheap way of having a holiday, and it's brilliant fun. If their dcs behaved like this I would expect apologies and consequences, so that it was resolved. If it wasn't resolved I couldn't have them back to stay and that would make me sad.

It does sound like they're not coping with dd, and their lack of consequences is probably causing no end of issues. This is their problem to deal with. Hopefully they will. And maybe next year a letter will appear from the dd apologising for being an utter best, expressing her utter disgust at her own behaviour, and resolving the issue.

Children grow up. Vile teens can become gracious adults. And I think the op is generous enough that if things were handled diffently she would rekindle the friendship. Time will tell.

But I wouldn't be seeking to mend things without an apology.

That email confirmed that their story was total BS. Why did she cry and put the phone down? Then they had time to concoct some total crap (if they sat with her and did the email why would they not watch her send it). Now the email saying they won't be coming? To ashamed to show their faces by the sounds of it.

Maybe this isn't a one off for the DD? Her extreme reaction tells me this is a common occurance and they have a real problem with their DD on their hands, and they are completely failing to deal with it.

no, I agree Chris, there needs to be an apology, and I wouldn't want them back until their dd had (one day hopefully) grown up a bit.

I am just a bit that when the mum burst into tears, everyone's first reaction is it is fake.
maybe I am a pushover after all.

There's worse things to be, Steppe

The crying and putting down the phone was an odd reaction. But it could simply be that in a year of terrible behaviour from dd, they had seen that apology as the one time she did right and faced up to what she had done. Realising it was not, could have been overwhelming.

We can't know for sure.

steppe and Chris, I agree that there may well be other things going on that they're finding it hard to cope with.

I also agree with 'Children grow up. Vile teens can become gracious adults'. But they are the adults here and, no matter how upset they might about their daughter they need to behave like adults, especially to people who are their friends.

Putting the phone down because you feel overwhelmed by your child's difficulties and mortified by their behaviour is one thing, but not following it up with a proper phone call to explain is quite another (although if the husband's email to say they weren't coming contained an apology then I'm happy to be proved wrong).

Also, saying that they haven't much money and staying with the OP 'was the only way they can have a holiday by the sea' is plain ungracious and makes them sound like users.

Only, I agree that they haven't behaved well. I think the op has behaved exactly as I would. And I think that it's a very difficult thing to accept that friends can be so ungracious.

We don't know if they are lying or telling the truth. All we know for sure is that op's friend has been cowardly and not been in touch to sort things out. If she never does, there is no friendship. But you never know. People can surprise you.

I've had it happen both ways, people have surprised me with how gracious they can be, and people who I thought were kind have turned their back on me when I was in need.

People do behave very oddly where their dcs are concerned, and a (misguided) need to protect their dd may have put them on the defensive.

Yes, you're not wrong. I think things are not looking good for the friendship though, and the more time that elapses without an apology or even an honest conversation initiated by the friends, the less good it looks.

Very true. Hopefully they'll have the respect to not just phone up in 6 months and pretend nothing has happened. That'd be the nail in the coffin for me.

Yes, quite.

agree with you onlylovers.

and yes, people do behave oddly where their dcs are concerned (me included )

Yes, honest conversation is what can mend this and I can't think of anything else which could (except maybe quite a lot of years!). I think the tears were genuine, and then she may have not called back because she couldn't trust herself not to do it again.

Give it a few more days and give her a call. After all, you're sad she's not coming too, you were looking forward to it and are disappointed too. I am assuming the h's email/text was nice, of course, not an accusatory "how mean are you, spoiling everything, and now we don't want to be friends, so ner" sort of thing.

It is not the OP's job to chase all this up, honest conversation, etc.

Dodged a bullet with these chancers not coming and will have a newborn baby soon, too.

Why on Earth should she go to lengths to 'mend' this? These people had a year to mend things. They sat schtum until it came time to blag another free holiday by the sea.

Agree with expat. I think this is one for the OP to leave for now and where it is their job to build bridges. FWIW as the girl's parent, I would still be asking for an apology from her to OP at this point, even though they now aren't coming this year. Time as Jux said will be the other helpful thing (for one thing, in 4 years the daughter will be 18 and probably not coming on holidays with them) so in OP's position I would leave it and allow some time for things to settle.

Just read it all. I hate situations like this where you're doing someone a favour, end up the wronged party and then seem to be blamed for it
I'd be disappointed to feel I'd lost a friend, but I'd also feel that the friend wasn't really who I thought she was. The reason for that is that I'd look at it from the other side and consider what I'd do if I was the mother.

I can quite believe that the parents are having a difficult time with their daughter and I can understand them being really dreadfully embarrassed by what's happened and that they didn't follow it up properly. So what would I have done then? at the very least I think I'd have sent my friend a
big bouquet and a separate card in the post explaining that I was mortified, sorry and then embarrassed all over again, explain how difficult daughter was being and how challenging it all was and ask if we could move on.

After that if my friend didn't call me, I'd ring her up and ask if she'd received the flowers and the card and say I understood if she wanted to cool it, but really couldn't apologize enough.

I don't think I'd be the only one to be like that either.

On Mrs DC's side of the coin I'd not be bothered about an apology from the daughter as I don't think she'd mean it anyway.

HenI5 I think your take on it is good, and I too would have felt it incumbent on me to apologise on my daughter's behalf. It's disappointing that the parents haven't taken that on and it does show that OP's friend isn't quite the person OP thought she was.

Oh God yes, first port of call make dc apologise, second port of call apologise profusely since all ultimate responsibility for dc lies with me. Then reassure op that dc will be punished and this will never happen again, and tell op that I completely understand if she wouldn't ever want us to come back. Send op flowers for being so lovely. And finally drink an enormous glass of wine to hide the shame.

That would be a normal response I think.

I would hope the friend might still call and there might be a way forwards, I would not call the friend first.

I would never have them back even if an apology was forthcoming a year later. Say no and say why.

Its a no. stealing, no apology, no shame or remorse and the cheek to come and stay, but only because it's all they can afford.......rather than they cant wait to see you.....denied!