Friend wouldn't help fiance choose a ring

[SomethingLike]

Regular but have NC for this don't want to out myself to anyone I've told this to in RL.

I met my now fiance about five years ago. After we had been together about a year and a bit he approached a good friend of mine who I've known for over ten years but saw once a week over text (got the number from my phone) and asked her to help him find out my ring size. I know all this retrospectively I knew nothing of it at the time.

Said friend and I were having a weekend at the town we are both from and she never brought up the subject. Fiance always used to say to me "she's a funny one that girl she isn't a true friend to you I don't think." Since getting engaged he's told me why he thinks that and shown me a text conversation between the two of them where he kept asking her to help find out the size and she kept refusing, saying she couldn't and a snappy one saying "you'll just have to buy the ring and get it re sized." She never contacted him about it again or offered to help. He then contacted a girl I worked with who somehow got it out of me in one day. (Without giving the game away.)

Would this make you think differently about your friend or is it insignificant? She knew I was happy with fiance and would be happy about an engagement so that can't have been a reason. I'm just confused by the woke thing.

it would make me feel different about the fiancé.

what is his investment in proving that your friend is not a true friend to you? what is he hoping to get out of it?

and from your pov, why should he get to define a true friend when you have known this woman for twice as long as you have known him?

I would look a bit more carefully at him in general. Does he usually think his views matter more than yours? Does he usually have an open and generour attitudes towards your family and friends?

Is there anything else she has ever done that makes you question her as a friend?

So apart from this one incident, which I personally think means nothing, what do you think of your friendship?

"He cooled towards her after this situation."

Why?

"I would have been friendlier, she was a bit abrasive."

Sounds as if you've "cooled towards her" as well.

There's no need is there?

In fact, your fiane only had to ask once & keave it at that.

And he didn't need to ever say anything to you.

If you like the friend, carry on liking!

Don't be swayed by this or him.

On reading your later posts, I still maintain your fiancé sounds a bit of a drama queen. So she is unhelpful on one occasion and that makes her "not a true friend". Does he always see life in black and white like this.

Cory

Yes he does have an open and understanding attitude towards my family and friends generally. We have a lot of mutual friends too. That's why this has irked me I suppose.

As I said I'm never going to mention this to my friend, I wanted to know if other people would think her behaviour off. It seems not so in that sense this has helped to put my mind at ease.

How does someone find out your ring size without asking you or needing access to other rings you wear? I have no idea what my ring size is, although I do remember it being measured when we got married.

For my parents' silver wedding my dad bought my mum a ring - he whittled a piece of wood on his lathe, put an existing ring of hers onto it and marked where it fit to take it to the shop. I thought that was lovely but I can't imagine most people going that far.

Also, it hasn't been clear.
He approached her 4 years ago (or so) and you've only recently become engaged?
He saved her texts from 4 years ago?
And he's been telling you she's not your friend for all that time?

I don't know whether it's any help to tell you I'm another one who did this for a friend's fiancé. I did it, but with huge discomfort as I had to deliberately mislead my friend. I made him promise to tell her as soon as the proposal was done - which he did, so I got my chance to apologise to my friend.

I don't blame anyone for refusing! It's very odd of him to say it shows she wasn't a "true friend"

FiresideChat

Apart from that one incident no there is nothing that has made me question her as a friend, nothing at all.

I was never considering doing anything about it it was just playing on my mind.

Aww, OOAOML, that's lovely.

Why are you still going on about this FOUR years later?! If it was a problem, deal with it at the time. If we all said your friend was being unhelpful and not a true friend, would you then have had it out with her? I suspect she would think you were losing your marbles. I doubt she remembers the contents of those text messages after all this time. Is your fiancé still harping on about it?

I have no idea about ring sizes and if I had been The Friend I'd have said 'well you live with her, why don't you just borrow one of her rings and take it with you as a guide?'.

I'd have been perplexed to have been asked tbh.

So if this is not typical of him, why do you think he suddenly acted so out of character? Where do you think his unusual investment in your friend's suitability as a friend comes from?

I think people have wrongly and harshly judged my fiancé!

This is mumsnet.
Your fiance is a man.
He will be flamed!

I don't think he's done anything wrong. And texts can be misleading. I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding.

Is this a conversation topic that you and your partner talk about 4 years later?

Actually Lweji is asking the only pertinent question: why is either of you arsed about remembering this 4 years later?

Sorry, I see more posters are asking the same.

If you thought your best friend was going to get engaged wouldn't you be excited and want to help? I know I would.

Perhaps she didn't know you wanted to get engaged. Being happy in a relationship and wanting to marry are not the exact same thing. And if it doesn't go as planned, being the friend who behind your back helped in the whole thing, is not a comfortable position.

There's also this getting her phone number from your phone. She might have disliked this. I know I would.

In literature and film, half the time someone plans a surprise, they're suspected of having sinister plans - that alone is reason enough to not want to take part in that sort of thing, even if in reality the likelihood of it going wrong is a bit smaller.

Oh come on! What kind of person, a decent true friend wouldn't want to help with this?

I think she couldn't be arsed with a touch of jealousy thrown in for good measure.

'well you live with her, why don't you just borrow one of her rings and take it with you as a guide?'.

Would seem obvious.

Although I never had a ring for the ring finger of my left hand until I was engaged!

It was lovely Garlic, even although the ring was in her jewellery box because it didn't fit very well so she still had to get the new one resized But for a man famous for producing a box of chocolates on Christmas Eve and asking if I had any wrapping paper left, it was an amazingly beautiful amount of thought and planning

Weren't there any wedding guest transgressions that have overtaken Bad Ring Etiquette friend?

Hikez

Thank you! I don't think he's done anything wrong either, I didn't come on here to have to defend my fiancé. I think he thought she would help, she didn't, he thought she was against the engagement because of this.

I myself thought she probably isn't against the engagement but she did say "Oh no you're not going to leave me on my own are you?" When we said we were engaged. She meant leave her as the single one.

Since then she's been totally happy for us re the wedding but I don't bring it up much because I know it's boring for other people.

OP how long have you been engaged for? From what I can gather it's about 3 and 1/2 years? And you're still unhappy about this? Enough that you've had to NC because you've bitched told people about it in RL? I don't see the problem other than fiancé should've kept it to himself, whether your friend was being purposefully unhelpful or just didn't want to get dragged into it all, its in the past. If you can't let it go after this length of time, why not? And if your fiancé has only just brought it up, who saves messages on their phone that long. Time line is a bit stinky to me. Who would genuinely give a shit after this amount of time? A friend of mine gave a boyf of mine a BJ after 5 years I couldn't have cared less. And certainly wouldn't do an AIBU about it.