So I am on a committee for a PTA and small local charity for small business. I have been out of work for a while and one of the committees I am involved in has a particular skill and area and contacts that has a good chance in helping me to gain work in the future.
I enjoy it, have made friends in a new area and feel like I have been helping. However committee roles have been given out, we have a new president, and I'm secretary. The president is a very difficult woman to get on with, although on paper we have a lot in common and you would think we would get on, and sent me some emails I found very rude and patronising.
I get the feeling she has a real personal dislike of me. She will talk to everyone else at meetings bar me, wont smile or say hello when I try to talk to her and the emails were in a tone that are different to the emails everyone else gets. When I sent an email out she felt was part of her role, she sent me a very curt email demanding I respect the roles of other members, and that in future all communication go through her first. This particular task is not mentioned in her job description, and in fact, though not specifically mentioned in mine, is similar to the other tasks in mine, and would be reasonable to assume is down to me so I think she is in the wrong. She has been a part of this a lot longer than me so I may be wrong, but double checked and it would seem the paperwork back me up.
I asked her if I had offended her in any way, apologised if I had and asked for her to alter her tone of her emails. I was pleasant and not rude. I got one back basically telling me I'm overstepping and a nightmare with a load of exclamation marks. I explained that I find exclamation marks in formal emails rude, as it denotes shouting (it did in this context) and that we should treat email as we would a face to face conversation, and that, could she please not use them in future. Not the greatest thing to say, but I was upset, and have apologised.
We have been back and forth, we me at every stage asking to put any bad feeling behind us, start over and be cordial with one another. I have apologised for any disagreement and stated I hate conflict could we please start over.
She is now emailing me, telling me I am not to talk to her except in meetings (makes my role impossible) and that she will be raising a motion to vote me off the committee if I don't immediately resign. She has made me feel like a monster when I have spent four emails apologising and trying to smooth things over. I am sick at the thought of having to see her now and go to these meetings. I feel the hours I have put in are wasted, that she will turn the friends I have on the committee against me. I am confident my emails will be seen as reasonable but nothing I seem to try (stroking her ego, apologising, accepting blame when I was not entirely in the wrong) has helped.
I hate the thought someone could dislike me so intently for no reason. I have no confidence, have been in abusive relationships, have anxiety and have felt socially isolated. This is where I stretch my brain and I am feeling I have no choice but to leave as no matter what I do this woman will no co-operate with me. I am so embarrassed and a bit hurt.
What do I do?