To step back from this friendship.

[Caulk]

I’ve really no idea if I am or not.

In 2013 I was raped. I see a therapist and I told her but no one else. I told one friend in the spring this year. I’m no contact with my family.

A week ago I met a friend for coffee. She told me that her adult daughter had been raped. She went into a lot of detail about it all and said she is taking leave from work to stay near her daughter at university.

I just feel so incredibly jealous that they have the sort of relationship that I don’t have with my mum and because I would have wanted the same support but didn’t ask for it from my friends.

I can’t decide if it’s better to step back from seeing her for a few weeks whilst I get a grip, or if it’s better to keep things normal with her and just feel a bit shit after seeing her because I feel jealous. She has a lot of close friends, so it’s not like I would be dropping her at a time of need.

I wondered about that. I had major surgery a couple of weeks ago and she knows it’s taking longer to heal than expected so I think I can manage a few weeks of being tired or in pain... I’m happy to text her as I can choose when to reply and don’t feel like I’m faking it as much as i was when I was with her. Realistically, I just need to get through the next week while the therapist is on holiday and then I can always make a plan with her of how I’ll handle it.

Good idea, Caulk. I was just worried you're get put on the spot. I hope you get through it and your friendship endures.

Although it’s painful in a yearning sort of way, could you view your friend’s actions as being positive and decent. I mean, it’s better that she’s supportive and caring towards her daughter than being meh and dismissive. And therefore if she is nice to her then she’s most likely going to be a good steadfast friend to you rather than being flakey and uncaring. I don’t know, just a thought... and at least a way to rationalise things?

To be fair, my mother would tell you all the wonderful things she’d done to support me, to be there for me etc, if you were my mother’s friend you’d think I was the luckiest person on earth to have such caring mother.

The reality would be starkly different

This is the mother who told my whole family how she saved me from a violent relationship

The reality was she did all kinds of stuff to ensure I couldn’t get out

All those phone calls and texts of support? She’d not speak to me for 2-3 weeks at a time if I do much as suggested I was having a not so brilliant day

Then she moved house without telling me where her new house was.

Yet apparently she’s devastated at the fact I’m NC.

Not everyone lives the way they tell you.

That said, your friend is supporting her dd, and this really hurts. I know. This hurts like nothing else.

But the therapist is right, you will feel anger, it’s normal. You need to, to heal.

Feel it, express it and then process it.

It gets easier ((((Hug)))))

Oh I definitely do. I think I even said to her how fortunate her daughter is. On one level I feel sad and angry that it happened to her daughter and pleased that she has a Mum and friends who care so much and then on another level just sad and angry that things are different for me, and I’m sure so many other people.

I’m just aware that the more I see her and she talks about it, the more I will feel the injustice of it. I don’t want to get to a stage where I accidentally tell her just because she is kind and supportive and think she will be like that to me because that’s unfair to her and I would be expecting her to act like a Mum to me when she isn’t.