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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be a bit annoyed with friend but still feel sad for her?

287 replies

AllThePlants · 01/03/2018 18:17

Let me preface by saying that I totally get that infertility is an awful rollercoaster. By contrast, we conceived DD on our first try, DS on our second try. I am lucky. One of my closest friends has been TTC for 4 years and has only just got round to the IVF referral but I understand that she’s been having pretty constant treatments and some surgery too. I don’t like to ask too much but it can’t be too dire if she hasn’t been having IVF but I could be mistaken. She’s also said she’s not willing to adopt either so guess she’s pinning her hopes on the treatment working.

For about the past 18 months she has gone quite silent on me. She used to be a very supportive friend but I now feel like she shows no interest in my life or kids. I know it’s trivial but she never likes any of OMG pics on Instagram or enquiries about them beyond the basic “how are you all?” Via text.

I guess I miss her but AIBU to feel
Slightly resentful though? I just feel like when she has her baby I won’t be able to just start pretending she’s shown little interest in my kids. I know that makes me sound awful. Her life is otherwise good, lovely husband and they have a fair amount of money (which I’m not jealous of but just for context). She’s got a lot going for her I just wish she didn’t make me feel bad just for having kids.

OP posts:
taratill · 02/03/2018 09:48

@Devilishpyjamas

What you have said exactly.

Lottie2017 · 02/03/2018 10:17

Bananafish81, thank you, that is really helpful x

Niceandwarmandhot · 02/03/2018 10:31

"I totally get that infertility is an awful rollercoaster".

No, OP. You don't get that. You don't get that at all.

Leave your friend in peace as you aren't the right person to support her right now. Hopefully one day she will have children if that's what she still wants, and then you can demonstrate that you "get it" by not sulking petulantly about her not being able to face up to your posts and pictures at this stage.

OhCalamity · 02/03/2018 12:45

I've had long term infertility and several losses.

My very best friend has no in-depth knowledge about IVF, or any of those medicalised procedures I've had. She got pregnant the first month on her first, second AND third baby.

But she's a GREAT listener. She listens when I need it, never offers trite advice on a subject she knows little about and just gives me a hand hold, or a distraction when I need it.

She was the one remembering to text me a 'good luck today, I'm thinking about you both' the morning of every procedure, she would ring me to listen to me talk (or not talk about it, depending on my form) later that evening. Even up the walls with a full time job and three very young babies, she ALWAYS made that time to text and ring me.

I was equally supportive of the concerns going on in her life and offered the same sort of support. A few months ago I was godmother to her youngest baby. :)

To me, it seems that she has distanced herself from you because you are someone that she has realised is not as supportive of her as she was of you. You say that she was a great support to you as a friend. That when you needed her, she was there for you. Yet you don't even know what surgeries she has had, or even the basic details of her infertility journey. That shows that you are nowhere near supportive of her, or the friend to her that she was to you.

So, if you are missing the friendship, I would suggest it's down to you being a crap friend to her during the hardest time of her life.

stevie69 · 02/03/2018 12:48

Can't believe people are actually measuring friendship in Instagram likes.

Sadly, I can Sad

bastardlyandmutley · 02/03/2018 12:50

I agree that it is a form of checking out. Ultimately I did the same. I did so much of the dying inside but slapping on a richter smile & saying all the "right" things while EVERYBODY else seemed to get their babies. It is a form of desperate self preservation arrived at after years of total heartbreak, believe me. Nobody can appreciate the headfuck of uncertainty combined with the cycle of hope and then despair that goes on for years unless you've lived it. Do not blame her for reaching a breaking point where she has no choice but to think of herself first.

Also don't underestimate how infertility can make a woman feel so much like an outsider. I felt very distant from "normal" women and their children. I felt like a freak, a failure and just felt horribly uncomfortable around women and their children. Still do years and years on. My landlady recently offered me her baby to have a hold and I looked her like she's just offered Superman Kyrptonite.

Reach out to her friend on her terms. Show her love and interest in her situation but please don't expect that she ought to stuff down her grief and play the doting "auntie" to your children. She isn't a bad person, she has just been dealt a truly shit hand.

MavisPike · 02/03/2018 13:18

She’s not trying to make you feel bad for having children Plant
She’s trying to look after herself

Trooperslane2 · 02/03/2018 13:30

@lottie I also think you're lovely.

OP, you could learn a bit from her.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh but you don't sound like you get it at all... and I'm happy for you that you had such an easy time of it, but many of us aren't that lucky.

Kleinzeit · 02/03/2018 13:38

I just miss my friend and sometimes selfishly wish she could have a baby and we can experience parenthood together.

Well of course, and surely your friend would love that too? But she can't, and it would be painful for her and unreasonable of you to expect her to act as if you were experiencing it together when she is experiencing something that is just as intense and overwhelming and so very different from what you are experiencing now.

I know she has taken a back seat on life

No, she really hasn't. She has taken a back seat in your life because you want someone who can experience parenthood with you and obviously she can't be that person. But she is very engaged in a different aspect of life that you don't know anything about, trying to overcome infertility. And you have not really engaged with that part of her life at all, just made assumptions about it.

And now it sounds as if even she does have a baby you will be so full of resentment that you wont want to share her pleasure. Which would be a pity.

MarthasGinYard · 02/03/2018 14:33

Sadly this thread hasn't gone pooofSad

MrsDesireeCarthorse · 02/03/2018 15:17

the basic “how are you all?”

How are you ALL? In other words, she is still in contact with you and asking about your children, isn't she? So she has not checked out at all.

What do you respond to her when she texts you this?

she has gone quite silent on me. She used to be a very supportive friend but I now feel like she shows no interest in my life or kids. I know it’s trivial but she never likes any of OMG pics on Instagram or enquiries about them

Except that she does make enquiries about them because she asks how you ALL are. It is so telling to me that you say she used to be a supportive friend but now doesn't show interest in your life ie her support is all about being very vocally interested in you and your children and liking your social media. You cannot even see the support she is still offering, in the middle of her own heartbreak, because it's not as much as you want.

You say you don't want to come over as insensitive but you did because you have been just that. In the same way, this post makes you come over as dreadfully selfish and self-centred.

She is still asking after your whole family. Are you ever bothering to ask after her?

Lottie2017 · 02/03/2018 16:50

Thank you so much trooperslane2. I've found reading the comments today so helpful and it's certainly made me feel more reassured about the things I've been doing.

Monkeypuzzle32 · 02/03/2018 18:25

YABVU she is protecting herself and tbh, I'm not surprised she is doing it as you have no empathy for her. It's bigger than not being able to have kids, it could mean never being a Granny, always having people say 'oh didn't you want kids then?' Unless it's happening to you, you'll never truly know what it's like for her but you can ask (gently) and listen and empathise.

Pinkvoid · 02/03/2018 18:32

Following my miscarriages I had to look away in the street if I saw a pregnant woman or baby. I cried once just seeing a photo of a newborn on a magazine in a shop. It may seem over-dramatic but that’s how excruciatingly painful I found it. I definitely couldn’t have coped with friends babies or pregnancies. In fact I had to remove a couple of online ‘friends’ from social media because it killed me seeing their pregnancy posts.

So I totally understand and empathise with her distance and don’t understand why you can’t. Maybe you have to experience something as horrible as infertility/baby loss to have any remote understanding of it. I sincerely hope you never experience it Op but if you did, you’d likely understand why your friend behaved this way. It’s really painful.

juddyrockingcloggs · 02/03/2018 18:35

I just feel like when she has her baby I won’t be able to just start pretending she’s shown little interest in my kids

I had 'friends' like you when I was going through all my rounds of IVF, like your friend I too needed time out for my own sanity, those 'friends' pretty much had the same attitude as you and when I did eventually have my son I couldn't have given a shiny shite that they didn't show an interest in him because how they perceived my behaviour. I had 2 real friends and that's all that mattered. I hope your 'friend' has some real friends too. Because she certainly doesn't have one in you.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 02/03/2018 18:43

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Dozer · 02/03/2018 18:44

YABU and are ignorant about infertility.

PurpleDaisies · 02/03/2018 18:44

Also why is she so against adoption. I'm going to say this does she just want a baby for the attention of being pregnant.

What a disgusting, ill informed, pathetic comment. Biscuit

Dozer · 02/03/2018 18:45

But not as ignorant as babyspider. FFS.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 02/03/2018 18:49

babyspider, you literally know nothing about either adoption or infertility. Does it ever occur to you that if you know fuck all about something it might be better to keep your mouth shut instead of saying something that makes it abundantly clear you are a completely moronic cretin?

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 02/03/2018 18:50

I just don't get it. If someone is desparate for a baby. Why won't she consider adoption. If IVF isn't successful. I certainly would.
I'm sorry it's how I feel.

PurpleDaisies · 02/03/2018 18:52

Are you going to retract your comment about only wanting to get pregnant for attention?

cherryontopp · 02/03/2018 18:52

Your worrying about a situation that hasnt happened yet.

Your friends IVF might not work (i hope it does) so thinking about that is not productive.

Cross that bridge when the time comes.

Infertility is a mentally draining and you don't always think/act rationally. She'll know its not your fault she cant have children, it just doesnt make it any easier for her.

Yes, its shit for you, yes itll seem hypocritical to be all over her baby when shes shown no interest in your own, but you have to be the bigger person and be conscious of the fact you have no idea what infertility is like.

Mummyoflittledragon · 02/03/2018 18:53

Speechless. babyspider. That stupid comment has probably won mumsnet for the next decade.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 02/03/2018 18:55

If i do it'll be on my own terms. Not because you're telling me to like I'm a naughty school girl.