Asking friend for support and being told no.

[LucieMorningstar]

Just that really. I asked a friend to come to a meeting today with regard to my child’s special needs. Friend said last week to let them know date/time etc and they’d come. Asked if they would still come and was told no, they don’t want to get involved.

There is a backstory (as with everything!) and in brief I have bent over backwards for this friends family on numerous occasions, been extremely generous, got myself roped in to taking one of their kids to school on a regular basis and even let her shout at me in front of her teenaged kids when there was a misunderstanding. Today has just broken everything and I don’t know what to do. I want to walk away, call it quits as whatever I thought of our friendship the same isn’t reciprocated. I don’t even want to mention it again ever to the friend as obviously it’s pointless.

I don’t even know what my aibu is, I just need to vent I suppose.

Should I walk away or should I try and discuss it even though the friend is the sort of person who’d walk away from a conversation they didn’t want to have? I feel really hurt.

How did she phrase it? Did she actually say she didn't want to get involved?

Sometimes you can offer support and genuinely mean it but then your own crap gets in the way and you may not have the capacity and you need to put your own MH first - even though you did mean it when you offered.

I have friends that know I would do as much as possible to help but someimes up juggling so many balls that something has to give.

@ABoozedMoose

The wording was: sorry, don’t want to get involved in that sort of thing. Got enough on my plate.

I completely get that she has things on her plate and I know what they are but she literally always comes to me when things are stressing her to the point of tears.

It was only last week she sat in my car crying her heart out, getting my support over an issue she’d come up against.

@MatildaTheCat

That’s the sentence I will be using from now on.

It occurred to me earlier that when she goes back to work in January she’s going to come straight to me asking me to take her kid to school in the mornings again. I’m ready to say no.

OP don't you dare give in to her. She is a selfish bitch. One-way friendships don't work.

@HouseworkIsASin10

I have no intentions of doing so!!

Ghost her.

Over the last few years I've whittled my proper friends down to a tiny handful.

Considering the hundreds of people I know (due to various goth and hippy and gamer events and gigs and forums and chat rooms) from over the years, it really is just the few I can rely on to treat me as I treat them.

And it's been very liberating.

Hard when you're a single parent, harder when one or more DC has special needs. I'm in the same boat. Or was, until last friday when we moved into our new flat with my partner. We are now also near my mum. But for years it's been the worst.

Cut out and ghost anyone who can't be trusted and relied upon and who uses you. Friendship flows both ways equally.

I’m not sure I would have asked someone to support me if I already knew they were struggling with a lot on their own plate.
It’s like having the flu and asking someone with the flu to take care of you as well as themselves. Impossible.

@Posthistoricmonsters

I’ve been thinking of ghosting for a while but it seems so harsh, especially as I see her so often. I’m not a rude person and I’d feel so bad. But I can understand what you’re saying so I need to think it through carefully.

OK. So maybe not full ghosting. A tapering down of communications and tapering down if your being available.

Build it up slowly (well, dismantle slowly lol)

Yes, dismantle. That’s a good word