To be gutted friend has backed out last minute AGAIN and give up on 30 year friendship group?

[Warmfirechocolate]

I have a small group of 5 friends from University, all women who have known me all of my life. They are amazing. Three of us are divorced, one of us is shaky and one happily married. All have children.

I love them loads but I’ve just had enough! I feel absolutely gutted one of them has dropped out of a weekend planned and so now nobody wants to go.

Next year we’ve planned a weekend away all together without kids or husbands. I did all the planning, finding places to stay and costs etc. Plus finding a weekend we can all make, it’s been quite a bit of work for me! And then just before I was to do the final booking one of them has dropped out, saying she can’t afford it. Even though we’d all have chipped in. It was for our joint significant birthdays so a special one off.

So now the other friends don’t want to go, as all in or nothing, fair enough. However I feel that this is just the end of a long line of trying to get us together over the last few years and I’m tired of it. I live furthest away and have the youngest kids so it’s been most hard for me tbh, and yet I’m the one who visits them all, goes to their parties or events, amd I feel like just giving up.

Everyone was really excited about this weekend away, me especially, and it just feels like a sign that they just don’t value the friendship much anymore. I’m sad as these long term friendships are irreplaceable.

The friend who dropped out is getting lots of sympathy from everyone else, as she’s said she’s very sorry etc yet no one had apologised to me for putting all the wasted work in! Sigh...

They’ve suggested a meal out or lunch instead all together. But I’ve actually said no. I have to travel 300 miles and leave my young kids and stay in a hotel so after being let down I don’t want to do this watered down version. I told them (nicely) that I appreciate the cancelling of the weekend on our shared social media group but won’t necessarily be available for just a lunch as I have to travel so far and I got no reply.

AIBU?

I think I would bypass all the feeling hurt and stressing/being angry etc and say ti the group quite plainly;

"Sad that X weekend isn't going to happen. Looking forward to when it's feasible for us all to get together properly- somebody else's turn to do the organising next time please! X"

.. and leave them to it. Assume it won't happen, be pleased if it does.

I think you’re being unfair , time off work, not much money .. all valid reasons .
And to be fair you haven’t really lost anything ,just a bit of time which while annoying is not the same as having to take holiday or spend money you don’t have .
I really wouldn’t cut my friends off for this ,shit happens .
Just don’t be the one to plan anymore

Also do not leave a passive aggressive
“well I guess that’s it then” you’re all grown women,not 16 year olds and will do you no favours . Just leave it

Sometimes this happens, you have great friends, you all adore each other but life gets in the way. You could either walk away and not bother with them again or just chill, sit back and see what happens when you're not doing the organising. Try not to take it too much to heart

I agree, don't leave a snarky reply. People are busy, people don't have much spare cash, people have other priorities. That's life. It doesn't mean the friendship is over. Keep your chin up! You are under a lot of stress.

I am having the same. One friend had a go at me a few years ago saying that I was judging her because she wasn't married or had kids. Couldn't believe it as I don't know where it came from. All the other support her and the closest one to me couldn't say that this was not me and she couldn't understand why should would think this. I was upset for such a long time. They all supported her. The last time we met all kids in tow, except mine for a day out at a country house. I felt so awkward. I felt like it was just a goodbye. My uni friends are a waste of space. None of them could be arsed to visit me when I had my second. So self absorbed with their lives and kids. I make no effort any more and the friendships have slid and I am liberated.

I know I don’t want to be snarky. I am quite hurt though. It’s the letting down, and also all the sympathy to bail out friend. And nothing at all to me, not even an acknowledgement like ‘oh yes I get it’s a long way for you, let’s see what we could do instead’. Or even an ‘okay’!

And I’m hurt that the way bail out friend presented it was that it was such an added stress for her? Like I hadn’t so carefully asked and checked...

I do think that our friendship has taken quite a blow. I think bail out and friend living near here will get closer for a bit, as they are quite close anyway. Their friendship will survive, the group as a whole has been totally demoted.

I think it's sad because you become very nostalgic about these university friends but actually they don't care about you as much as you do. Its coming up 20 years since we met. These friends have big roles at my wedding and honestly I can't bear to look at my photos. My father died last year. I didn't tell any of the until one messaged me recently to tell me about her job promotion. Im near to delegating all from Facebook. I'm just so sad and disappointed by them.

I'm just walking away gracefully really.

Longevity of a friendship doesn't equal quality. They're not friends. They don't consider you enough.

Unfortunately it sounds like 'bail out friend' is the popular one, the queen bee and the one who everyone gushes over.

You would appear to be the one that they don't really give a shit about. Lets look at the facts -

They ALL pull out of a holiday that you have spent a lot of time and effort organising.
None of them are making the effort to come to your 50th.
None of them have bothered to acknowledge your message saying you can't make their lunch 300 miles away.

I would put money on the fact that the lunch will go ahead if you're not there. Look out for the obligatory FB photos and accompanying gushing post.

You deserve SO much better OP. I can imagine that this really hurts but no, I wouldn't be sending any more messages at this point. I would really start to invest time in other friendships now.

It is hurtful of course it is. I would prefer honesty not into it due to young kids or other factors. I do feel a good friend would make the effort though. They should have said it at start they werent into it.

I agree with @BanoffeeTart and @ChristmasCroissant.

Of course it's not unreasonable to be hurt, OP, but you do sound far more invested in the group as a totality than its other members, and in the nicest possible way and I mean that sincerely, because you're clearly very hurt there's a hint of 'No one appreciates me, so I'll just sit here in the dark' martyrdom in the repeated references to 'I do all the work/put in all the effort', plus you seem to regard almost as a betrayal the fact that two who live geographically close to one another have formed a separate closer friendship.

I think that when one person is doing all the work of organising get togethers and it's not just the weekend away, it sounds from the OP like all the get-togethers in recent years and the same person is the one who is travelling the longest distance to attend events, that's simply a sign that the friendship matters more to that person than the others.

It's not that it doesn't matter at all to them, you just sound very emotional about it all, OP. The 'irreplaceable' friendship group is 'demoted', they don't 'value' you, the weekend would have been a sign that you all 'valued one another' enough to go on a weekend away, their response to the friend who bailed out you see as overly sympathetic, the friendship has taken a 'blow', it's crumbling' etc.

If that level of investment is visible to the others, could it have been that the weekend away was carried along chiefly by your enthusiasm, and that discomfort at your hurt, because they know how much you really wanted to do this, has in part caused the silence on the group?

I agree I am emotional this time about it. I’ve felt annoyed before, over the years, but not this, I feel like our life long bond is diminished by this indifference.

Maybe because we’ve had regular meet ups for weekends, coffees, walks, we keep up with everything in each others lives. But for our joint birthdays we talked for over a year about what it would mean for all of us. How we felt about it. What our regrets were, what we’ve achieved. We all spoke a lot about wanting to do something together for the first time in years that was special, that was just for us.

So it wasn’t just any old get together. Even though it was just a simple idea, an air B&B by the sea, nice walks and dinners, just us.

I don’t begrudge at all two of the friends being close, but by clubbing together in solidarity through the cancellation feels divisive. I’m sure they didn’t meant it to. But it is.

So sorry to ramble but it is a big deal. I’ll never cut them off ever and will always be there for them if they need me, but once relationships have been let down like this, the trust and good will just drains away and it’s quite hard to get back.

the weekend away was carried along chiefly by your enthusiasm, and that discomfort at your hurt I’m honestly not a bossy overbearing kind of person! In fact at one point I dropped the idea of the weekend as I was worried it was just me, and then we all met up and they bought it up themselves and said how much they were looking forward to it!

I really feel for you, it must be incredibly frustrating and hurtful when you have put so much effort in and they don’t seem to notice.
I have been both the bail out (it was coming up to my wedding and I simply couldn’t afford it - we fell out for a few months but got back in touch later and are friends again) and the person organising something which got cancelled (again I was cross and there was a time when we didn’t really speak but over time the relationship healed and we are friends). I’ve gone on weekends away with friends and it’s really special.
As you are hurt I would step back a little for now and see how you feel in a while; hopefully one of the others will come up with a new suggestion that you can all sign up to. but don’t dismiss the friendship group and your individual friendships with them long term over this. You clearly have a lot of history with them and that is important to you. Focus on some other things and hopefully the group friendship will get better again over time. It might be that they are simply lazy, it may be more. If it is a significant event then I can see how they might not want to do it if one can’t.
I’d still go to the friend’s birthday whom you have already booked the train - you have said you value her and so you should go. It might help to talk to her on your own. Good luck!

Sorry if I sounded harsh, OP. It wasn’t intended to be finger-pointy. I don’t in the least mean you come across as bossy or overbearing. There’s just such a depth of naked emotion both in the way you talk about what the weekend would have meant to you as a confirmation of the friendship, and your feelings about the friend pulling out and no one acknowledging your work that I wondered if your obvious emotional investment had been a factor in the weekend being planned and the way it fell apart.

I also have to admit, @Warmfirechocolate, that I might well have been the friend who pulled out. I can imagine genuinely thinking it was a lovely idea a year before the weekend, but a lot can change in a year, and to be honest, it’s been such a difficult year, and I feel in many ways such a failure, that I can easily imagine the idea becoming frightening close to the time, purely because I wouldn’t want to put a brave face on or to open up for a weekend with old friends.

But it would say nothing about the friendship and everything about my own depleted resources.

@natural I do get that things happen for people. I know that I was really looking forward to it and emotionally invested. It just makes me not want to make much of an effort in the future, or to get excited about a plan. Probably am feeling a little sorry for myself!

I’ll get over it.

I will go to friends 50th that I’ve committed to, but won’t bring this weekend up as she will feel awkward I think.

you'll all be going through menopause right now, so dial back a bit and catch up with them later.

ha ha ha ha, of course, had forgotten that all womens' friendship groups synchronise their menopause & experience exactly the same symptoms simultaneously.

I wouldn't back out of the friendship, I'd just stop arranging stuff personally, yanbu I'd be really frustrated too x

Ignore the people saying "oh the reason they are doing this is xyz". You dont know thats true. None of us can see inside the bailout's head to know exactly what her motivation is for pulling out and anyone who says they know its due to money or this or that is simply fooling themselves because none of us know the real reason. Only she does.

Instead- look at the facts of their actions:

1. Your lifelong friends ALL agreed to go on this weekend. They ALL agreed on a budget and gave you constant reassurances throughout the year they wanted to go. When YOU started expressing doubts about arranging this weekend they ALL told you WE WANT TO GO! please dont cancel it!
2. A week beforehand one of them bails. The rest of them bail out immediately after this happens. They express much sympathy for the bailout via text but not a single person replies to your text declining lunch or expresses sadness that you spent so much time and effort organising this.
3. They expect you to travel a 600 mile round trip for a fcking lunch and not a single person offers for you to stay the night at theirs to make it easier for you.
4. They dont attend any of your celebrations, even important ones. Yet you have already booked a train ticket to go 300 miles for one of their birthdays.
5. You have received no reply to your last text in what?- 6/7 days? they've gone completely radio silent on you.

These are the cold, hard facts. This is what they have actually done via their behaviour. Now, does this behaviour seem like the behaviour of "lifelong friends" who care about each other? Not to me it doesnt. It really doesnt matter what their reason is for bailing out- the fact is, they have treated you and your efforts like something they've scraped off the bottom of their shoe. This says everything about them and nothing about you, OP. If they genuinely had money worries then why didnt they say that? why didnt they express regret and concern that you've spent all this effort arranging stuff? if they are worried about money then why would they just expect YOU to shell out on the cost of a 600 mile round trip without a second thought? If it was just about money then why have they left your text without a single reply and just gone completely radio silent on you, leaving you dangling there?

No. Just no. I'm sorry to say it but these people aren't your friends. they probably have some kind of sentimental feeling for you due to all the memories but they aren't "friends". Friends dont treat friends that way. I suspect the reason this has affected you so much is because its a cold, hard slap in the face to realise that actually, they dont care about you as much as you care about them and that is why you are feeling so raw about this. Its not really about the weekend away- its about the shoddy way they've treated you and the fact that there is no way you can justify this kind of careless behaviour which means you might have to accept this friendship isn't what you thought it was.

I am so sorry, OP. You've made so much effort to keep this group together but the fact is, they clearly dont care that much. If it were me, I wouldnt send them any scolding texts, I would simply withdraw. Leave them to it. Let THEM make the effort to make this right if it means that much to them. You have done more than enough already. I would just mentally remove myself from this group and focus on the people in my life who DO make an effort for me. This phrase applies here: "dont make someone a priority when all they are to you is an option". You deserve better.

Really nice post @beautifulstranger101 100% agree with everything you’ve said. Bugger them OP. You’re too nice and they’re not worth it.

Op my advice is to massively lower your expectations of other people. It’s the way forward. I literally assume other people are going to flake so it doesn’t matter and it’s great when it does work out. Don’t trash friendships over it. Agree it’s extremely lame behaviour. If I commit I am there

Great post msswift. Op can understand your hurt. I think let it go now. I learned to lower my expectations now as I ended up so hurt. I think friendships do change Im closer to some friends than others.

Thanks @beautifulstranger101 that was a good clear post. I think that’s what I’ve been struggling with, my feelings. I didn’t expect to feel so rubbish! It took me a bit by surprise.

Now it’s been articulated why I might be feeling so bad, I don’t feel so stupid or unreasonable. I was feeling guilty tbh about saying I couldn’t travel 300 miles for lunch. Especially as no one replied.

I feel better now but sad it has changed things. Some things are just normal flakiness aren’t they, you just roll with it, some are more of a jolt that what I thought was a friendship wasn’t as good as I’d believed.