Cut a 44 year friendship off

[Whosmadnow]

This has bothered me for a while now. I've been friends with someone for over 40 years. We have been through everything together, births, marriages, deaths etc. I saw her as the sister I never had. I even introduced her to her husband. and she mine. We shared everything together.
Her son got married a while ago and she and her DH paid for some of the wedding so could invite a few people. You can guess where this is going. No invite. Her son even spent time in my home as a holiday guest. I am so hurt, both of them were closer than my own family and I have now cut all contact with them. The worst thing is two days after the wedding her DH invited me to support him at a charity event which involved me travelling 300 miles to see him. He didn't understand why I
was so upset.
AIBU

You haven't addressed the decades of support they provided in advance of not insisting you were invited to someone else's wedding. Support for decades through life changing difficult times.
But the OP has (I assume, since she doesn't say otherwise) that the support has been mutual.

@IntermittentParps

You haven't addressed the decades of support they provided in advance of not insisting you were invited to someone else's wedding. Support for decades through life changing difficult times. But the OP has (I assume, since she doesn't say otherwise) that the support has been mutual.

I don't doubt that but that doesn't cancel out their contribution to her life - they've still been fantastic friends it sounds like, she's still choosing to write that off. It's not transactional where because she's been nice to them for years them being nice to her means nothing - friendship doesn't work like that. For me anyway.

unless your ex-friend has always been emotionally retarded

Clearly not, if she has supported the OP through decades of difficult times.

No, I don't think friendship is transactional either. But I think in a long friendship worth fighting for, once they became aware that the OP was upset they could and should have tried a bit harder than saying she had a 'hissy fit' and refusing to make the first move towards sorting things out.

They have brushed off your hurt feelings as a hissy fit and expect you to go crawling to them? Stuff them op.

The trouble is is that both people can’t see what they done wrong. The OP thinks her friend should have apologised that she wasn’t invite/fought to invite her and the friend thinks it was out of her hands and OP is over reacting. The responses on here are not unanimous so it shows you’re both in the wrong/right.

It would be hard to become friends again and it may not even work unless you both acknowledge each other’s feelings but I wouldn’t want to throw away so many years of friendship after you’ve been there for each other.

If your friend used the terminology..."hissy fit" she was being unkind and dismissive. Not something a friend should do unless she was particularly dense or felt guilty so was stopping further conversation.

Just stand back and let her do the running in your friendship. You clearly have more invested than she does so let her seek you out in future and see where it goes.

You've been treated appallingly OP. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't bother keeping in touch.

@backseatcookers

You haven't addressed the decades of support they provided in advance of not insisting you were invited to someone else's wedding. Support for decades through life changing difficult times.

If I was your friend and you'd cut me off due to this then said you wouldn't even be prepared to be the one to offer an olive branch I would feel so disappointed in you as a person and hurt you have gladly accepted unwavering support then written off the source of that support when you didn't get your way.

It's unbelievable the disproportionate reaction you've had to this, I can't believe it.

I couldn't agree more. I have been often omitted from wedding invitations, but been excited to see photos and sent card/presents to the children of friends. People get married later these days. By the time they've invited close relatives, school friends, university friends, workmates etc., 150 places don't go very far. When my children planned their weddings, my friends have been grateful IF invited but not upset if not.

As for parental contribution influencing the guest list......don't make me laugh

Although I wouldn't use the term "hissy fit", I would think it an overreaction if my best friend (50yrs!) asked why they weren't invited to my son's wedding.

Either her son or his bride don't like you.

Well done OP... and thankfully your standards are higher than most on here ... 🌺

@backseatcookers - the OP’s friend clearly hasn’t addressed that either. It takes two people not to stay in touch. It takes an especially stupid person to say to a mutual friend that you would be “willing“ (not keen) to resume the friendship, but only if the other person moves first - someone who genuinely wanted to renew a friendship would at least express regret at the obvious misunderstanding, rather than making it blatantly clear they think the issue is 100% the other person’s fault and responsibility to rectify. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out that inviting someone’s ex but not inviting them is going to sting if you view each other as sisters. Clearly the OP’s friend had a completely different understanding of the depth of their friendship.

Once a friendship is damaged by something like this, I don't think you can go back to how it was before. It's always tainted.
Personally I think they ought to have been honest with you about why. If you'd done something to offend, it would give you the opportunity to right things. Instead they were dismissive of your feelings, which you cannot help having, so it was badly handled.
If it's more the case that you perceived the friendship to be closer than it actually was, then it would be difficult to get over that feeling of not being as important to them as they are to you. Either way it's a busted flush.
I tend not to invest too much in friendships now. I enjoy people's company but I don't rely on them or have too high expectations. It's the easiest way, because people are often a bit shit and let you down.

[quote Walkaround]@backseatcookers - the OP’s friend clearly hasn’t addressed that either. It takes two people not to stay in touch. It takes an especially stupid person to say to a mutual friend that you would be “willing“ (not keen) to resume the friendship, but only if the other person moves first - someone who genuinely wanted to renew a friendship would at least express regret at the obvious misunderstanding, rather than making it blatantly clear they think the issue is 100% the other person’s fault and responsibility to rectify. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out that inviting someone’s ex but not inviting them is going to sting if you view each other as sisters. Clearly the OP’s friend had a completely different understanding of the depth of their friendship.[/quote]
As often on here, people will have to agree to disagree. I think calling people stupid (whether the couple in question or posters like me) for thinking this is a huge overreaction shows a lack of self awareness and perspective. I understand you feel differently. OP has literally said she's cut them off. So it seems she has made the decision and therefore I understand the friend saying they are 'willing' to reconcile rather than falling over themselves to do so. Obviously we can't know the ins and outs as outsiders, but throwing away a friendship that's lasted four decades over not being invited to a wedding seems like a huge overreaction to me and many others. It actually seems petty and cruel, again based on four decades of friendship. Like I say obviously like lots of situations here some of us will have to agree to disagree. But what a waste of a long term friendship.

I honestly think that both the OP and her friend appear to be rather U and rather stubborn. The OP is U in making such an issue of an invitation, not to her friend's wedding, but her friend's son's wedding, and in expecting the friend to be able to control whom her son invites. The friend handled the situation badly, first in not warning the OP that the son was not inviting her, and then in her dismissive 'hissy fit' comment. Both are being stubborn in insisting that the other one must be the first to bring an olive branch. I suspect that the friend's stubbornness may be because she feels that she is being asked to take sides between her friend and her son: most people, however much they value their friends, would choose their own child if forced to make such a choice. In any case, the friendship won't revive unless both parties can put aside their pride and stubbornness, which seems a pity, given how long and good the friendship had been.

@backseatcookers - I haven’t at any point said I agree with the OP that she should have cut her friend off and agree both have treated a long term friendship in a very cavalier fashion. However, I do indeed stand by my belief that it beggars belief that such a close friend could fail to have the slightest inkling that not inviting such a close friend, who had been an intimate part of the whole family’s lives for decades, including the son’s right from his birth, would likely upset her unless she was given an explanation, given the other guests who were invited. She had clearly been part of his other rites of passage, but was deliberately excluded from this one. The son may have an issue with her, but clearly not enough of an issue not to have stayed in her home as a holiday guest. It is exceptionally odd to have done this and then told her off for having a hissy fit when she told them how much this had hurt her feelings.

The saddest thing about this wasted friendship is that the mutual friend asking about it was an opportunity to send signals back that the loss of friendship was regretted, but instead the message that came back appears to be that it’s all on the OP. If I valued a friendship with a longstanding friend who I had upset for a reason like the one given, I would have apologised years ago, because whilst there may have been a good reason why she was not invited, there is no good reason to just ignore her likely feelings and then tell her off for having them. It is not as if a wedding is generally viewed as an insignificant event. Even if I was surprised at the strength of my friend’s distress at the lack of an invite, I wouldn’t dismiss it as a hissy fit - unless I viewed them as a not particularly close or important friend, just one who happened to have hung around for a long time, but otherwise not really have been anything particularly important.

Oops! I wonder if I did this to one of my mum's friends 🙈

It was the son's wedding. I agree they could have handled it better, but seems a lot to give up. Have you been as close in recent years?

I have been there OP, but in different circumstances with a life long friend who basically rejected me. It is very hurtful and will continue for a long time. It's 3 years since it happened to me and when I think of her, I still hurt.

However, you must hold your head high and don't crawl back to her. I wish you all the best

Obviously they could choose some friends who they wanted to invite. And you weren't chosen. I think I would also be hurt especially as you have a long friendship with them.

I think YABU OP. It was your friend’s son’s wedding, not hers. Who’s to say she had any control over invites? Obviously her son wasn’t bothered about you being there but you can’t hold your friend responsible for her son’s wishes or actions.

I’m getting married next year but it’s only a small wedding and I’m not inviting my mums closest friend who she has known since she was a kid because I’m only having my own close family and friends there. I certainly don’t expect them to fall out or drastically end their years of friendship over it though.

@Bluemooninmyeyes1 - at least you aren’t inviting your mum’s best friend’s ex partner and a few others of your Mum’s personal friends, instead.

Honestly, it wouldn’t bother me at all. However your feelings are your own so you are right to tell them you are upset. But is it really worth throwing away 44 years of friendship ? You had to “ right” to an invite. They haven’t handled things well but I can’t see that it’s one of those things that can’t be got over.

But the OP hasn't been offered any explanation. If the friends had said, "So sorry, we can't invite you to the wedding because of the numbers. Hope you understand," she says she would have accepted it.

As it was, she was left out when numerous other mutual friends went along. It's not weird or entitled to be hurt and want to know why and when she did ask why, they rolled their eyes and accused her of having a 'hissy fit'. Where's the respect?!