For wanting to leave a WhatsApp group?

[WhatsAppDilemma]

I’m prepared to be told I’m being unreasonable and petty but I really hope I’m not!

I am in a group of 4 friends. We’ve been friends for 15 years and used to be very close.

I was meant to get married last year but we postponed due to covid, and ended up having a micro wedding. One of the friends let me down quite a bit over both my weddings, and ended up pulling out 2 days before the micro wedding using covid as an excuse (despite regularly posting on her Instagram stories about other weekends away, visits to pubs, etc etc). She never made any attempt to make it right and that really hurt me so our friendship has pretty much ended. Don’t want to drip feed but happy to provide more details if it helps.

The other two were really disappointed with her behaviour too, but have recently started to talk properly. They didn’t fall out with her over it...she just stopped talking to them for a while for a reason that they didn’t know either. But because they’re all getting close again, the WhatsApp group with the four of us is being used again. I don’t engage at all, because I don’t really want to engage with her.

How petty and immature would I be to just leave the WhatsApp group we’ve had running for around 10 years? AIBU in doing so? I could just mute it I guess but I can’t help but sense the other two friends are trying to get it back to normal, and I have no interest in doing so. I know it leaves them in a tricky situation but I guess they always would be. And leaving the group would essentially be a massive FU, which I’m conscious makes me look immature!

My first instinct is to say that your friend sounds like she was having a very difficult time last year - possibly related to Covid, but possibly also related to other things (PPs suggestion of pregnancy/miscarriage seems quite likely). You seem a bridezilla-ish, unable to see anything else apart from your wedding, and do seem to have let her down as a friend. You still ONLY are thinking about your wedding, and still don't seem to have considered why she may have shied away from your wedding, and then not contacted you for 6 months. At no point during this six months did you consider that your friend of 15 years might not be OK? That there might be some underlying reason for her to act out of character.

If a long standing friend of mine had behaved like that, I'd certainly be checking in to see if she was OK. Especially knowing that she was trying and struggling to get pregnant, and with all the additional stressors that covid was adding to people's mental health.

You're basically ditching a long standing friend, because she didn't feel mentally well enough to attend a party. And you've not even had the compassion to check in with her and see if she's OK, after she disappeared off the social radar for 6 months.

Remove yourself from the WA group if you want. But don't expect your other friends to ditch this woman in the way you have. Your wedding is really not that important to anyone but yourself and your DH.

@Notaroadrunner

They didn’t invite her after telling her the plan and she immediately said she couldn’t come!! Becasue of covid but then she did lots of other socialising. I wouldn’t have invited her either with a 20 person limit.

No, when she was told about their plans to organise the 2nd wedding, she said her husband wouldn't be able to go.

Apologies, I see now that it say her and her husband whereas I had read it as just her husband I take back all I said. Sod her!

You'd be very petty and immature.

I’m possibly projecting too much but I have suffered from crippling anxiety this past year, partly due to Covid, partly for other reasons… my friends know this and I’ve had to turn down some invitations when things just got too much.

I think the key difference here is that your friends know you're suffering from anxiety and can accommodate you. If you just refuse invitations and offer excuses that seem implausible/out of step with what you're posting on social media, it's not surprising if people feel let down.

I think part of the problem is that it's easy to feel as though mental health problems are unique to the person experiencing them and that everyone else is robust enough and with healthy enough self esteem that they can withstand rejection (sometimes repeated rejection) easily.

But most of us aren't confident enough to withstand being let down repeatedly without feeling hurt and rejected and that's valid too.

Oh it’s so tempting to flounce off and it’s definitely what I would do in that situation, but I have been known to be dramatic when I’m hurting and it’s obvious the more rational people of mumsnet think the best thing to do is mute and let the dust settle.

Enjoy life with your family… let their conversations keep bubbling over and if you ever feel differently you can slowly rejoin and blame the baby taking up your time for not participating in the chat sooner.

Very valid points, DysmalRadius. I guess I just meant that attending some events and posting on social media shouldn’t automatically be assumed to mean the friend was lying about not wanting to attend a wedding due to Covid. But you’re right that good friends should be able to talk through those feeling with each other and of course it would really hurt to be on the other side of that rejection too.

@Swingsandroundabouts123

Oh it’s so tempting to flounce off and it’s definitely what I would do in that situation, but I have been known to be dramatic when I’m hurting and it’s obvious the more rational people of mumsnet think the best thing to do is mute and let the dust settle.

Enjoy life with your family… let their conversations keep bubbling over and if you ever feel differently you can slowly rejoin and blame the baby taking up your time for not participating in the chat sooner.

How DARE you? I said it was ok to leave the WhatsApp group and I am never dramatic. {Foounces}

I don't understand why you wouldn't leave it in this situation.
You don't want to talk to her, so just leave the group. If you're not going to speak to her ever again then who gives a shit? One less thing for you to worry about. It feels nuts to spend so much time and energy on it. Flounce off!! If you're not contributing anyway what difference does it make?

We had a friend in our what's app group of 5 that never responded, never met up when we organised things. We removed him from the group chat. It will be obvious when you don't engage that you are not interested. It's fine, no hard feelings people grow apart for various reasons.

Thank you everyone. I guess (ok, I know) you’re right about not burning bridges and me looking petty, which is what I suspected. As someone said, I’m letting my emotions lead the way.

Some of you have questioned whether we checked if she’s actually ok. We did (well, my friends did). About a month after the wedding, when I hadn’t heard from her, I was genuinely really concerned about her and my fear was that maybe she got pregnant and miscarried. Admittedly I didn’t reach out to her myself but I kept asking the other two to check in, and make sure she’s ok and that nothing had happened. After she kept assuring them she’s well, that’s when my feelings changed from concern to hurt and anger.

Despite this, I still sent her a message on her birthday (which was in the 6 months between my wedding and her gift to me), so I actually reached out to her and made the first move, but she chose not to engage further.

The other two are staying tight lipped about their conversations with her about me, but one of them did let slip recently that a few weeks after the wedding they talked about it and she said she didn’t think she had done anything wrong so didn’t see the need to reach out to me. They have also both said they’ve told her a few times to just call me (because they keep asking me if she’s called me) but she never has. Meanwhile, they’ve not persuaded me to do the same with her and instead were really surprised by her behaviour too.

For me, it’s not the concern of covid that upset me. It’s that before we even booked anything, she told me her and her husband won’t be able to make it, she then got upset that I didn’t invite her after she told me she’s not coming. I then prioritised her over my extended family, and in the lead up to the wedding I messaged her a few times giving her outs, telling her “hey, are you still comfortable coming? Honestly ok if not but just let me know so I can invite others”, and each time she assured me she’s coming. Then, despite already deciding she was not coming, she stayed quiet and hoped the government would stop my wedding going ahead so she didn’t have to be the bad guy (honestly, who wishes that on someone), and only once it confirmed weddings could carry on, she broke the news to me. I was upset, but I wasn’t done with her. It was then the silent treatment that followed that stuck the knife in.

I have posted about this before (the situation itself, not WhatsApp!) and the comments mainly said she’s not a true friend. I was also called a bridezilla by some, just as someone called me one on here, which is laughable because I was the opposite of a bridezilla!

Finally, the £700 was on her hen, not a holiday for me. Trust me, the destination was somewhere I would never have gone and had no interest in going if it wasn’t her hen...it was my idea of hell but I happily went along and did my part!

@WhatsAppDilemma

Thank you everyone. I guess (ok, I know) you’re right about not burning bridges and me looking petty, which is what I suspected. As someone said, I’m letting my emotions lead the way.

Some of you have questioned whether we checked if she’s actually ok. We did (well, my friends did). About a month after the wedding, when I hadn’t heard from her, I was genuinely really concerned about her and my fear was that maybe she got pregnant and miscarried. Admittedly I didn’t reach out to her myself but I kept asking the other two to check in, and make sure she’s ok and that nothing had happened. After she kept assuring them she’s well, that’s when my feelings changed from concern to hurt and anger.

Despite this, I still sent her a message on her birthday (which was in the 6 months between my wedding and her gift to me), so I actually reached out to her and made the first move, but she chose not to engage further.

The other two are staying tight lipped about their conversations with her about me, but one of them did let slip recently that a few weeks after the wedding they talked about it and she said she didn’t think she had done anything wrong so didn’t see the need to reach out to me. They have also both said they’ve told her a few times to just call me (because they keep asking me if she’s called me) but she never has. Meanwhile, they’ve not persuaded me to do the same with her and instead were really surprised by her behaviour too.

For me, it’s not the concern of covid that upset me. It’s that before we even booked anything, she told me her and her husband won’t be able to make it, she then got upset that I didn’t invite her after she told me she’s not coming. I then prioritised her over my extended family, and in the lead up to the wedding I messaged her a few times giving her outs, telling her “hey, are you still comfortable coming? Honestly ok if not but just let me know so I can invite others”, and each time she assured me she’s coming. Then, despite already deciding she was not coming, she stayed quiet and hoped the government would stop my wedding going ahead so she didn’t have to be the bad guy (honestly, who wishes that on someone), and only once it confirmed weddings could carry on, she broke the news to me. I was upset, but I wasn’t done with her. It was then the silent treatment that followed that stuck the knife in.

I have posted about this before (the situation itself, not WhatsApp!) and the comments mainly said she’s not a true friend. I was also called a bridezilla by some, just as someone called me one on here, which is laughable because I was the opposite of a bridezilla!

Finally, the £700 was on her hen, not a holiday for me. Trust me, the destination was somewhere I would never have gone and had no interest in going if it wasn’t her hen...it was my idea of hell but I happily went along and did my part!

OP I get why you are upset, but I also get why she is upset, and that’s why I really don’t think it’s worth losing an old friend over this.

I see why you were hurt about the lack of effort she made about your wedding, but I also think it was a bit childish/ self absorbed/ petty of you to take offence to her initially saying she couldn’t make the micro wedding - involving significant travel and in the middle of covid - and then not update her at all about wedding arrangements / invite her , when you invited your other two close friends. I think a more mature/ in-the-spirit-of-good-friendship response would have been to address it head on and say , of course you would love her there too, but you understood that she said she couldn’t make it. (I also think it’s unfair that you were judging her behaviour by her posts on social media going other places etc, you don’t know what her boundaries/ circumstances were).
I can see why she felt hurt by you not inviting/ updating her about the wedding, when you invited your other two friends; in fact, it kind of sounds like you did this deliberately to punish her because she had offended you by saying she couldn’t come.

It was really bad of her to cancel at the last minute after you extended the invite. however I think the fact that she was reluctant to tell you (and was hoping the wedding would just have to be cancelled) suggests that she knew she was being a dick and felt guilty about it, which is much better than if she were completely oblivious/ didn’t give a monkey’s. It’s poor behaviour , but not worth cutting out an old friend out in my view. In addition it was thoughtful of her to text you on the day of the wedding and send you a gift in the post several months later.

I think you are being a bit petty and uncharitable to an old friend, who was being a bit crap (during a global pandemic and suffering fertility issues). No one is perfect . At the end of the day, you had your wedding and now have your baby. Both wonderful and happy things. I would just let this one go and make peace.

@Notaroadrunner she messages to say ‘her and her husband couldn’t go’. How do you interpret that as ‘my husband can’t go’.

Ah sorry I see you reread it ignore me @Notaroadrunner!

[quote timeisnotaline]@Notaroadrunner she messages to say ‘her and her husband couldn’t go’. How do you interpret that as ‘my husband can’t go’.[/quote]
Oh one point I didn’t add was that when she messaged me two days before the wedding to tell me she can’t come, she did say that if her husband was coming too it would be different. That’s also why I think the covid excuse is just that, an excuse. No partners were invited though due to very limited numbers, so I couldn’t make an exception for her husband, who I’ve only spent time with a handful of times. I got the sense that him not coming played a part in her not coming.

Bizawit does put a different spin on things, for which I am genuinely grateful. Perhaps I should have invited her anyway, even though she told me she won’t be coming. There was definitely hurt on my side when she told me she won’t come, but within days she travelled to a different part of the country with other friends, so I did take the ok, fine, be like that approach. So I did behave immaturely then, I accept that. But when she told me she was upset at not being invited, despite the discussion we had, I kept telling her if she can come then there is definitely space for her. What she didn’t know is that there actually wasn’t space, and we ended up not inviting others who should have been there to give her a space instead. I prioritised her.

Anyways, I feel like I’m going to go off on a tangent whilst I’m up for a night feed so I’m going to stop and go back to bed! I’ve already posted about what happened in another thread when I wanted to know if I was being unreasonable in being upset, as I can be sensitive sometimes so wanted the outside perspective. My question today was about the WhatsApp group, so I’ll stop going over everything else again and again. I agree I’ll look very dramatic and petty to just leave the group, and I won’t mute and archive either in case anything is aimed at me and I miss it. So I’ll just ignore the messages and not engage until I decide I’m ready.

Not inviting her for the simple reason she considered not coming the first is really horrible. Then making out you were doing this big gracious thing by granting her an invite. You’ve not behaved well at all.

WhatsApp groups can be a bit stressful and leaving them can look like a bit of a flounce. However it’s bothering you so probably time to
do something about it. if you want to step from this friend, maybe message the other two individually to say you’re leaving that particular group but still want to maintain the contact with them (or however is best to word it) then bite the bullet.

@Bluntness100

I see that, but she already told me she’s not coming? I told her and the other two we’re thinking of having the new micro wedding on X date at X location, please hold the date whilst we decide whether or not to go ahead. She messaged me the very next day to tell me her and her husband won’t be coming. Around two weeks later DH and I decided to go ahead but I did tell only the other two. So from my perspective, she already told me she’s not coming, but I was upset at that and admittedly I didn’t ask her a second time.

I wish posters would rtft properly and see that the op did invite her friend to the second wedding in a save the date type way but the friend said she wouldn't be coming.

Just to add, she told me her and her husband weren’t coming because they didn’t want to travel during covid...and then 4 days later her and husband had travelled with some friends to another part of the country. And then again the very next weekend. That’s why I felt put out by her saying she can’t come because they didn’t want to travel...that before I even had set plans, she pulled out but was happy to travel to other places with other people.

Again, I was about to go off on yet another tangent about why I’m upset but keeping reminding myself that’s not the question at hand!

Not read full thread but I hate WhatsApp and have so many group chats on mute (old work teams etc that I can't keep up with ) so what I've done is change my settings so it doesn't show when I'm on then it just looks like I don't use WhatsApp and the people I want to keep in touch with in the groups I've texted saying I'm having a break from WhatsApp ....I don't know why I don't delete it as I find it the worst app out there

Yes, sorry I agree that you've both behaved poorly. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

It all sounds really immature and petty with no consideration for other people's feelings

I think you stay in the group...honestly i've had a similar situation with a friendship group and the person that has left often gets left out simply because we're all in the group making a plan and its easier. Life is busy and it can be hard to relay info/times/addresses out to just one person who didn't want to stay. You don't have to engage directly to her in the group anyway.

I think though your other friends care about you and will defo still reach out to you, if they've discussed something at length in the group, re-telling it all again just for your sake will loose its appeal quickly

Also to add....
Weddings do tend to cause frictions even in the closest friendship groups/families but with time this issue will seem less and less important to you. It sounds like the problem is prioritised other things to take covid risks for then used covid as an excuse not to go to your wedding....its not great that a friend would do that but maybe onstead of burning the bridge you can have her in your life within the friendship group and just readjust how much weight you put on your friendship with her.

Tread carefully OP. If your froends are maintaing a friendship with her its unlikely they are "letting slip" their champion efforts to support you and they want you to think they are in your corner fully. You dont know what they are actually saying to her.

You lost me at ‘pre wedding party’. What even is that?
People don’t stay friends with everybody in their lives, and before smartphones and the internet, nobody became all angst ridden about it. You have 3 options:
1 - turn off notifications for the WhatsApp group
2 - keep notifications on so you can have a nosey at their conversations but don’t join in
3 - leave the group.