This happened last July, but I haven’t had time to think properly about it until recently when I asked friends for advice. It would help me to understand from seeing other peoples opinions on here.
Some background: I have a friend and we have been friends for over 20 years and we live near each other. We both have kids. She works full time, I am a SAHM. I help people when I can, but I don’t like to ask for favours if I can do something myself and only ask as a last resort should I need help. She is the opposite and likes to ask for help when needs it and I don’t mind helping when I can.
It was the night of the Euro final. Her 10 year old son had a fever before the match. She let him stay up and they all watched the football and it didn’t finish until gone 11pm. She then discovered her Calpol had expired. I was in bed about to go sleep when she text and asked if I had Calpol. At this point it was near midnight. I said ‘you weren’t thinking of coming round were you, as I am about to go sleep.’ She said well he has got a temperature. I said ‘it’s probably best he goes sleep, but I can leave Calpol on the doorstep if you want to come and collect’. She said no thanks. And that’s what has annoyed her.
She wrote me an email saying she was hurt and disappointed in me. She was angry that I said her son will be fine if he just goes to sleep, and she was angry I said I was about to go sleep and you were not thinking of coming round were you. She said a friend is someone you can count on and is always there for you and that it’s a two way relationship. I apologised as I didn’t mean it in an insensitive way and in no way was I meaning to be unsympathetic.
So we met up, she said she knew I hadn’t intended to hurt her with the words I used, but that I crossed the line in not being there in her hour of need. Her son was fine the next day without any Calpol that night. She said ‘does it matter that it wasn’t an emergency, you weren’t there for me in my hour of need.’ She said she would do ‘anything for my kids’. Now she has not done anything in particular to help with my kids in the past as I never like to ask for help unless I really need it.
Then she bought up the time I didn’t agree to be emergency contact for the school for her kids. She asked me this years ago, but has obviously held resentment in me as she kept mentioning it. She said ‘what harm would it have done to have picked up my son in that rare chance’. She was quite upset about this. She said ‘friend A’ agreed to be emergency contact. She said ‘so far she has been a good friend.’
She then went on to say to me: ‘I don’t know anything about you. I still don’t know what you do all day while the kids are at school’. I was quite shocked she could say something like that as I have never judged her in that way for working full time. I felt like she was judging me for being a SAHM.
When I got home that day I started writing an email back to her explaining how I felt. But before I could finish the email she wrote to say I don’t think we can be close friends anymore as she said we have different ideas of what a friendship is.
In the end I did send a long email back saying yes we are different and she has certain needs and expectations from a friendship, and when she doesn’t get those needs met she gets disappointed. I told her that I felt I should have the right to say no to being emergency contact for her kids, but that she didn’t respect my right to say no.
I felt like she doesn’t consider me at all, it’s all about her needs and no consideration for my needs or feelings at all.
No response back from her.
I feel used and because she hasn’t even bothered to respond, I feel like she has never considered this a two way relationship. It’s never been about my feelings and having two way communication. It’s all about her or nothing.
YANBU-I should put closure to this friendship, she has been using me
YABU-I have been a bad friend and I need to learn to help friends in need