Name changed as potentially outing.
So a recent thread here re: apparent ‘ghosting’ by a friend got me thinking.
I could potentially be accused of this myself, but there were definitely two sides to the story. I would really value honest opinions.
Friend and i were close since college times. I had a chaotic childhood and there would always be some family drama – she had a lovely home in the country where I’d sometimes stay – for which I will always be grateful. We started relationships and had or children at similar times too, and shared a lot of the ups and downs and confidences.
My OH and I were one set of many godparents for their first child.
I did have the feeling that her OH, while friendly, did not always like me.
The relationship also seemed to run into problems whenever life started to go better for me – while I was given tours of their new house so that I could appreciate it, when we moved to a new home she visited but didn’t say a thing about it. I once popped over with a birthday gift for the godchild but was not invited in, as they were preparing for the party and my children were also not invited to their party, despite the similarity in age.
This was fine though as they all went to different schools and I could understand.
When one of my children got a scholarship she reacted by telling me that I shouldn’t take it up, it wouldn’t be a good experience for them and would still cost us too much etc – she reacted so strongly that she later apologised.
Still I really valued the friendship and thought she did too. One of her good friends sadly had breast cancer and she would tell me all about the hampers she would take her and the supportive visits and the tears and I would listen and sympathise.
Then I became ill with a cancer of my own which was potentially life threatening.
I called her as one of my oldest friends and she responded with ‘Oh, my H’s sister had something like that and it was nothing really – you’ll be fine.’ In fact I had to wait for three months before I knew whether the prognosis was or was not likely to be terminal and I needed extensive surgery.
Just after receiving the all clear and feeling so grateful and happy, we all arranged to have a meal out at a local (average) restaurant and we were (I thought), chatting and laughing happily when her OH leaned across the table and said something like ‘let’s keep it down, remember Z*’, referring to the last time we had all eaten out together and implying I suppose that he felt we were being too loud.
For the record, we weren’t.
No singing, shouting, swearing, only very moderate glass or two of wine.
That was supposed to be my celebration.
I didn’t say anything as didn’t want to ruin it further, evening carried on OK after but I felt hurt.
Next time I saw her I tried to broach the subject, along the lines of ‘I hope you had a good time too – I wonder, did you or OH think we/I was a bit loud?!’ In a lighthearted sort of way, trying to give her an ‘in’ to talk about or to apologise for her OH’s behaviour. She didn’t – if anything she just sort of laughingly brushed it off, and moved on.
I was still very tired and recovering and I made the decision that the lack of support and OH’s disapproval wasn’t something I wanted in my life.
So I gradually reduced contact to practically nothing and, eventually, after a few texts and a postcard saying that she hoped I was OK and that I had been out of touch but no hard feelings, so did she.
I wonder now if there is any more I should have done? I didn’t think that I could have been any clearer without coming across as either confrontational: ‘who does your OH think he is – explain!’ or incredibly needy ‘Do you not approoove of me?’
But I don’t like to think of ‘ghosting’ someone either.