... wondering about the worst thing done to you by a so called "friend" *Content warning added by MNHQ - just flagging that some of these are quite upsetting*

[PieRSquared]

Waiting in the airport to collect my DD from her flight (seriously delayed!) at the end of a great trip she's had travelling abroad with a close friend of hers.

It brings up some very unpleasant memories for me. The plan was to travel for a few weeks in south east asia with my long term best friend, first time I'd ever travelled there. On the 3rd day of our trip she met someone "special" and went travelling with him instead!! It really caused me a huge amount of trouble and stress, traveling alone there was not easy, a few bad incidents, trying to make some other friends along the way. It was also a bit more expensive not sharing a room, and deciding on some safer/more expensive locations.

We're not in contact any more, but I'm feeling angry and agitated as I write this, and think about it again. No more coffee for me!

Any other bad things done by friends were relatively minor for me thankfully.

Employee. And who says you can't be friends with your childminder? I realise it doesn't quite fit the thread but I'm not sure it really matters 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not me. Friends bridesmaid propositioned the groom 2 days before the wedding and told him he didn’t have to marry her, he could go be with her. She’d only asked her to be BM because she felt sorry for her.

Drugged my husband and had sex with him, in the Police interview she said she did it to get back at me for accidentally breaking one of her mugs 3 years ago!

This happened when I and the ‘friends’ were all in our 30s and 40s.

I’d moved to a new area and quickly fell in with a group of other mums. I was so happy as I’m a bit of a loner and I find it difficult to make friends. We would all meet up each week and see each other at the school gates and all grew very close.

I had party at our house and the husband of one of the women was really drunk. He was following around one of the group (she was single at the time) and pestering her a bit but we all just ignored him and had a brilliant night.

About a week later the single friend rang me in tears saying that the wife of the drunken husband went round to her house and told her that her husband confessed that they’d had sex in our bathroom on the night of the party ! This was all cobblers, she tried to reason with the wife but it was no use. I took the side of my single friend as I knew she was telling the truth but every other woman in that group sided with the wife with the eventual result that I lost an entire friendship group and it upset me for years.

This was all about 12 years ago now and although I still don’t regret it as I stuck by my friend against that nasty lot, it did mean that I was back on my own again.

Very similar to our family motto of "people are dicks" wise words.

I introduced two friends who then made really good friends with each other and ditched me. It was horrible seeing them all over social media etc. Its a few years ago and im ok now but it was a bad time and hurt a lot and I still have a lot of shame about it, wondering why and what was said.

Convinced me to go on hol to a partying place with her and another girl I got on with but didn’t know well.

At least 2/3 nights out of the 7 they conveniently “lost” me and I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to find my way back to the hotel, alone, with various PR guys propositioning me on the way and being rather persistent. Needless to say I was the most attractive out of the 3 of us 😉

I don’t blame the other girl as ex bff was actually awful and got off on excluding people. We don’t talk any more and she’s married to a racist, drug abusing drunk idiot, so yes karma is a thing!

These stories are heartbreaking.

Makes me wonder, is it true or is it a stereotype:
Boys: have physical fights and the issue is resolved
Girls: psychological torture and abuse that can last years.

Is this nature, or nurture?

Spent literally hours and hours over the years listening to every detail of 'friends' life and illnesses while I gave support and sympathy.
Then my 12 yr old DD was diagnosed with a bone tumour. She never once in the following 4 years asked me how she was.

I've found the best thing about getting older is getting rid of spiteful frienemies. I have no need to be popular anymore and my bridesmaids will be dd and sdd.
Very liberating.

My son has undergone really spiteful, psychological bullying instigated by boys

Wow. That’s dreadful. I hope your daughter is doing ok.

Boys can be extremely cruel and devious too. This is a predominantly female site so guess that skews the responses.

Really?

This has blown my mind!

What happened to her?

A friend I'd made at the school gate.

I ended up having a nervous breakdown and was sectioned. She sent me a fb message asking if I was ok.

Told her what happened and I never heard from her again.

See her out and about occasionally and she wont look me in the eye.

Posts crap in out local fb group about 'being kind' and 'my door is always open' 🤨

There’s something about teenage friendships that makes them incredibly volatile and unstable, I think. My own experience concerns my so-called BF from age 14-16. Looking back the whole thing was festooned with red flags; she used to ignore me for kicks, insult me randomly, every conversation was on her terms and somehow if I had something I wanted to chat about (I used to roleplay in my head ways of talking about my stuff as well as hers) the chance would never, ever come up.

According to my DM I was being dominated. Being 14 I resented that and became obsessed with trying to prove I wasn’t being dominated. So-called BF and I used to have rows about that and she used to wind me up and then encourage me to hit her to ‘let it all out’. Meanwhile I was being bullied by my classmates (she was in the year above) and she took pride in being friends with all the kids who were being left out, even claiming that she understood me in a way no one else did. It all blew up when she left the school, my grandfather died and I realised that she didn’t understand me and never would. It was all deeply, weirdly messed up, and my DM was right; I just wish she’d phrased it better.

I wonder if our cultural fixation with BFF’s is part of the problem? It’s like looking for The One in romantic partnerships. We trust them with our souls and then get hurt when they don’t understand us like we expect them to. There’s a book about it somewhere that’s recently been published - I must find the reference.

Also, maybe not the same thing as this was only an online friend. But I confided in her heavily about how sad I felt about my life. At the time, I was late twenties, single, no kids and in very low paid work. One day, she asked me if I wanted to read her online blog. On there, was a post about me. What a loser I was, how I was paid peanuts, basically, what a joke I was. Although I had never met her in person, I was shaking with upset and embarrassment. This was someone who I trusted and who betrayed me in a horrible and nasty way

From what I’ve seen it’s the neurotypical kids most lacking in empathy!

I hope you’ve managed to find friends who accept you x

@SomeCleverUsername I’m really sorry you’ve had the same. Sort of worse that it’s not like anyone says anything, we have just got frozen out, left off invitations, or invited to things that are impossible for me (and when I’ve suggested good alternatives, been rejected). My child with disabilities is 12 now, and the rift has been much more noticeable in the last few years. For me I think it hasn’t helped that some of them have teenage kids with new diagnoses/mental health issues, and now want to talk about disabilities/difficulties only as it relates to their kids, and I think my child’s disability does not fit around that narrative. I don’t know, all I know is we are not welcome anymore, and when I ask for the smallest accommodation (such as meeting in a quieter place or whatever), it is totally ignored. It makes me so sad.

@shadypines I’m so sorry, a bone tumour must have been such a shock and you didn’t have the one friend that you had been there for.

@CherryBlossomAutumn thst is really sad. But it sounds like hopefully you have found other friends who have more empathy. For what it’s worth my experience that people like this have shallower friendships with everyone - which does mean that they miss out on the richness of a true friendship. Doesnt make it any easier for you though. xxxxx

If you have a child with disabilities then I think it very hard to others to relate and understand what you are going through on a day to day basis. Logistics, time, effort, worry about the short term, worry about the longer term, financial, support systems, medicine, etc. While people can help, be nice and somewhat supportive, unless you have travelled that path you won't really get it.

As another poster mentioned there are things in life you can only understand when they have directly impacted your life, and those things can impact friendships too. People are coming from a different place.

Friend and I had our horrible suspicions confirmed that our DC were being sexually abused at a local kindergarten. We went together and reported it, then afterwards she retracted everything and intimated (as far as I understand, she refused to talk to me) to many people that we had made it up. In fact, this was spread so widely that the parents of other children who were also most likely abused avoided us. It wasn't the slander that bothered me, terrible as it was, or the loss of our reputation, but rather the children whose parents did nothing and left them with their abuser. Our DC is still in therapy 3 years later, has done well and we hope they will continue to do so. I mourn, though, for what will happen to those children later in their lives, and I can do nothing more than what we have done about it.

It's disgusting that mothers who formula feed their baby are treated like second class citizens. My Mam was unable to breast feed me so I got sucking away on a bottle instead.

Never did me any harm.

'Mummy Influencer' rang alarm bells straight away.