Close friendship turning totally toxic

[Smallblessings2]

NC for this as it is very outing.

I have a very good friend of 15yrs and up until the last nine months or so it was a supportive, enjoyable and comfortable friendship.

Last year she turned 40 and had a small party, despite being close she did not invite me. I questioned this at the time and she said it was a hobby group that had organised it for her.
She went on a trip of a life time afterwards with her dh and dc and I bought her a lovely gift and suggested we celebrate later in the year, all fine.

I later found out the party was much bigger than she expected/told me - all family invited too and other friends well beyond the hobby group but many friends were not invited. I was a bit sad not to share it with her, but accepted it is what it is.

Since then we have been meeting up, I have had a busy few months with work so not as often as usual. and she has been really different towards me since her 40th and I have no idea why.

It feels like she always trying to be one better now, she casually put me down a few times, criticised my dh and even corrected how I pronounced a word! Still hasn’t thanked me for her birthday present (it was an expensive and thoughtful gift) so that surprised me and I feel confused by her behaviour.

Each time I have seen her lately I have come away feeling really bad about myself and oddly ‘lonely’ which is not something I usually feel when I see good friends. I mentioned last night that things feel different between us at the moment, and tried to discuss it with her but she waved it away and dismissed it out of hand.

We ran into a mutual casual friend last night unexpectedly in the same place and it was oddly awkward for no good reason. Like a tonne of stuff that felt unsaid. My friend made a point of saying she hasn’t seen that much of me to the other friend which was so odd and weird to mention that. There was a low level tension.

What is going on here?
Can anyone shine a light on this kind of behaviour?

I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable with her, she won’t discuss it and I don’t want to overreact by dropping a long term, once lovely friendship, but I am finding that spending time with her is having a negative impact on me. It makes me feel worse not better, and her remarks make me feel unsure of myself and my life. I am usually an easy going laid back person and have no idea what I should do in this situation.

WWYD?

I’ve had similar happen with what I thought was a close friendship. For a while we didn’t speak at all. We are now back on speaking terms but I have pulled back significantly and no longer trust her. I’m happy to engage in random group chat, but I will never be close to her again. And I have no intention of ever meeting her in person again. I was sad at first but now I’m just relieved to have seen the real her. I think once you have seen someone’s true colours you have to accept it and act how best meets your needs. No point in pretending they are someone they are not.

I need to be wary that she doesn’t monetise a perceived ‘drama’ between us into something she can use to gossip about. If I say nothing what can she talk about?

you've already been the subject of much gossip, thus casual friends anger. They'll be drama regardless, if friend wants to make drama she will and has. Casual friend will not be part of the drama as friend will have to leave her out, as more of her friends find out she is a scam artist they will also be either left out or back off.

Whether you want to ask her to behave like an adult is up to you? But if its drama this friend is after then saying its up to her to decide whether its a friendship worth pursuing isn't going to fan the flames - they are embers by now and you never actually saw the fire

I really agree with @Libraryloiterer 's take that she is in 'parent' mode and when your dynamic settled you were in child mode. I've read that book too, The Games People Play by Eric Berne (I think it is). It explains why my mother cannot and will not allow me to raise an issue, give some feedback, ask to be heard. (well, it partially explains it)

Over the last 15 years or so I've been able to identify when I'm modifying my behaviour just to stay in friendship/relationship with somebody. 15 years ago I would have ignored that compromised feeling just to stay in connection, but now I can just feel the location of that boundary, where I am outside of what feels authentic to me and moving in to submission/compliance what will leave me feeling resentful. I have not managed to fix any old dynamic that was previously parent/child (my role always having been the child).

Because my parents raised me to never express my emotions, and because over time if you're trained to never show any emotions you don't know what you're feeling and if it's reasonable, I was the worlds biggest people pleaser when I met most of the people in my life. This was when I made my school friends and even my own wider family got to know me got used to me.

A lot of people have dropped me. Maybe I shrugged. Often I was really really sad. But I wasn't serving the purpose of validating them, cheering them up and acting as a comparison.

This thread is like a great novel. I'm content you'll get the happy ending with your gardening clothes husband & clever, happy kids. And your real friends who love you. What does the spiteful baggage get? Lying to people she's trying to be friends with who don't even like her. With her shallow husband & children whom she judges a disappointment.

Ps, I do luckily have a few ''adult'' friendships, maybe not that close, but I'm trying to hold those friendships.

To me it sounds like she has been slagging you off to her hobby group, whatever ammunition she had against you (who knows) and then she couldn’t invite you to the party.

My dad says ‘some people won’t like you, but they are the wrong type of people’

Don’t look back at all. She is not who you thought she was, but it was not a waste.
I hope you do find out what she said but just for fun. I don’t think she can hurt you anymore.

Why not hire a private detective to investigate?

Mmm... I'd hazard a guess that she's explained your absence from events with a filthy lie as well as bitching... hence your mutual friends reaction.

I'd forgotten alllllll about it but it has happened to me a couple of times - once with a friend I'd known since early secondary school - we did not survive the transition to adulthood where her rather overbearing 'parental' role didn't stand up well to me moving to 'adult' as well...

Then again over the pandemic, a longstanding friend absolutely spat the dummy and cut off me and a mutual friend of ours because we wouldn't make the choices she thought were the right ones - again, an 'adult/parent' role person not handling those she'd put into the 'child' role acting as adults in their own right.

I'd let it fizzle - however i would attempt, in as low-drama, non-confrontational way as possible, to find out what has been said to others, not the bitching particularly... but lies. Because theres a damn good chance some of them have been believed.

How you do that... mm, I don't know!

She’s dampening your flame, true friends brighten your flame and bad friends don’t. If you are coming away with negative feelings start to distance yourself

Call me cynical but I don’t believe in ‘happy’ endings. I think she will continue to charm her way through life, allowing others to believe it is a genuine friendship all the while skilfully squeezing out everything she can, and festering silently on what she believes should be her future.

Me? I am not calculated or socially clever. I tend to prefer a good old fashioned friendships based entirely on trust, shared humour and loyalty. No conditions/status/strings required.
Every time someone lets me down like this I have to watch I don’t go into flight mode and put the house on the market or a similar overreaction. It really feels painful to be misled for so long. It doesn’t feel like a happy ending sadly. I just lost a person I thought of as a very old and special friend.

I told dh the situation just now; and he looked so hurt I instantly regretted telling him.

That is exactly it. Unless constantly validating and cheerleading. I thought of it as support and care, but that’s different.

I am ordering that book thank you for the recommendation and friendolics from
Amazon right now!

How do you feel about having a significantly reduced friendship circle as a result of retaining your adult mode? It’s easy to say we are fine with it, but it makes me feel fearful. As I have at least a few more friends like this.

I have been able to move away from the drama triangle with more success but I seriously think moving all friendships into the adult mode is going to be very challenging, least of all the typical strong resistance and back lash.

Op I'm so sorry this women sounds like someone I know (scary to think there's lots of these types rolling around)

I have to ask does she have form to do this type of thing ? Has she acted like this in the past but given her side of it.

The women I know keeps losing friends and I couldn't understand why, turns after I spent lots of time with her I knew why. She got off in not including people and leaving people out. Always justified it too. She was to playground for me.

I would message the MCF and get her take on it.

'I told dh the situation just now; and he looked so hurt I instantly regretted telling him'

Ever since the mutual friend was mentioned I was suspicious and this comment cemented it for me. Has something gone on between her and your Husband, do you think? And the mutual friend knows?

It’s good you told DH, otherwise she or her would continue to use him for business support.

*her husband

She might be keen to meet up( so she then has another chance to put you down
Seeing a good friend should be fun and give you a boost, not feel uncomfortable
Just because you've been friends for a long time, doesn't mean you have to still see her
For whatever reason, she's not a friend to you now
Surround yourself with radiators not drains is very apt

😆

I don't think she consciously used you, but over time as you became more successful, and her perhaps less so, the dynamic has changed in a way she isn't comfortable with.

It's really not a big surprise, a lot of friendships struggle when the dynamic changes eg money, success, appearance, divorce, children or not etc it's human nature. I also think it's normal to experience some envy at points, again very human.
I also think in most situations there is nuance, it's rare for one party to be completely in the wrong & the other entirely right, there's unusually a whole lot of grey!

Perhaps she's adjusting to the shift & needs time.

Maybe she decided at 40 to reevaluate her life, her friendships, and for some reason, you didn’t make the cut. She can’t tell you directly, so is trying to push you away. It’s hard when friendships fail, but pursuing something clearly no longer reciprocated will be bad for you and your self esteem. If you can, concentrate on other, healthier friendships.

You’ve tried to talk to her about it and she won’t, so I think you need to distance yourself.

I'm sorry but she was obviously slating you to all her friends. Making you out to be the bad guy, and you didn't even turn up to her party. Now she's been caught out, socialising with you. Her friends now wondering if she lied about you! Nobody likes a liar. I'd stop sending her cards/gifts/messages. No more meeting up with her. Why bother if it makes you feel this way. Maybe one day she'll realise what a great friend she lost, and apologise. I wouldn't like someone being rude about my husband either, that was mean and unnecessary, she just wanted to upset you and recount the experience later to her friends.

Yes! She has blown up so many friendships over the years, all reasonably close friendships. Always with little or no explanation. Just said x,y and z were being ‘difficult’ and it would blow over. I am not a prying person and didn’t think much about it. Definitely a strategic socialiser but I didn’t expect that to stretch to all relationships!

i really don’t think so, they are friendly but not close at all, and there is no zero chemistry like that. We mostly catch up on girls only with the odd dinner etc. He is hurt for me, and said so, he knows how upset I am, and I sense he is embarrassed.

I've been to Kenya. The locals pronounce it 'Ken-ya', or even 'Ken-ia' but definitely not 'Keen-ya'.

The pronunciation changed on independence.