To think my friend needs to get over her divorce now?

[Whattodo24xx]

Ok, I know that sounds incredibly harsh but I'm at my wits end with my friend & it's beginning to affect how I feel about her...

For context, we've been friends since we were both 11, (38 now) and we've shared loads together. Including obviously supporting her when she split from her husband of 11 years 5 years ago. It was super tough for her at the time understandably and I was there for her every step of the way. She has a DD who's coming up for 10 now, whilst working full time and is a great mum. Ex still sees DD regularly but they don't have a good relationship which makes things harder.

The trouble is, my friend over the past 5 years has the attitude of 'woe is me' constantly 24/7 and it's so draining. Whilst I understand the struggles of being a single mum for the majority of the time, it's all she talks about like the entire world is out to get her. She doesn't have enough free time, she doesn't have enough money to do anything, she doesn't have this, she doesn't have that etc. Her ex is getting remarried this year and this has sparked a fresh set of hatred towards him that he's a dead beat, he should pay her more money (he pays her £465 pcm), he's a narcissist. Nothing is ever good enough and I just wish she would see how far she's come and what a wonderful life she does actually have. She has an amazing daughter, a house she owns outright with no mortgage and that her ex has no claim on, a decent career, she's a beautiful lady too, but she's blinded by the mindsight that is 'woe is me'.

I don't know how to approach this with her now, and I understand the transition period was always going to be hard, but 5 years of this attitude and it's beginning to take a toll on our relationship. We go out & do nice things together but the convo will quickly shift back to making a passing dissing comment about her ex, or how something went wrong in the house she had to pay for herself as she has no help etc etc. The thing is, she didn't even want to be with her ex at the end and it came to light a few weeks after he'd left she'd cheated on him anyway (which I've never criticised her for) but I do feel like she enjoyed the life she had before she divorced if that makes sense? I really have no idea how to broach this with her now...

YABU - It's hard for her
YANBU - She needs to start being happy for things she does have

Divorce is shit for anyone. Your friend seems to have taken it so deep and can't seem climb out.

Does your friend hope to start a new relationship with someone.?
Shes got no chance if she starts to use them as a sponge to soak up her misery.
Blokes will disappear pretty quick if all she does is whine

No she doesn't need to get over it, she's obviously still hurt. However she does need to stop using you as a sounding board. Why can't you woman up and just tell her its just too much for you to constantly absorb? Then gently suggest therapy/counselling? You may lose the friendship but at least you won't be soaking up negativity. Honestly what's the point of all this dithering? Just speak up for yourself or at least send it in a text if you can't face saying it.

After 5 years I think unfortunately she does just need to get over it now :( are there ways you can encourage her to? Or even suggest therapy if you think she’d take it well?

I left a long term friendship behind because of this sort of attitude. It wasn’t divorce, it was other personal stuff, but everything we did was undercut by her constant narration of all her woes. This was combined with a total lack of desire to do anything positive to improve the situation, all of which was in her grasp.

i realised I was just being used as a dumping ground for all her negativity so I stopped being as available. It’s a shame but she’s still the same now apparently!

My DMIL has been like this for 25 years now - never got over her husband leaving her and remarrying. He behaved obnoxiously but she has made it her whole life. It wasn’t my place to tell her but I wish she’d had a friend like you.

I think some people just get stuck in a rut of moaning. They don't know any other way to have a conversation. Or they are just so self-absorbed they don't recognise that other people aren't just there to be their moaning outlet.

My mum is a moaner. every conversation is negative. If she hasn't got anything personal going on to be negative about, she will switch to ranting about something from GB News instead. It's like she doesn't know any other way to be around people.

If you tell her about something good that has happened, eg you won an award, she immediately jumps to "Well you're lucky. I never had the chance to do anything like that because [insert some woe is me story]

Most of the family are LC with her because she is draining

I used to have a 'friend' like that. Her split defined her life forever after. The friendship ended for other reasons but at least it saved listening to the moaning on.

It was traumatic I know because her boss at work told her her ex was having an affair - he was on the same flight as ex and the other woman! Sympathy isn't infinite though.

It sounds like she's decided (subconsciously) to make 'woe-is-me divorced woman' her new central identity. She's 'enjoying' playing this role, for lack of a better word. After five years, she's unlikely to change, unless something drastic happens and gives her a better identity to latch onto. If she finds a new partner, maybe that would do it.

I know you don't want to lose her as a friend, but I don't see many options (other than putting up with it) that wouldn't risk alienating her. I'd try to steer the conversation away or ignoring as many of her comments as possible, but there's only so much of that you can do without seeming rude.

Edit: I missed the last update that she's actually moved on and found another man (although maybe not a perfect match) and is still like this. So much for that, then!

It's tricky - sometimes habits are so ingrained that you no longer notice them. If it's a friendship worth saving, I'd want to address the issue and give the person a chance to change.

To avoid any resentment building up, I'd mention it e.g.

"I've noticed that you've become more negative lately, and sometimes I don't recognise the friend I used to know. If you're feeling down or overwhelmed, do you think it would be worth speaking to a counsellor about it?"

When my kids were young I remember this really being a barrier to friendships at one school in particular. There was an impenetrable projection that those of us with partners/husbands by definition had money and zero problems! They, as single mothers had this trump card and we were entitled and had no right to moan about anything.

Another mother did make me laugh one day by summing it all up: they have a great social life, get time to themselves we could only dream of, and most are retraining for better careers! She was referring to the mothers who had really good support from parents and/or a good co parenting situation with their ex.

I know that’s not quite the same as your situation but your OP reminded me a bit of that artificial barrier I encountered at that time - and the resentments that arose on either side

Does she need medication at all? Anti depressants may help.

It's not about the divorce, some people really are very negative and think they always have it harder than others and feel like they can talk about it all the time.

I've distanced myself from 2 friends like that recently because after every single time I hung out with either of them, I felt drained, depressed and snappy. We all have stuff going on. When I go out with friends, I also just want to have a laugh and a nice time, not be someone's therapist.

My mum is still like this, 35 years after my dad left her for OW, and she's going to take the bitterness to her grave.

She wasn't left in a terrible situation - really could have been a lot worse. It was quite clear my DF had been unhappy for some time and became a different person completely after leaving and is still with OW.

I genuinely think about 5 years after DF left she knew full well looking back when everything happened the way it did, and could have said ' well, fair enough, time to put it behind me now' but was scared to let go of the anger.

Thing is as her grown children it made life very difficult for us, watching what we talked about and I'm sure there were no more big family occasions due to the hassle it would have caused.

I think hanging on to bitterness even in the face of obviously being in a much better situation is definitely a real phenomena

If you genuinely want to give the friendship one more try before a tactical withdrawal you might try suggesting to her that she's giving him power over her by continuing to rage about him. The best revenge is to live a happy life etc. For her it might just be about control: she was unhappy but he was the one to leave the marriage, taking away her agency. That can really sting.

If she starts to bring him up in conversation just say, "don't waste your time on him" or "don't give him any more headspace" and try and move the conversation to something positive she has going on.

Try not to make it about you and how it's making you feel, justified though that would be. If that fails I really would consider being less available.

I did suggest, along with many others that therapy would be good for her and she went initially in the first 6 months post break-up, but I believed at the time she was only going to try and win her ex back as it was all based around why she had cheated and she was trying to prove to him she'd changed. I know that if I suggest it now it would go down like a lead balloon. I genuinely don't think she is depressed....I think she just likes to steer the convo back to her divorce. I don't know whether this is to get attention or her not actually being over it all. That I can't quite tell

I wouldn’t completely dismiss the idea of depression or at least some of the markers of depression, it often manifests in anger and she sounds as if she is SEETHING. She is also constantly ruminating and picking over what has happened and the injustice of it. Distorting the awfulness and deleting the positives. Practicing being the victim of circumstances. Constantly going over the past and it sounds as if she is not allowing contentment or happiness to override her anger because “why should he be let off the hook by me moving on as easily as he has!”.

I think when something really hard happens and we’re very unhappy for an intense period there’s often a shift in our perception of the world and a negative view of everything and everyone becomes habitual. I felt myself slide towards it when my DF died during Covid and then bad things kept happening (or at least it felt like it). I felt fucking livid about everything and everybody and the injustice. In the end I didn’t want to be positive or act as if I was. It took a monumental effort to get out of the thinking habits I was in.

It’s a shame she would be resistant to seeing a therapist again because it would do her good to have some fairly structured therapy to get her to focus on the future and what she actually wants out of life and to examine what she gets out of rigidly demanding things shouldn’t have happened the way they did. She’d probably benefit from something like Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (which forces you to confront your own irrational thinking and behaviour; it’s not counselling as such, it’s more structured).

ultimately it’s not your job to be a sounding board and I would tell her that you’re worried she will never be happy and she needs to find a professional sounding board. It probably won’t go down well but maybe she will reflect on it and realise that she does have a choice about how she feels and her happiness is her responsibility at this point not your’s.

Don't underestimate the stressful and often depressing effect of trying to co-parent with an ex when you don't get along.

Your life doesn't turn into sunshine and daisies when you divorce if you're stuck having to communicate with someone who is uncooperative or sullen or begrudging or contrary, or downright abusive.

There are many opportunities for an ex who feels like it to punish a former spouse for cheating or divorcing or just for the heck of it.

I'd sit her down and let her vent about any trouble she's having with her ex. Don't assume he's been able to draw a line under the conflict or the behaviour that caused the breakdown of the relationship.

This

By all means tell her to put her poker face on and pretend she is ok because you feel uncomfortable but at least be honest with her.

I agree with every word.

Divorce brings with it an enormous amount of grief. You had your life planned, you had a wedding with your family and friends present, you had a child based on the security of the relationship, and then you find it has all gone tits up. You've been unhappy, he's been unhappy, whatever. And you turn around and your life as you thought it would be bears no resemblance to the reality.

And it has all been public - people ask about your husband or partner and you say you're divorced, actually. You're telling them your life has fallen apart. You might have had friends when you were married but you find they've remained friends with your ex and cut you off, or his family never get in touch even though you were in good terms before the divorce. There's a lot of loss associated with divorce.

There is just you to deal with all the stupid things that go wrong with a house or a car or a child, all the admin and the physical housework, and you have your job to deal with too. On top of that is the guilt you may feel because you've brought a child into this world, and they didn't ask to one day have to deal with a stepmother or stepfather and half siblings or step siblings, or the feeling of visiting dad at 'dad's house' or visiting mum at 'mum's house' when classmates live 'at home', with mum and dad. There's only one of you and 24 hours in the day, so maybe your child doesn't get to do swimming or some other activity, because there's only so much you can get around to, or maybe dad won't take her to a Saturday ballet class om his weekends, just because he can fold his arms and refuse...

That comes across as quite a belligerent response, it is fairly obvious that’s not what’s being said.

I don’t think this is fair. We all have to at least try to ‘move on’ from difficulties we experienced. The reality is that no one likes a perpetual victim and their victim hood can often leave no room for anything else.

The only reason ppl tell others to 'move on' is for their own comfort and really what they are saying is that I'm not comfortable and want you to shut up. Do you really think that telling someone to move on will suddenly make them flick a switch and they will stop feeling what they are feeling? All that happens is that they stop talking and suffer alone and struggle more and feel lonely and rejected and worthless. When someone dies in your life, remember there is a time limit on trauma and not to exert it please. This is why we have issues as ppl tell others to talk when they are struggling mentally but what they really mean is only talk for a short while but not too long. Where is the 'move on' switch located?

Maybe it’s not that they’re all useless and uncomfortable. Maybe it is just really boring and draining to listen to someone complain constantly for years, about the same thing.

At some point your friends will lose sympathy if you are always fixated only on your perpetual victimhood.

If you want to spend decades complaining about your divorce, then it’s best to pay a therapist. But even they may will try to get you to move forward and stop repeating the same grievances over and over again.

@RheaRend This isn't about helping a friend who needs to talk about the hard stuff she's going through. This is about someone who is continously negative and makes every conversation about herself. We all have shit in our lives. All of us. Whether it's divorce, death, illness etc, the older we get the more horrible stuff we have to deal with. But most people don't bring down every social event they attend. The ones who do are so self centered they can't see anything beyond their own suffering. Should the rest of us have to sit around forever silently suffering so we can be a sounding board for them.

I’d reflect on whether I’d be prepared to risk losing the friendship. If I was, I’d say something like she talks negatively a lot and whilst sympathetic to her feelings and situation I’d rather she did it less. Or try ‘grey rock’ and changing the subject.