Does anyone have truly supportive friends?

[malificent7]

I realise that a few of my female friendships have been toxic and competetive.

Female friend 1- always went out with exes, competed through kids, my dad and her mum started dating after mum's death and expected to be instant " family" even though I don't want that.
Threw massive hissy fit when my dd didn't want a cousin or even friend relationship with her dd ( who was horrid to mine). Threw a bigger hissy fit as I distanced myself from her mum for various reasons. Now sees more of dad than I do...i feel sad.

Other friend got stroppy when I got married.

Another friend got jealois when I trained for my new career and said that AHP/ medics only do it for the money...er no...it dosnt pay that well and I do need money.

Other friend criticised my parenting.

I am not saying I'm the best friend ever but atm I only have 1 true friend...where can I find supportive people.

Love my colleagues but I am not super close to them.

I post about this a lot as it bothers me.

Of course it's because they are friends with the ex!

Are you autistic OP - because I am and I often struggle with understanding that other people don't think the way I do. Your comment about the ex's friends jumped out at me.

Not really. I don't really have a lot of trust for people because it's been broken so often. I exited a friendship group around 2 years ago just after I got engaged. They were judgemental about me moving in with my DH, congratulated me on the engagement but then complained that we were getting married too soon, it was an inconvenience date for everyone, they already had loads on that year due to reschedule gigs from COVID. They also stood back and did nothing when one of the girls in the group was pretty much bullying me and made me feel like the bad one when I finally stood up to her and cut her off. I think I relied on them too much for company when I was single and it took her me to meet my DH and realise my worth to stop being treated so badly. Although I'm sure they paint the picture to everyone else that DH made me cut all my friends off or whatever.

I have friends who are really just mum friends through my DSD. They are nice but I wouldn't rely on them for anything. I'm close with my mum, my DSD and my DH is my best friend. I'm quite happy with that little bubble.

Yes and I also believe that I am truly supportive friend.

My friendship circle is small and it takes a lot for me to consider someone a friend.

I also do a hobby where the culture is very supportive and that has made a wonderful difference to me!

Yes my friends are extremely supportive. I'd like to think I am as well but I'm probably not as good as I should/could be however I make an effort, especially to listen more. I'm more self-aware now that I'm older (approaching 50) and have kids. I was pretty selfish up to my mid 20's and not a good a friend as I could have been.
I have a wide circle of friends and try to keep in touch as much as possible although its not easy for all the usual reasons (family, work, geographical distance) Some obviously I am closer with than others (besties for want of a better word) some are more acquaintances like school mums, that I'm fond of and meet up with now and again. Some are somewhere in the middle. I appreciate all of them. I wouldn't bother otherwise.

All of my friends are supportive. I can be a little harsh, if someone is rude to me then I need a self motivated apology that makes me feel that it's heartfelt, otherwise they are no longer included in my inner circle in my mind.

I only have friends that are supportive. Anyone who shows any indication of toxicity I can't be around. I've lost a few "friends" because of my refusal to tolerate nastiness in any form (backhanded or otherwise). I'm all the happier for it and wish I hadn't wasted my youth tolerating hateful cunts in order to belong to a group. The people I choose to spend time with now, I'd do anything for and know they'd do anything for me.

Flowerpotcat...the ex and I are on good terms. She left dh for another man and went on to have kids with OM. We get on fine. She left dh a few years before he met me. I have no idea what I have done so badly wrong to offend her friends...unless ex has been bitching about me!

I am being assessed for asd but unless I have upset his ex then no reason for her friends to take against me.

I bet my top dollar that I have upset her...so why not be honest?

I’ve never had friends who have done or said mean things and if I moaned about a problem I am sure they would be sympathetic.
However I’m not sure they would do much more than that. Most people I know are busy with jobs/family/their own problems so don’t really have time for anyone else’s issues.

I think quality of friendship is different for all groups.
I just lost my friendship group for confronting them for not meeting my baby (who is 2 next month) but they've all met another baby in the group (only 5 months old).

It's my fault for not making more friends when I was younger, I had loads of opportunities, but I really liked my friends and had a mix of everything I needed within the group. But even still, it would big how I felt so unsupported. I also opened my own cafe 1.5 years ago and none of them have ever even stepped foot inside. By the way we all live in the area so no more than 10/15 minutes drive from everyone.

All I got was excuses and excuses. I tried to hold on to the friendship because we've been college friends for almost 15 years. Some of them my bridesmaids and have been with me through the bad times.
Focusing now on building better connections and pouring energy into friendships that are two sided and hope to make new friends soon.

I don't think my old friend were bad people but they just weren't good friends to me.
I look my husband and his friends and they are very very good friends to each other. They all know my children so well and my children know who all of them are because they made the effort to be in their lives.

I was in an abusive marriage for a long time. I self isolated and lost connection with many friends.

A woman in my circle that I didn’t know very well has really stepped up to support me through a long and difficult divorce. Other ‘friends’ have really let me down.

So I suppose I’m saying be ready to accept and support new people into your circle. You never know when you will find someone who really does have a heart of gold.

No friend is perfect, but I'd say most of mine are pretty supportive.

My two oldest and closest friends are fantastic. I couldn't wish for better.
One is from our first day at school almost 60 years ago and the other is from our first day at work together 40 years ago.
We've always had each others backs whatever life has thrown at us.

See, this seems like a good example of a lack of social imagination on your part regarding how some NT people think and behave.

If you Google social imagination and autism you might get what I mean.

You are applying your own strong sense of morality (also an autistic thing) and logical thinking to people who may have totally different thinking and morality to you.

It seems likely to me that they don't like you and also a strong possibility that this also indicates the ex does not like you. Might not even be anything to do with your personality or actions, simply because you are the new wife. Some NT people really do think that way.

I am saying all this out of kindness, because you sound like a younger version of me, before I realised I was autistic. I wasted so much time trying to figure out why some people (mostly cliques of women) did not like me...I could have spent that energy making real friends.

There's a great quote by Maya Angelou - when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

How old roughly are you OP? Do you have DC/ plan on having DC?

Yes they are. I'm going through a truly shit time (incurable cancer) and can name probably 30 friends who've been truly there for me. I don't know what I'd do without them tbh, I'm grateful every single day.

@malificent7 so for clarification 3 of us girls had lived together in the past and were close.
I had left an abusive relationship and was in a bad place. That woman put me in danger after believing my ex (instead of us, her best friends - and evidence but you can't help stupid).
Long story short she kept telling him what I was doing, he kept stalking me irl and he ended up with non mol and being arrested for something quite horrific that he did to me - so we cut her out because she was a problem.
I never told my friend group to cut her out but they did so of their own accord, out of respect for me but also realisation that she could do that to them. She became untrustworthy and people didn't want their quiet lives to have problems. We tend to take each others experiences and learn from them.

My friend group are not besties with each other, they are all individually my friends. But if I have a bbq they all get along very well, many have each others numbers (surprise parties, helping each other out with lifts etc, support network, some have become friends with each other).
WhatsApp I have a few groups that overlap due to interests (for example gardening, baking) and in those groups can be different mixes of my friends (and some of theirs!). They are all great people to the core though, and that's where I have got lucky. I do wonder if they key is that I knew them all individually and mixed them all together.
But the whole group watch interactions. They're wise people, they mind their business and don't want trouble in their boring lives, so if someone does something against our morals we just remove them (has only happened 2x in over a decade) and we cut them out for the sake of the situation and to keep ourselves safe. I hope that makes sense!

The friendship group issue you described definitely doesn't make you the bad egg. Bad egg behaviour is doing things purposely to harm others! If anything it sounds very high school. So definitely not the bad egg.

Only thing I can say from experience is that I gave my time and still do, individually to all of my friends. A lot more when we were child free, but the foundations were built. Now after so long and so much trust its easier to meet as groups. Perhaps start small and meet people at hobbies etc and see where it goes - but there are definitely better people out there to be friends with than what you describe!