To find this WhatsApp group triggering - should I leave?

[Colourofspring]

I’ve been friends with a group of mum’s since reception - kids are now doing GCSEs. DS was good friends with their kids up until about a year ago when they all dumped him because he hadn’t matured at the same rate- DS was so devastated and it had a huge impact on his self esteem - he’s only just starting to get over it now but he’s basically spent a year in his room too scared to trust anyone else. He has started to make some new mates tho.

I wanted to let it not affect the friendships with the other mums as I like them all and it’s been a long time but the group has become a place for them to organise social activities for the teens - minus my son & post lots of pics saying how lucky they are to all still be friends. All I can think is ‘well they were fucking horrible to my son’ and left him a shell of his former self.

Hes shy, quiet with low self esteem and it’s probably impacted him more than most. A lot of teen boys are cocky and full of testsosterone!’

I am getting to the point where I find the group triggering - I still like being included in occasional social stuff I guess but actually I am finding it increasingly difficult to stay in the whatapp group.

I have tried to keep child friend drama away from adult relationships but I am finding it difficult in this instance.

Aibu? WWYD? Leave the group? I have muted it but still get all the messages.

Unfortunately was in exactly the same situation a few years ago. We’re no longer friends. I feel really hurt and they’ve all continued on oblivious. Oh and DS has moved on long ago and is now the most amazing young adult.

Can you speak to her and ask to be included if there are meet ups.

Yes to a point.

But not the full extent of it. Some of it kind of happened on social media group - so things like they would arrange something and go through every boy and ask if they were coming apart from my son. As in one would tag everyone bar my son - that happened a lot. It was so mean and it just chipped away at my son more and more. Or they would arrange to meet at a bus and ignore his requests for the time. That kind of thing. In the end we stopped him going to some of it because he would be so upset at all of this and wasn’t mature enough to stand up for himself. Or at sleepovers, he would be the only one on the floor with no bedding. That kind of stuff.

Well in 2 years time they will all be at a level stage and then they will presumably no longer talk about kids in this group chat as much ? If you like their company and enjoy the social side i would just stay.

I think it's likely the other mums know more than they are letting on about your son being ousted from the friend group, though they might not be aware of any of the more unpleasant stuff that may have went on. I have experienced similar with my teenage son and it sucked!
Each time a message pops up its a reminder of your son's hurt / rejection. I found it would bring it all back up for me too, and stopped me (and us) from moving on. You're better off cutting your losses on those mums as genuine friends...the depth of their friendship with you seems to extend only to the degree of friendship that the sons all share- as I have also found. The fact that they're gushing about how close the boys are as friends when there is a great big elephant in the whattsap group is a bit mean girlsy to me...as is the comment by @Dinoswearunderpants - so don't listen to them 💐

I think you have to make a decision on whether these mums are genuine friends or not.

I'm not sure why, if you are all friends, what their sons were doing wasn't bought to their attention. It seems bizarre that they "might" know "some" of the details...

If you're not really friends, it seems bizarre to stay in the group, knowing your son won't socialise with theirs, and they don't know the full story, and just feeling a bit of upset every time a message comes through.

If they're friends, talk to them. If they're not, leave. You're upsetting yourself for a charade, otherwise.

I get what you are saying but i was genuinely trying to keep it from friendships as they are teens and drama happens a lot. But as I said, it’s actually been awful for my son.

I think if you're at the point where you feel angry and upset when conversations about the kids are happening, you probably can't sustain the friendship.

If those conversations happen in the WhatsApp group, presumably the subject of the kids will crop up when you socialise with them in person too, and it's going to be even harder to bite your tongue then.

It is sad, and I can understand why you feel the way you do. I doubt the other mums really know how their kids behaved towards your son, and teen friendships are notoriously tricky so they may just see it as a standard falling-out that happens to most kids at some point; they obviously don't have the same perspective as you because they haven't seen what happened at your son's end. But of course it's incredibly hard for you to know that these are the boys who hurt your son while hearing their mums talk about how great they are.

Even if someone knows how horrid their son was to yours they are still going to be ultimately supportive of their own child aren't they. I mean they might say 'sorry that happened' but they are not going to say it more than once or let you go on about it, because their own son is their priority. When meeting as a group the talking point is likely to be the kids at some point or another and then you have to deal with that when it comes up too. You might feel like you can separate your kids' friendships from your own but it is really difficult to say eg 'oh I'm really pleased James got that scholarship' when what you want to say is 'that fucker hurt my baby'. This I know from experience and things are a bit lonelier now I don't talk to those people but at least not actively hurtful / I'm not having to suppress rage every time the kids come up in conversation.

Yeah, I don’t really get why you’re still in the group tbh. I’d tell them exactly what went on, how it made you and your son feel, and say that since none of them has bothered to address it you're going to move on. So long and goodbye you bunch of mean girl bitches.

I’m so sorry you’re going through is OP, it’s really sad.

I think this is one of those situations where you need to trust yourself. You didn’t bring it up with them at the time because it didn’t feel safe for you to do that. No need to second guess that.

Does it feel safe to raise it with them now? One on one maybe rather than as a group? I’d think about if any of the friendships feel like they’re worth saving and go from there. It might be that a couple of conversations about what was really going on for your son wises the group up a bit and they start being more sensitive. Or maybe you end up drifting from the group but keeping the individual friendships you choose.

You know them best though, so if you think quietly backing away without explaining is the best then do that.

Slightly tragic the mums still so involved in their teens social lives.

Are any of the friendships between your ds and any of these kids salvageable do you think? If there's any chance of them being fixed at some point, I'd remain in the group.

This ...

It’s pointless raising it. They will minimise their child’s involvement or deny it and will
always dislike / be suspicious of you from then on.

It’s up to you if you can stomach it. If you want to maintain some of the friendships can you start up another chat on a different activity - I don’t know running or book club or something - anything not
child related and that group can be less child
focused. Ideally include a few other mutual local friends who do not have sons in that group to neutralise it.

Had this in a mild way but Dd then epically leapfrogged them all socially anyway so it didn’t hurt.

Harsh and unnecessary!

OP just leave it.

OP these women are not your friends, people who genuinely cared about you wouldn’t stand by and let this kind of shit happen to your kid, it’s mean spirited and absolutely can devastate teenagers. I’m not one for forcing kids to be best mates , but you can make damn sure your kids are kind and include everyone during group get togethers.

Leave the group.

I don’t think it’s realistic to keep your friendship and the kids’ relationships separate. So either you withdraw yourself from the group, or you address the issue.

I would find it hard to be friends with people whose children treated my child so badly. I’d just leave the group.

I think I would have to leave the group in your shoes. A similar thing happened with my dd we were friendly with the twin girls parents and liked them up until this. It was a smaller group but a similar situation in that she matured slightly less quickly.

Not long after some horrible instances and the friendship breakdown I unfriended them on FB and blocked phone numbers. I begrudgingly say hello if I see them now several years later but I couldn’t make small talk with them. They ruined my daughters life, it impacted her at school at home it wrecked our relationship and totally rocked her confidence and self esteem.

The parents will know more than you think. In your shoes I would feel disloyal to my son, just leave and block quietly.

I guess you really have 3 options op. You stay in the group and continue as you have been. You speak up and gently suggest that you keep the group for making your own social plans as mums rather than it becoming about coordinating plans for the kids when they aren't all included. Or you remove yourself, decide on what reason to give and then just maintain the relationships separately if you want to.

The kids will all start to get girlfriends and drift in other directions, have other interests over the next year or 2.
They won't be going along with things the mums have organised!

I have a good friendship group which is now completely independent of the kids as only 2 of the kids are still friends.

So I suppose it depends whether you want to keep up the friendship at least with some of the mums over the years ahead. If you do it's worth riding out the next year or so by just muting the chat and asking your friend to update you on any nights out. Or if you want to cut them all loose then just leave the chat and if anyone contacts you to ask why you can then say it was hard to hear about all their sons still meeting up when yours had been excluded by the boys.

I hope your son is finding some nice new friends

Just to say I also had similar but thankfully not to the degree you've had with sharing details etc.

I just slowly retreated, DD has far nicer friends now and she's dodged a bullet, but it still hurts.

I never 'like' the gushing posts about how wonderful one mum thinks her toxic little daughter is on Facebook and always enjoy pulling a face at the posts. X

I wouldn't even contemplate trying to be friends when my son had been almost destroyed by their children's behaviour. Every single picture, word and communication would make me want to vomit. I'm surprised you've lasted this long to be honest.