Posting on AIBU for traffic. I have too much time on my hands so this is playing on my mind. Missing out some specifics in the hope the person this is about doesn’t figure out I’m asking about them 😂
I worked somewhere a while back and became friends with someone at work. We worked closely together, became gym buddies and were kind of inseparable at work but are quite different people personality wise. I’m naturally warm and chatty and she’s been through a lot and is quieter, more reserved and off the bat to people she doesn’t know comes off quite cold but is actually a very emotional personal. She was single and I was married at this time.
When the pandemic hit we still seen or spoke to each other most days. She would pop in to mine unannounced which didn’t bother me and if she was upset she would call me and ask if she could come over. She knew my husband and chatted to him, I’d met her family too. So all in all good friends.
I started a new job and left the company we worked for and she stayed. Naturally we didn’t see each other everyday anymore but a job came up at my company and I knew she wanted to leave so I recommended her for the job. She really wanted it but didn’t get it but we still remained close.
She had mentioned when we worked together she hadn’t had a proper boyfriend but had been seeing someone 3-4 years before this but it had been complicated because she found out he had a fiancé when they first met but that he’d broken it off.
Fast forward to just after she interviewed for the job at my work, she started seeing the same guy and has been in a committed relationship with him since (3 years). She owned her flat, he lived with his Mum and a year or in to the relationship he moved in with her. There’s more I want to share about him but it’s a bit exposing but she’s sorted his life out for him despite him being mid to late 30s when they started living together. I’ve only met him once vs her meeting my husband countless times.
I moved out of London for a year and didn’t hear much from her, I was quite unwell for that year, and was aware she hadn’t really checked in much (vs. The years I spent checking in on her when she was struggling mentally) but everyone is busy and has busy lives and I was happy to be back in London and to see her again.
When we first met up after me moving back we had a really nice lunch and it all felt normal and great. Until she started crying and told me she’d found messages on his phone of him texting another girl, 10 years his junior. She was so upset and she has zero confidence so this hit her hard (as it would anyone but I really felt for her as I knew this would impact her for years) . She said she didn’t want to be without him and he hadnt cheated and the messages were just flirty but she was now worrying about a night 6 months ago he hadn’t come home after a night out and lied about staying with a friend which she found out wasn’t true in quite a humiliating way (she hadn’t told me this until this point). She was distraught as they’d been talking about getting engaged and buying a house together (with the money from her flat - that she bought with her own money).
I told her it’s absolutely fine she wants to stay with him, reassured her he’s not did anything wrong and won’t have cheated on her (not that I would know anyways) but that she needs to send a message and let him know this isn’t okay. Send him to stay with family for a few nights and ask for space. She said she was going to. I checked in on her the following day and asked how she was and she said he was still there and she wasn’t going to ask him to leave as they need to work through this. I said to her I honestly think she needs to put down some boundaries, given he’d already not came home after a night out and lied about it and that you don’t have to break up with him but there needs to be consequences for his actions. She said she didn’t want to because she couldn’t risk him not coming back / ending it with her. I just said I understood and I was here for her (knowing I’d be running for the hills but knowing she’d already made her mind up). She told me she hadn’t told anyone else because she was embarrassed.
Since this, she’s hardly spoken to me. I text her to chat like we would have and try and arrange to see her but it’s very one sided from my side now. Her responses have never been warm and fuzzy and she is always quite direct which is exactly what I’m getting now - short, one word answers. If I don’t text, I don’t hear from her. I have seen her once since she told me this and it was like nothing had happened and was so lovely and all normal. It’s like her telling me has made her embarrassed to see me or something.
We were good friends and I don’t have a huge friendship circle where I live (and making friends in mid 30s is hard with no kids) but equally it feels like its already kind of finished because we don’t talk or speak. I also can’t help remember that she didn’t check in on me much (3 times in a year) when I was unwell.
Should I just leave it and stop texting now or keep persisting? I’m sad we are no longer close but that’s life I suppose and at the moment it’s just me making the effort. Neither of us have children but have crazy busy jobs so could just be that too I should mention.
YABU - stop reading in to it, she’s just busy
YANBU - probably time to stop making the effort