AIBU to feel saddened by the way this has worked out?

[Kitnip]

Long story: sorry. Back in the late 1980s, when I was rookie teacher, I was mentored at work by an older woman, Liz, who became a great friend and a kind of second mother to me. We kept in close touch over the years and she supported me through my mum's death and various other life events. In 2014 (when she was in her early 70s) her husband died and she and her newly-divorced daughter (whom I'd met several times but never really got to know) bought a home together 350 miles away from me. Liz and I spoke every week, had holidays together and visited a couple of times a year.

In lockdown in early 2021 it became clear she was very unwell and Emily (her daughter) was struggling to cope, so I went to help. I was there for 11 weeks, sitting up at nights, cooking and cleaning and doing whatever needed doing so that Emily could continue to work from home and spend as much quality time as possible with her mum. There was very little medical or nursing support available and we were thrown together to give Liz the best final weeks we could. After she died I stayed on for a while to support Emily, who seemed close to a breakdown. For the next year Emily and I spoke at least once a day: she would call me to cry and my role was to listen. I think she came close to a breakdown and I know her employer offered to pay for therapy. I tried to offer what comfort I could and went to stay with her every couple of months to help with the admin and the gardening and all the things she didn't seem able to cope with on her own. Emily had always had a very small social circle and didn't seem to have any close friends, so it felt as if rather a lot was resting on me.

After that first year I started slowly reducing the frequency of calls and by the end of last year we were down to a couple of calls a week and a visit every three months. We had this routine for around 18 months until April this year when she didn't answer a couple of calls and didn't call me back. After a few days I left her a message hoping all was well and saying I hoped to hear from her. She didn't respond. I didn't want to badger her so left it a fortnight and tried again and we had a friendly chat. I guess I'd been hoping there were new friends or a new man around, but no. I was supposed to visit in May but she asked if we could cancel because she'd been promoted and needed to do a training course. I agreed and we talked about going away somewhere in July for a long weekend. From May I called her once every ten days or so. Sometimes she responded, sometimes she didn't. In June after a couple of calls where she didn't pick up I left a message saying it would be good to hear from her when she had some spare time. I heard nothing, and because of a number of complications in my own life, I put off calling her. July and then August slid past and she didn't contact me.

It was her birthday last weekend. I tried calling her a fortnight in advance to suggest I come down and take her out for dinner. No response so I messaged her with my suggestion. No response. I began to feel a little concerned so contacted the one other person I know who's in touch with her. They said that nothing had changed: Emily was still living reclusively and her life was centred around her work. No new boyfriend or hobbies or anyone else.

I really wasn't sure what to make of things, so I sent a card and a gift and on her birthday she phoned to thank me for them. I said that we hadn't met in May or July so did she fancy a weekend away somewhere in October and she was noncommittal, so I'm taking that as a no.

I know I should feel pleased that the worst is over and she's adjusted to life on her own and no longer needs me. And in a way I am. I think back to Liz and all the support she offered me over the years, and it comforts me to feel I was able to offer her daughter what she offered to me. I miss Liz badly but it hasn't felt appropriate for me to talk to Emily about my loss, so perhaps it's that that's making me feel a bit shit about being let go like this. I suppose that if Emily and I are now down to Christmas and birthday cards it feels like my connection to Liz is severed.

Has anyone else been through anything similar? AIBU to feel very sad about it all?

oh sorry you have gone through this. You sound like an absolutely lovely and caring person. I wonder if looking after Emily meant you couldn’t grieve Liz? So now Emily has stopped contact you are going through the grieving process?

As a society we don’t grieve friendships or recognise the loss of them in the way we would marital relationships and I’m not sure why - they can be just as meaningful maybe sometimes more so.

allow yourself to feel your emotions and grieve maybe bereavement counselling would help?
just know Emily reducing contact is about her needs/wants and unlikely to be personal.

sending a virtual hug your way x

Honestly, when there are complications in your own life it’s easy and very alluring to fixate on other people’s and over step.

My instinct is that this is what has happened here. I know that probably won’t go down well but staying for nearly three months is quite extreme!

What complications in my own life? There were none. @Ohtoeisme The only person your post reflects poorly upon is you.

I stayed because they asked me to. Liz was dying and neither she nor Emily wanted her to go into hospital. It was lockdown, the hospitals were falling apart and Emily wouldn't have been allowed to visit. People were saying goodbye to their dying loved ones on FaceTime and neither of them wanted that. I worked bloody hard to help give Liz a half-dignified death.

You were such a wonderful friend @Kitnip and you returned the love Liz showed you by looking after her daughter when she needed it. I think it’s now time to move on but first you must grieve Liz properly, putting yourself and your feelings first. You were so kind to both these women and I’m sure once Liz’s daughter processes everything she’ll be eternally grateful and may even get back in touch. In the meantime maybe get a little bereavement counselling to work through it all. You helped her daughter through her sadness and been there for her - now it’s time to work through yours. Don’t be sad at the way things are now. It’s not necessarily negative.

How nice that you and Liz crossed paths and left such an impact on each other. Treasure that when you think of her.

Emily and liz are two different people with whom you have different relationships - it sounds like Emily is phasing you out but don't let it affect your feelings about Liz.

This is a brilliant, sensitive and very true post.

You’ve been awesome, but undoubtedly put your own grief on hold to support Emily which is why it’s more of a wrench that she is pulling away now, because it feels like an extension of that loss and the remaining link with Liz.

The truth is you need to focus on you now, you’ve given Emily support to allow her to reestablish her own life and that’s incredible. I hope she will come back to you in time, but for now you need to focus on your own healing. Sending love.

Well, you did say there were a number of complications in your own life.

I have done similar in the past so there isn’t any judgement or any suggestion that it’s borne from meanness or anything like that. But these sorts of scenarios rarely end well because as much as you say my post reflects badly on me, the descriptions of Emily don’t reflect too well on you either. It is one of those posts where I wonder what the other persons take on events would be.

I think you gave Emily the support she needed when she needed it.
But possibly, Emily now associates you with that period of her life and that's what is making her push you away.

Thanks, that's a helpful way of looking at it.

I feel a bit used and I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it. Liz and I supported each other. Give and take. With Emily it's all been one-way. I understand why she might want to walk away, of course. It just leaves me feeling bad about a time in my life when I rose to the occasion and went above and beyond the call of duty.

Do I just quietly disappear from her life completely now or try to maintain a connection at birthday of Christmas time?

Do you have children OP? It’s just the selfish way Emily is behaving is typical of a child who has taken the care they need then taken off! Take it as a testament to your selfless care of her x

From reading what you’ve written it sounds like Emily isn’t coping and has withdrawn from you, rather than she’s moved on.

No, I don't have children, so I'm not used to this kind of rejection. That's a useful way of thinking about it — although it's difficult to think of Emily as a child, really. She was 48 when her mum died and is 52 now. I'm only nine years older than her and I would have said we're more like sisters, but perhaps she does see me as her mum...

I wasn't expecting us to be best buddies or seeing each other regularly. Maybe 15-minute chat or a conversation on What's App every month or so and the occasional meet-up for a concert or the theatre or something. You know, the kind of grown-up relationship I have with a number of other people.

How do parents bear it?

Unfortunately life moves in a different direction than we hope at times , by giving so much, maybe Emily feels burdened by it all?
New friendships and connections happen, sometimes unexpectedly, focus on the future, and knowing you did what you could for your friend.
Life moves on, I have recently accepted hard things about my sons recently, one estranged, and one not easy to get on with.
With one son, we need to resolve things, and find a way forward.
Take care, and make peace with it, bitterness, feeling owed won’t achieve anything.

I feel a bit used and I know I shouldn't

I don't see why you shouldn't. It sounds as though you have been more therapist than friend to Emily. An extremely valued, much needed and probably much loved therapist, but a therapist nonetheless rather than a friend, and someone who now reminds her of probably the toughest time in her life.

You did an amazing thing for Liz and it sounds like you can feel confident that she would be immensely grateful for how you supported her daughter. And testament to that is the fact that she no longer needs you- you've done a great job.

Yes Emily has probably been selfish. Realistically though it's hard to imagine she would have been capable of realising that at the time, and she desperately needed you in her life.

It sounds like supporting Emily has meant you've postponed your own grieving though, which is kind of a different issue. You worked hard to help Liz and then that work continued - so perhaps you did not get the sense of finality and ending that you are getting now. In which case it would probably help to let yourself grieve and to talk about that with your own loved ones. I'm sorry for your loss 💐

I’d try and keep up contact once a month or so, maybe she’s struggling but doesn’t want to say. She could be becoming more reclusive. Give her space but just keep a watchful eye. I’m sure your friend would be grateful, you sound like a wonderful person

It sounds like you more than repaid your friend, for the love and care she offered you when you needed her OP. You clearly gave her and Emily a lot of support at a time when life for everyone was a bit of a nightmare. You saved your friend from the possibility of dying alone in hospital, and have supported her child throughout her grief. However, it may be that continuing contact at this point, is actually preventing Emily from moving on. You can't replace her Mum, and I'm sure you don't want to, but it is possible that maybe Emily thinks that's what you're trying to do. Maybe every time she has contact with you, it takes her back to the dark times, you can't possibly know unless she chooses to tell you. So my advice would be, let her go now, and give yourself the time to grieve for your friend, without the continued feeling that you need to be supporting her child. I wish I had as good a friend as you OP.

I don't know. She was newly divorced and had been very badly hurt by her ex, her dad had died and she'd moved somewhere new with her mum for a new start in her 40s. She had a serious sort of job and when she wasn't working I think she and Liz were pretty much a self-contained unit. Liz used to worry about her, I know. She talked a lot about how isolated Emily was. In those last few weeks she asked me almost every day to look after Emily when she'd gone and see if I could encourage her to do a bit more in her life. I'm quite sociable. I have a very long-term partner and a good circle of friends, some of whom Liz knew. She always said she hoped Emily could have some of what I've got.

All I can ask when I speak to her is how she's doing, how she feels. She's an intelligent woman in her 50s. If she says she's fine there's nothing much I can say or do except keep holding out the hand of friendship.

You sound like a truly amazing friend OP
I think it’s natural to want to maintain a close connection to Emily, because she’s your link to Liz, but at the end of the day it was Liz who was your friend, not Emily. I think in your shoes I would just aim to maintain a friendly relationship, with birthday and Christmas cards etc, maybe the occasional dinner, but not necessarily weekends away. Emily probably just doesn’t feel the same level of closeness.

I think Emily was going through a difficult phase which you kindly helped her with. That’s now passed and she’s continuing to live her life the way she clearly likes it… somewhat isolated from others. Give her space to come to you, but accept that the friendship could very well be over.

I realise I haven't said thank you to all those who've said such kind and positive things about me. Thank you. I was really fortunate to be able to drop everything and go and help Liz in those last weeks. So many people didn't have that option. It was a huge privilege and one with happy as well as sad memories. We managed, even when things were pretty desperate, to find things to laugh about. So I have some lovely memories of that time, as well as the desperate year that followed.

I think maybe you could view it as a job well done. A bird flying the nest.

Not everyone is a go getter and they quite happy being homebodies.

I definitely think keep up birthday and Christmas contact, leave the door ajar so to speak. But don't feel badly that contact has lessened as it may just be that Emily is getting her strength back and doesn't need the crutch you so aptly provided.

I can understand absolutely you feeling used especially as you suffered your own loss with Liz. But that's why I think the pp saying about children is pretty close to the mark there. We pour our hearts and souls into them for them to grow up and ship out not knowing what it's like until they have their own.

You have been a wonderful friend to Liz and have helped her daughter greatly.

It's sad when life moves on but it's the way it is. Take comfort in knowing that Evie appreciated your help and with it she got well enough to get over the death of her mum and not depend on you so much.

She's now getting on with her own life. Probably much like a child leaving home safe in the knowledge that someone (you) is there to help if things go wrong, but forgetting that she should really contact family (in this case you) as none of us are getting any younger!

There are many songs written about kids that don't contact family and it hurting them. It's a thing! She has different priorities. And I suppose that's ok as you were more her mums friend.

I'm sure she appreciates you and what you've done. Just hasn't thought about it much.

You're allowed to grieve for what could have been and get on with your own life. You're a good person and she knows that.

I'd still send her a Christmas present, something nice but not too expensive.

She earns more than £100k a year (head of compliance for a major company) while I'm on a teacher's pension, so I'd quite appreciate a gift from her!

I think you were an amazing friend to both of them. I wish I knew someone like you.

from what you say of Emily, being reclusive etc, perhaps she is not someone who wants friendship. It won’t be personal to you. I do see that it seems wrong to allow someone to help so much, not just with liz but after, and then not want to keep in touch. But sadly it seems to be a thing.

I won’t presume to know what she is thinking about it all but clearly she has moved on. But FWIW I think what you did was fantastic and people like you are like gold dust. You do need to be careful not to get taken advantage of. Been there, got the t shirt.

I agree that Emily probably associates you with a bad time in her life, and may be withdrawing because of that.

It's hard for you, after all you've done to help her, but at least you know you helped your friend, and then her daughter, through a very hard time.

It's also possible that Emily isn't coping well and is withdrawing because of that. But even if that's true, there's nothing you can do except keep the door ajar.

I also wonder if there might be an awkward dynamic about this from Emily's point of view. Your friend was like a second mother to you. Probably she saw you as a second daughter. She wished her own daughter had some of your qualities (e.g. sociability). You spent a lot of time with your friend, but rarely met her actual daughter for many years, although obviously you were aware of each other. All of this is making me wonder whether there is an unspoken/unconscious feeling of competition or resentment towards you - the possibly preferred "other daughter" - from Emily. Now she has accepted your much-needed help and support for years in a rather one-sided way; again you have been the strong and capable one and she has been the weak one who couldn't manage by herself. That dynamic is hard for you, but it's also potentially humiliating for her. I may be reading far too much into this, but if I was Emily then I would be uncomfortable with that dynamic and be tempted to distance myself from it as soon as I could stand on my own two feet.