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?

For clarity, I never suggested, let alone said, to Emily that her mum was like a second mother to me: those are my private feelings. I never said it to Liz, either. It would have been totally inappropriate to say that to Emily. She knows that Liz and I were great friends for many years and that I was very sad when she died and that's it.

It's occurred to me that I've witnessed her at the lowest and most distressed period of her life and that perhaps now she's come through that period, she's feeling awkward about what I heard and saw. There were days when she'd just cry and howl and all I could do was listen and offer companionship in grief. I have no doubt that she's beginning, at least, to move on and as others have said, I'm associated with a very dark time and need to be left behind.

You sound like a lovely person OP, and a really great friend. Don't let this come between you and Liz, as it were. It sounds as though Emily is having some kind of crisis that is not to do with you. Could she be depressed? If so, keeping in touch with loved ones can be incredibly hard because of the apathy and fatigue that goes with depression, and it can seem overwhelming hard even though you really value the person in your life and don't want to lose them. In your shoes I would write to her - not to suggest meeting or any activity - but to let her know you will always be there if she wants to visit or talk. if she is feeling under pressure from herself to resume contact with you, that should take the pressure off. I hope it goes well You will always know that you have been the best possible friend to them both.

Different situation but I supported a friend through a period of depression and afterwards our relationship changed irrevocably. She said she felt embarrassed that I'd seen her sobbing on the floor and every time she saw me it was a reminder of that time. I was devastated, it was like a break up.
I suspect similar is happening here. My sympathies OP, I can see why you feel used. In my case I had an epiphany one day that I didn't have to keep thinking about her, and I actively pushed thoughts away if they occurred to me. Years later and I can think of her again without feeling dreadful.

@HiCandles I think you may be right. I do feel surprisingly devastated.

They do say that no good deed goes unpunished, don't they? I'm weary. I'll feel better about it in the morning.

Respectfully, OP, Liz and Emily are very different people.

With Liz, there was a reciprocal relationship, and you describe her as a mentor and ‘second mother’ long before you became her carer. Emily, bluntly, sounds like a fragile, reclusive, and at least currently rather helpless individual, who doesn’t have the bandwidth for any relationships, or indeed for anything more than her job, and is certainly not capable of offering you support for the loss of Liz, or whatever the other complications in your own life are.

If you want to continue a relationship with her, I would accept that it’s going to consist mostly of cards and you engaging because you loved her mother. Find the support you need elsewhere.

Plenty of wise thoughts and good advice from previous posters.

I think you need to leave Emily be to live her life as she wishes. She knows your contact details if she wants to get in touch.

It's occurred to me that I've witnessed her at the lowest and most distressed period of her life and that perhaps now she's come through that period, she's feeling awkward about what I heard and saw.

I came to say exactly this. I hadn't come across it as an idea before, but when I was talking to a professional about a relationship which had broken down in very difficult circumstances, she explained to me that it's actually quite common for someone who's been through something so awful to want to cut out the people who helped them through it the most, as a way of closing that chapter of their lives. That person exposed their vulnerability to you and it's easier for them to deal with that by shutting it off.

You supported her in her time of need and that was a kind thing to do in Lizz’s memory. But the moment’s passed and she’s a different person to Lizz and you don’t have the same connection. You haven’t been used. You chose to support both of them.

certainly not capable of offering you support for the loss of Liz, or whatever the other complications in your own life are.

Oh, ffs...I'm not looking to Emily for emotional support or support for any of the other complications I've been dealing with this summer, which include builders (I've had the roof of my house replaced and because the weather's been so awful it's been a long, slow process) and running a local arts festival (I'm on the committee).

You do seem lovely and a true friend to Liz. But remember that for both you and Emily the primary relationship was with Liz rather than each other
Now that she has sadly gone, neither of you can fill that space for the other.
Know that you did everything and more that Liz asked of you. Keep up cards and friendly contact with no expectations. And make sure you are getting some nurturing from your partner and friends.

I think that it's possible Emily feels exposed by what you both went through. You've seen her at her lowest and being a very private person she's pulled away from you. I do think that all you can do is accept how things are and that your relationship is back to what it was before. You've been a brilliant friend but it's time to reframe your relationship.. Christmas and birthdays it is.

I literally thought your post was going to end saying she'd killed herself.

But I would ask her outright if she wants contact or not. As it would be good to know for sure either way.

Good advice from @StartupRepair and @Tel12 .

Apologies, I've only read your opening post as I am just heading out.

But I was expecting something awful to have happened. A big fight or something.

I think you did a wonderful thing for Liz, and her daughter.

Her daughter is obviously just reclusive. You were there when she needed you and you should be proud of yourself for that.

You just need to accept that she doesn't want a lot to f contact.

I think you need to separate your friendship with Liz from your friendship with Emily.

You and Liz were obviously great friends and it was a wonderful, mutually supportive relationship, but you only really became friends with Emily because of her mum, if that makes sense. It doesn't sound like you'd have had anything to do with each other otherwise. It's more of a friendship of convenience and circumstance as opposed to anything else. I hope that doesn't sound horrible.

It seems fairly clear that Emily no longer "needs" that friendship (for whatever reason) and has chosen to move on, and I think you need to accept that. It would be fairly unusual for someone to stay very close friends with a friend of their mums, I think.

It sounds like you're great at friendships, OP, and Liz was clearly a lovely friend too. But Emily is clearly not someone who has, wants or values friends, so she just doesn't understand or want what you are offering.

I once helped a friend leave her abusive partner; she then dumped me soon afterwards. It was very painful at the time but my friend was also someone who found friendships difficult and I guess it was all too much for her. I was still right to help her to leave her ex and you were right to help Liz and Emily. That will always be the case.

She’s a recluse who doesn’t want friends, or she’s just stepping back from the OP for all sorts of reasons - people have suggested it may well be because it brings her back to a painful time of her life, or because she just doesn’t have much in common with her.

I always am just a little suspicious when someone professes to have behaved in a positively saint like manner for months at a time, asking nothing back in return. Whether intended or otherwise the OP has set conditions on this care and friendship by wanting Emily to reciprocate. She doesn’t want to. That doesn’t make her a bad person, or a recluse, it just means this friendship isn’t for her at this time.

I think I'm going to have to organise a conversation with Emily in order to try and work out what exactly, if anything, she wants or needs and whether it's something I'm comfortable with. What I don't want is to feel is that I'm constantly second-guessing whatever it is she might want or mean. Neither do I want to feel duty-bound to send her Christmas and birthday gifts because her mum was my friend. That would put her in a situation where she either ignores me, thus making my commitment to staying in touch seem like some weird people-pleasing need of mine, or feels obliged to send me cards and gifts to reciprocate. Either we have a connection that we both want to maintain or we don't. I'm not really someone with the time and energy for token gestures.

Please don't. Just leave her be and respect her boundaries.

Whether intended or otherwise the OP has set conditions on this care and friendship by wanting Emily to reciprocate. She doesn’t want to. That doesn’t make her a bad person, or a recluse, it just means this friendship isn’t for her at this time.

No, I'm not expecting her to reciprocate at all. All I'd like is some clarity so that I'm not trying to navigate my way through this by picking up on clues. And also so that I can feel that I've done what Liz asked me to do and can move on without Emily.

See that is very demanding and suffocating.

You were a friend of her mothers, not a prospective partner or even friend of hers. If someone got in touch with me ‘try and work out what exactly, if anything, she wants or needs and whether it's something I'm comfortable with’ I would back right off.

But what clarity do you need? She's showing you, quite clearly, that she doesn't want to carry on this friendship - you need to respect that, not force a conversation onto her about it.

Yes, you lost your friend but she lost her mum - please respect her and let her be now.

But we're not talking about you, are we, @Ohtoeisme ? We're talking about someone you don't know whom you're projecting your own feelings on to.

But you are also projecting your feelings, your own wants and your own wishes onto her.

I am not trying to give you a hard time here. It’s really easy to get over enmeshed in other people and their feelings and lives especially if your own is lacking something (and that’s not in any way a criticism, we all lack something!) But it can also be difficult and ultimately harmful for both parties.

Having someone you don’t or didn’t have a close relationship with living in your home and assisting with your dying parent is very, very intimate and may have felt quite intrusive, especially during lockdown. Clearly they were your friends wishes but her wishes may have differed to that of her daughter and now she has gone her daughter may not be feeling overwhelming gratitude but rather resentfulness towards as someone else has wisely explained the feeling of being ‘replaced’ but also just having someone there - that can be hard no matter how lovely and helpful the other person is.