Friend is so bitter!

[Cornishcockleshells]

We are all mid/late40s. Friends for decades and live in close proximity for years.

A year and a half ago my friends dh left her for a woman he met at work. It has blown up the lives of my dear friend and her dc ( late primary school aged) until this point she had the most lovely bohemian life possible, and was happily married and her life she says has fallen apart.

We are part of a group and she has had the most amazing support from all of us. Her parents live a few minutes away and have looked after the dc, whilst we have taken her out and organised things for her, listened to her, fed her day in, day out. She is still devastated and depressed, and I know it’s been so difficult for her to come to terms with.

My aibu is more nuanced. In the last few months she has started coming out with really unkind statements. Words to the effect that she feels so bitter that she had my life once and now it's all gone.

I took her out for a spa day and she complained about it all day, she didn’t even thank me, it was very costly and miserable day in the end. Just lately she says oh your life is so perfect, or comments unkindly about a new sweater and even said she feels sorry for my dh!

Whilst I understand this has been awful, I am struggling to know how to navigate her bitterness and anger, it’s like my life mirrors her old life (which it did to be fair) and reminding her of everything she used to have/lost. Some of our other friends have started to distance themselves because it’s become too much.

My friend refuses to have counselling, even though it would greatly assist her process the changes happening to her.

Her financial situation will not be awful when everything finalises, but obviously she won’t have anything like the life she had before.

I feel like this is really coming between us now, but I don’t want to be insensitive, this has been so hard for her I am not surprised she is angry but it feels misdirected, maybe this is normal stage, if so, when might it end?

wwyd?

Thanks

I think as women we are quite precious these days about negativity and people going through hard times. I think it’s our generation and people that are privileged to an extent, we have a very low threshold for tolerance and not a huge amount of empathy. We sort of see people as “killing the vibe”.

It sounds like your friend is irritable and depressed. She’s just been through a really tragic life event and it sounds like it is a divorce where it’s blindsided her & more complicated than someone whose had time to process and their relationship gets progressively worst.

Its probably not just the money she’s missing but the family unit and having a partner. The prospect of dating and being completely alone with hospital visits or a sick child, yourself being sick or a family tragedy or death, of starting again dating and the prospect of growing old alone.

It would be hard to be happy and to then have your life change instantly.

No you don’t deserve bitterness and snappy comments and you did deserve gratitude but could it be she’s a bit depressed ? Or her emotional and mental limits have been pushed. If you’ve never experienced being pushed to your limit, it feels like your emotions are shot and raw and there’s not a buffer between you and the world.

She probably is really jealous, & feeling a shift of identity and her foundations and position shaken, so what.

She needs to be reminded that things can be better and to see a GP & encouraged to see a counsellor.

I think she sounds burnt out by this and depressed.

Sounds like she’s more upset about her lovely life of gardening, painting and not working is going to end than the end of her relationship

I agree with this @Cornishcockleshells

Your friendship is ruined already. Not by you, by her.

18months is long enough for her to get out of the blackest of the black hole bit of all this and her resenting you and your happiness is poisonous to your friendship. She has broken your trust in her an you will forever wonder what she's thinking and saying behind your back.

You have nothing to gain by facilitating her bitterness, and if you tell her and she takes it on board happy days, if she doesn't', and blows up, you have all the space you need to make a decent friend of someone else.

I think 18 months is a long time but she clearly is not coping well.

No we shouldn’t snap at our friends or unravel but not everyone is impervious. We can’t all be beacons of light and resilient. We all have our own level of strength or obstacles.

I think she’s depressed & needs professional help or is experiencing complex grief over the marriage or something attachment related and complex.

Op this is difficult but does not excuse her behaviour. My friend had awful time personally. I got pure abuse in texts and called horrible. Got blocked when she wanted control. Anyway decided dont need this crap. While she is going through alot your friend its draining too listening to it all. Be less available.

She is catty and cruel because she knows she can. You enable it, by sitting on the fence, and podgy wife is wet and won´t give it back with two barrels. She knows this. If she had opposite her someone blunt, I assure you she would abstain.
Your friendship is already damaged. By her. I suspect she will find a new friendship group more akin to her new circumstances and will drop you all cold.
So as a pp pointed out, no need to put up with the unacceptable, she will certainly not be around to help you out, should you need it. I think your ways have definitely parted.

If she's mean and aggressive when drunk, then it's a whole different kettle of fish.
Was alcohol a pronlem for her before the breakdown of the marriage? Or it is now due to the divorce?

Why would anyone flame you for not being more empathetic? You haven’t said anything to her, you’ve been too stunned!

I'd give her some space. She might complain about that or try to make.you feel bad about not being there but you have all been kind and supportive - at some point she needs to accept reality and not take her bitterness out on you or she might find her support network rapidly dwindles.

People can only treat you as badly as you allow them to. Stop enabling her by continuing to be her verbal punchbag. Every single time she says something nasty pull her up , every single time. How she reacts is her problem but you need to let her know you are not willing to put up with this treatment any longer. It's fine to let her know you still want to be her friend but not on those terms.

It sounds like she has possibly had some sort of mental breakdown as a result of the trauma she’s gone through. I had a sort of nervous breakdown a few years ago - several things led to it and I just became very numb and didn’t care about anything, including peoples feelings. I said some quite awful things to my dh but I just saw it as being honest and not wanting to hide my feelings anymore.

It’s no excuse though and I would definitely distance myself for now - you don’t need to say anything if you don’t want to just stop being available as others have said.

You sound like a lovely friend but I wouldn’t be taking her on any more spa weekends!

I don't see that it makes any difference. It was a cruel comment and totally unacceptable, whether drunk or sober / long time drinker or recent issue

Of course but it is a normal reaction and they can't help it. Time will help her.

No. Being an abusive drunk is never normal or acceptable. People do NOT have to put up with it and should NOT enable it. Nor can they change her if she doesn't want help. She has refused counselling or to widen her horizons. Her supporters need to walk away.

I would tell her to stop being such a bitch.

You are not her enemy and her being jealous of your life isn’t going to improve hers.

I wouldn’t allow her being rude to me like this 1 1/2 days after her DH left her, let alone 1 1/2 years later!!

You have to call her out on her behaviour because it is absolutely not ok.

Stop letting her treat you like shit!

If you don’t like confrontation then just say something jokey like “did you get out of the wrong side of the bed today” or text her and say how her comment made you feel upset.

This isn’t a friendship if it’s only one way and if you have to tread on eggshells around her.

I think she really does need professional help to guide her out of this. Hopefuy the penny will drop and she will go - there she can vent and vent.

Honestly feel so bad for her, because I get it - that horrible grief, anger and feeling of unfairness. You want to lash out at everyone and everything as you need to - as my therapist said - "burn the wood".

She doesn't have the right to have said such hurtful things to the people trying to help her though, no. But she is not functioning as her normal self and won't be for some time. My heart breaks with every poster advising you to leave her to it.

Maybe a little cooling off time but still with an eye gently on her will help her see she needs her support network and to nip the personal insults in the bud.

Honestly - this is unacceptable behaviour

She is a grown woman and whilst I can understand her life has been upended it does not give her the right to be persistently rude and obnoxious

I think you should send her a gentle message about her behaviour and see how she reacts

You are especially vulnerable since she feels like you life mirrored her previous one

She does need to get a job too!

Even if she was having a MH crisis this does not excuse rude behaviour

Can’t help it? This is not normal behaviour by any stretch. Worse things happen to people.

End the friendship, she’s toxic and probably always was, she just used to hide it. It’s pretty clear why her husband left

How with a possibly coercively controlling narc who trapped her at home - leading to self harm in the form of ED and alcohlism.....seems she might have been wearing a mask and fooled everyone carrying that load until he abandoned her.

However her behaviours to you all are unacceptable - the above explains it but never excuses it.

As others have said she needs prof support for DA, ED, Drinking etc - thats the big stuff - but the 'little' stuff needs assertively addressing for her own sake.

If your heart breaks this easily you must go around in a permanent state of trauma. What happened to the OP's friend is shit, no doubt about it, but it is also sadly common and her friends are perfectly within their rights to not take her crap anymore and yes, leave her to it. They should feel no guilt about doing so at this stage. I wouldn't worry too much about being gentle with her, she has showed zero consideration towards the large cast of supporters she has had. I have known people go through such much more with so much more dignity, and with nothing like so much privilege or advantages in life. I'd be saving my tears and my support for them.

You have got to speak to her

Chances are she doesnt realise how bitter and negative shes become and the more you as friends back off from her without explaining - the more bitter she will feel

Be an adult, have a conversation

Just to explain fully, I had everyone over to my house for dinner last weekend, we had a bonfire and a few fireworks in the garden.
She was very drunk when most of these comments were made. I did not want to risk a scene by calling her out at the table, she was ‘managed’ by some of our other friends, whom encouraged her to speak more quietly, mopped up the spillages and we were all glad when we got her home, she has apologised since.

I do feel it is the right time to talk to her about this, as she has been drunk (but not rude a few times) I care about her very much, and would like to still continue our friendship but I am not prepared to have another night like that.

To be honest, I would’ve stood this only for so long, one more comment and I’ve have had her nose off! I’m sympathetic to a point, but I’m certainly not going to be someone’s whipping boy. Get a backbone.

There are a lot of posts here assuming the ex was a controlling narcissist based solely on the OP's interpretation of what her difficult friend has claimed. The trouble for me though is that this friend also displays many attributes of a narcissist. We cannot possibly know whether one or other, both or neither are narcissists and shouldn't speculate.