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

Look- what has happened to her is awful and horrible, there is no doubt about that and its great you've been a kind and supportive friend.

BUT, and its a big but, its not ok for her to take out all her negativity and anger on you. Thats exactly what counselling is for - to be able to express all your emotions unfettered, so you can make sense of them and heal. Whilst a bit of frustration and jealousy is understandable, she is taking it way too far and actually being really bloody toxic to you.

It's not your fault this has happened to her and her pain wouldnt be diminished in any shape or form if you were single or in the same boat as her. My guess is- even if you were in the same situation as her, she'd find some way to make her suffering greater than yours anyway!

You need to have a kind word with her that this stops now or else you are pulling back. You dont have to be her emotional punchbag and we are ALL responsible for our own emotions and the effect they have on others.

Yes, of course you give friends a bit of leeway with this when they've been through a tough time but constantly making nasty undermining comments about you isnt taking her pain away, its just being nasty and perpetuating her suffering so it isnt even helping her.

I'd be kind but very honest - you are happy to support her as you are doing but the comments have to stop and dont just say it, mean it as well.

No, but I wasn’t facing the loss of my home or the terror of re-entering the job market. I still got drunk enough to throw up in the bathroom on one occasion which still makes me cringe.

I didn’t need single friends- indeed some of the best support I got was from married friends.

There was something uncanny about going into a group of couples I’d been in with him for nearly twenty years as a single person; possibly also as I knew some members would be seeing him.

I was biting my tongue about so much going on in my life ‘oh the hearing broke last week but I’d better not mention or he’ll say I’m an unfit mother’ ‘Oh I might get promoted but can’t say as he might cut maintenance etc etc’. Just exhausting!

Au contraire while I don't condone cheating - it doesn't sound like their values were aligned. Sounds like he was going to leave anyway with or without someone else lined up. I'm not saying she is to blame or that he isn't a cheating POS but...

As PP have said few men will pay to keep a woman at home baking, gardening and whatnot. Most SAHM I know are incredibly busy, either caring for SEN children/elderly parents, or economising as much as possible. They don't have this much free time.

Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. Now that it's all crumbled she's revealing her true thoughts about her friends. Mental health issues/depression/etc magnifies underlying tendencies, that are masked in the good times. It doesn't create them.

In any case her friends have to protect their own mental health whatever the cause of her negativity, they're not obligated to put up with it.

Especially as her comments might have hit a nerve with other people. I for example struggle with my weight and being told I'm too fat would be an unforgivable blow. I'd have dropped her like a stone.

@GhosterPoster anyway my original advice a few posts up was pull back for a year or so. I’m not saying she’s treating OP very well, but just to give her more time.

Until everyone’s housed and employed and the scale of change dies down she’s going to be unpredictable.

your point of view valid also: now you see other suffering people and can share the load

Nail on the head. All too often I see cases with a "SAHP" who benefited from cleaners, gardeners and even nannies. That's not really a SAHP and the people supporting this kind of lifestyle tend to have a breaking point.

Hat tip to real SAHPs though.

I think it's important to recognise that she may well be extremely depressed, and depression can present as anger (and of course negativity). That's not to say that you have to accept her nasty behaviour, and certainly you could distance yourself. But for all the PPs saying things like she's 'revealing her true self', have a read of this
https://www.priorygroup.com/blog/why-depression-may-look-like-anger

It's unfortunate that she won't go to therapy or counselling.

Her whole life has been shattered by this, all her future dreams of a life with her partner, her confidence in herself as a good judge of character, her trust in people, having to see her young children suffer the break up and answer their questions and support them when she's feeling devastated herself, of course she's struggling, and 1.5 years is no time, when she's reminded of everything she has lost all around her.

Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. Now that it's all crumbled she's revealing her true thoughts about her friends. Mental health issues/depression/etc magnifies underlying tendencies, that are masked in the good times. It doesn't create them
In any case her friends have to protect their own mental health whatever the cause of her negativity, they're not obligated to put up with it

Spot on. Completely agree. My friend's child died. There is literally nothing worse than that to happen to anyone.

She didnt go around calling people fat or insulting them or their kids. Your friend is simply a nasty person- you just havent seen that side of her before is all. Now the shit has hit the fan and she has revealed herself.

There is no way I'd be putting up with that. I've had many traumatic things happen in my life and I never once behaved like that, as have many other people.

I can see myself being jealous and bitter in a situation like this. I think a better way of handling it is to let your friends know that seeing them with their happy lives right now is just too hard, and that you don't want to cut contact forever but you just need some time away until you are feeling more resilient.

Although might that leave you lonely and isolated?

Have you tried repeating back to her the comments she makes? Verbatim with a slight questioning tone? She may not realise what she is saying but hearing it straight back might make her think…

What a nasty, jealous, reverse-snob post.
"Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. " That's total projection, you know nothing about her.

sorry, last sentence to be laughed at

That was a horrible remark and there's just no excuse for it!

I don't know why everyone gets stunned into silence these days, because I'd have the perfect answer for her and it would either slap the bitterness out of her or end the whole friendship 😔

When my mum was widowed she spent the next 2 years slowly dumping almost all of her friends and creating a whole new social circle.

She is still friends with 2 of the original group but no idea why those two.

She isn't woe is me, but something about being with the original group just didn't work for her in bereavement or after.

I doubt it's projection. This type of woman (and man actually, there is a male version) are fairly typical at what you find at FDRs, normally getting their arse handed to them by a judge!

'Honestly, I bet she thought herself superior to everyone else, thinking she had it made. Now that it's all crumbled she's revealing her true thoughts about her friends. Mental health issues/depression/etc magnifies underlying tendencies, that are masked in the good times. It doesn't create them.'

I think you are spot on here @PerkyPeachMaker It's a bit like people get drunk; a few change into crazy, aggressive people, others become more talkative, make lots of jokes, laugh a lot or become very affectionate. I think it is quite revealing.
People don't suddenly change their characters totally when awful things happen to them. I've had a couple of friends divorce from their cheating husbands in recent years, one under particularly horrible circumstances. They have both still been just as wonderful as before. They have talked about their problems and complained about their ex husbands, as expected, but they have never, ever turned on their friends.

I can understand that if her friendship group was made of lots of couples who did things together. If she had close, female friendships, I think that would be less likely to happen. I do think it's understandable to pull back from certain friendships under some circumstances but not to be awful to people.

absolutely true; whatever we say, we thought it first, for a very long time

Which is fine- people change and sometimes after traumatic events you do seek new people in your life.

What is not fine is insulting people who are going out of their way to support and care for you.

Huge difference between those two things.

I feel like there is an absolute wall of text missing between those two paragraphs to explain how you got from para 1 to para 2 because I haven't seen a leap like that since I last went to see Matthew Bourne. It makes even less sense than the cryptic and seemingly irrelevant comment about men having money or not having money or whatever it was.

@rainingsnoring @duchessofsilk I think I meant it more as an example that it is OK for the OP to back away from the friendship.

Adult friendships are often connected to common interests or common lifestyles. OP's friend doesn't have that anymore.
While OP's friend is being incredibly rude, it probably is best for all parties for her to be enabled to move on to different friends, than keep trying to support her while she endlessly lashes out.

Read the OP's post:

Not to drip feed but would it make any difference if I said we also found out her dh was awful behind closed doors, this is why in part she has never worked. We all work, mixture of pt and ft. I always assumed she was happy not to work, but obviously she didn’t have the choice, he wanted a ‘proper’ wife and wouldn’t hear of it.

I like that point also. Knocking it right where it hurts, no matter the puss in there, squeese it. It is needed

Nail on the head. All too often I see cases with a "SAHP" who benefited from cleaners, gardeners and even nannies. That's not really a SAHP and the people supporting this kind of lifestyle tend to have a breaking point.
Hat tip to real SAHPs though

Read what the OP has to say about her friend's relationship:

Not to drip feed but would it make any difference if I said we also found out her dh was awful behind closed doors, this is why in part she has never worked. We all work, mixture of pt and ft. I always assumed she was happy not to work, but obviously she didn’t have the choice, he wanted a ‘proper’ wife and wouldn’t hear of it.