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

OP you have my sympathy. I think you nailed it when you said:

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.

You could say this to your friend - it’s factual, short and to the point. Your friend already had to apologise for her behaviour that night, so she knows something was off. Use that as a key example and say that actually this has been building for a while now.

Good luck!

It sounds to me like she wants others to suffer like she’s suffering - that, deep down, she’d love it if your husband left you as well. I think that’s where you must draw a line. Anger, depression, bitterness, etc, are forgiveable. But you can’t start lashing out at those who’re trying to help you. I guess we’re all prone to this. I mean wanting to pull others down with us when things go wrong, etc. But it’s a really ugly trait. If she can’t get on top of it, you have every right to back off. She obviously hates being pitied, and hates the sense of humiliation. To be honest, I wouldn’t trust her not to try and sabotage your life.

She's only hurting herself with the bitterness. Her ex doesn't give a monkeys!

She can grieve, be angry, sad, bitter, what not. What she can't be is a cunt to other people.

I appreciate she is scared (she's on her own now and has to sort out her own shit and figure things out) but the cards she has been dealt are a helluva lot better than a lot of folks.

I say this as divorced, low-income single parent. She needs to sort her shit out!

that is terrible
i remember my own dm, herself a widow, having friends round for drinks, and in her house they made arrangements between them to go out again they were all in couples, without even inviting her! awful attitudes

Earlier this year I “broke up” with a close friend. Her situation was very different, but she had been through some horrible stuff and been mistreated by family and others. I stuck by her trying to support her for many years before deciding I couldn’t take it anymore and had to walk away for the sake of my own family and mental health.

The sad truth is that you cannot help someone who won’t help themselves. You can move heaven and earth for someone, but if they refuse to engage with support it won’t make a difference.

There is one notable difference in that my friend would never apologise when she was horrible to me or other people. She would never acknowledge she’d done anything wrong. She was also stone cold sober when she was horrible. The fact that your friend has to some extent realised she’s been out of order and has apologised for it makes me think she’s not completely beyond help. I’d try a gentle approach first, but if that doesn’t work you really might as well go hard ball and tell her to get her act together, because if she carries on as she is your friendship is not going to survive anyway so you might as well try it. If you can’t get her to at least try then I strongly advise you to walk away. It’s really sad, but you can’t save her and you need to protect yourself.

Crikey, she was very lucky to live such a life of luxury as a lady who lunches.

Clearly, she was very comfortable and well supported financially. It's probably a huge shock to think that on top of everything else, she'll actually have to (gasp) work for a living...! Hope she's not going to give up at the first hurdle. Her children need her to support them no matter what.

What agree did she do at university, OP? She's obviously been very privileged and quite spoilt, which might even explain her reluctance to get a job.

What did her DH do as a career?

As an aside thought, I presume if her DH has a pension, she's going to get half of that? I'm guessing she probably doesn't get child benefits if her DH was a high earner though 🤔

I've just thought of a job your friend might like as she can work from home.

A friend does nails and eyebrows at home, I'm not sure how long she trained, but she is very very busy.

I can also imagine if the OP and the group of friends were all too stunned to call out her nasty behaviours, they're not exactly going to question the validity of her claims.

It doesn't matter whether she's having a nervous breakdown or not. At the minute you and the other friends are enabling her - she meets up with you all, gets drunk, spouts venom at at least one of you, and it makes her feel better about herself until the next time. It's make yourself feel better by putting others down. At some level she knows what she's doing. Somebody needs to be brave and tell her enough's enough and it's gone too far, and unless she wants to lose her friends as well as her husband she needs to back off with the nastiness.

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!

I'd keep DH well away from her. She may be trying to line him up as a replacement so that she can carry on her perfect life. Unlikely but what's more likely is that she'd love to drip things in his ear so that you two split up and then you'll be as miserable and angry as her. Odd as it sounds that would make her feel like she'd 'won'.

Constantly soaking up her punches isn't doing her any favours. Time for some tough love, just as you would with an addict.

I think it’s unfair to assume she considered herself superior etc. I think she considered herself safe and that safety has been obliterated. Shock, fright, grief, confusion and pain have become her normal now. I’m not saying being mean to others is ok - it isn’t- but I do think she deserves some compassion and a little leeway.

I’m not saying being mean to others is ok - it isn’t- but I do think she deserves some compassion and a little leeway.

She's had 18 months of compassion and a LOT of leeway. She can't have it forever at the expense of her friends.

Can you imagine anyone accepting abuse and other horrible behaviour from a man and people saying 'aww bless, poor chap #bekind'....

It's ironic you're telling people to read OP's posts when OP's own subsequent posts to the one's you've quoted indicate that even she is a bit dubious about friend's sudden drip feed about her ex.

"It’s only since he left she told us some of the other things about him, I accept she may be ensuring we would stand by her"

"She also seemed very happily married. I never got the impression he was mean or controlling. He is/was a good father. I don’t know how this has happened tbh. They seemed very happy. It might have been for show, but she never once gave me cause to feel concerned."

"In the past she had been supremely happy with not working."

"She calls her life lovely, and things like perfect, not me, it was everything she has ever wanted."

As @PerkyPeachMaker said it's all a bit suspect. If someone was so keen to work they would have had a job straight after uni before things got serious with their DH and they had kids (the friend has children young enough for her parents to still be helping with them, so we're talking someone who graduated in the 2000s, not 1950), or taken the opportunity to finally do it at some point in the last 18 months, and, key, wouldn't still be moaning to her friends about how perfect her previous life was if she was apparently hugely dissatisfied with it!

Hopefully the OP doesn't mind me saying that she also gave thanks on my post questioning whether her friend was telling the truth about her ex-husband.

How do you know who gave thanks?

Unless you have told them you don't want such emails, Mumsnet will email you daily and tell you who gave thanks to which of your posts.

Ah that's interesting, thanks, I must have that turned off, I only get emails after I have reported something

You sound like a lovely and committed friend 😊 There’s a huge difference, though, between venting to your friends about your ex and being actively unpleasant and bitter towards your mates (and yes, I have also been through an earth-shattering and very difficult separation and divorce and managed not to tell any of my friends they’re fat).

My friends have been a great support to me throughout the whole hellish process but they still deserve to be treated with respect and to maintain their own boundaries - my trauma doesn’t override that. If the friend is in such a state she can’t be respectful, she needs to see a counsellor urgently.

I wouldn’t underestimate the trauma she’s experienced. Everything has changed for her. She’s never worked, has never experienced a break up before.

Apologies if I’ve missed this but is she in counselling? It sounds like she badly needs talk through her pain with someone who won’t be hurt by her expressions of anger and bitterness. Honestly this is way too big for you to deal with, she sounds very fragile mentally.

Totally. I absolutely agree with you that this will have been incredibly shocking to deal with particularly when the thought of being cushioned by her DH's salary has suddenly changed and gone. She's not really had an identity of her own perhaps, she was a SAHM of course, but this was supported completely by her DH.

The betrayal, sudden change, and forcing of her hand into work must be dreadfully overwhelming. No wonder she is so angry and distraught. I'd have had 3 breakdowns by now!

Next time you see her ask her about how she feels about the situation. If she starts talking about her own anger/resentment the suggest that she gets some counselling as bitterness poisons the relationships of the bitter person not the subject of the bitterness.

OP said she had suggested counselling/therapy but she refuses to go.

I have just thanked you for this post- you will see a white number underneath your post in "thanks" - if you click on it you can see who thanked you

18 months really isn’t much in this context. If you haven’t been through it you probably don’t get it but it’s grief, and then fresh grief as his life moves on.

I remember reading all the break up advice along the lines of ‘pick a new hobby!’ ‘Block and delete!’ And realising that as we shared a very young child who lived with me 80% of the time this was impossible. Plus I had ring side seats to his wonderful new romance- ideal!

It was about 3 years for me and a pp said 4. You can’t rush grief, but you can give her more space