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

This I think is the best advice.

Maybe then the penny will drop that her bitterness means she is losing friends and she will realise she has to try harder to get past the anger, or at least not take it out on the very people who are trying to support her

wow she sounds nasty! I mean - she’s hurt and missing the life she had, I get it, the nastiness tho - how much are you willing to put up with? I would distance myself a little from now. You’ve put up with it - given her an inch, she’s take 17286382 miles - she believes she can get away with it because you all feel sorry for her - to what end tho?

This is grief. She is going through the loss of her 'life' and marriage. She will veer from one stage to another, and will be difficult, just as if she was widowed.
Don't say anything. Just be there for her. She'll work through this stage

Why do you need to fix this for her? I’m not saying this as an judgement, I used to be the same I’d pride myself on fixing things for others but it just made them depend on me and caused resentment eventually.

By all means be as supportive as you feel you can but ultimately this is her own responsibility to fix. Let her make sense of things, have her own emotions around the situation but if she is rude to you make her aware of that and don’t absorb her behaviour. She can be any emotion she wants but her behaviour is hers alone to control. Don’t absorb other people’s bad behaviour they don’t respect you when you do and start to walk all over you.

I can understand her feelings of course, but her rancour and bitterness is hurting herself now as it will lose her friends!

As a friend I'd challenge the next horrible remark she directed at me and tell her that it's time to stop lashing out at her friends if she values them.

Anger is naturally an important part of the grieving process, but at the same time she must not hurt others who have done nothing but support her. It won't help her if she loses friends and support.

Why are you allowing her to speak like that you all? You should immediately call her out on her behaviour.

I think this probably is like her, OP, you just haven’t seen this side of her before as she had little to give out about before. She’s angry with her cheating ex, the world and probably with herself, so she’s taking it out on the people around her.

I hear from your other posts that you are adverse to a confrontation with her, so maybe just keep a wide berth of her. Don’t bring her on any spa days or pay for anything for her, that’s not your job. If she needs support or a shoulder you can be there for her but don’t be an emotional punch bag for her.

I also wouldn’t let it get to the point where she pushes away all of the other friends and you are the only one left who will speak to her. You don’t want that pressure of feeling like you’re all she has.

We too stunned to speak!

No one knew what to say.

This horrendously nasty and unwarranted remark needed to be jumped on immediately. Didn't anyone say anything in response?

If this is a typical example of the kind of things she's saying it's far worse than I imagined.

For her sake stop her now.

@Tink3rbell30

I agree with a lot of stuff you post!
👍

I feel for you, I have had a friend go through a divorce (although she left her partner and was in fact cheating on him).

I had a terrible upbringing which my friend is aware of. I’m not well off, I’m comfortable and while we do have treats they are a result of me being thrifty and creative with money. I don’t have much family support and never have, so I am very independent.

She started making the most awful comments to me about everything. My friends. My partner. My integrity. It was horrid from a friend I’d been supportive to.

I didn’t see her for 6 months after a meal (I was going to treat her but she made such a song and dance about the price of the food, think Harvester type place, that I thought actually fuck her) at the end she demanded we only pay for what we had eaten. Fine. Turns out hers was more than mine so she’d have been better to split or keep her mouth shut.

Things got better for her eventually and now she is back to how she was before but I’ll always remember that. I think she hated that I am the person I am now - having gone through a lot of hardship early (and I may well become more bitter myself, who knows) and come out the other end. She hated that I wasn’t torn up in pieces while she still was.

It was a very strange dynamic and I’ll never forget that she’ll change towards me when things aren’t so great for her.

I am going to try and speak to her I think, because she is haemorrhaging friends and support. My friend is very hurt by the comments about her weight.

A simple it is not okay to speak to me that way if you continue to speak to me that way I will end the conversation. Then do.

What would you do if someone said something mean to your child in front of you, I presume you would respond, do the same for yourself.

Gosh from your last update OP it does sound like she is experiencing some sort of mental health breakdown. If this really is completely out of character, perhaps the best thing you could do for your friend in the long run is to bring it to a crisis, so to speak, by explicitly calling out her behaviour and the impact it is having on you and her other friends.

(Perosnally I think that is very different to suggesting that she should get a job, which, although well meaning, is overly simplistic and a bit patronising at this stage on her grief).

What to say next time she says something spiteful?

"That's Enough!" Is an opener.

There is absolutely no excuse for these kinds of remarks, whether her partner left or not. She’s clearly feeling insecure but that’s no way to speak about a friend who has been there for you. I would have to let her know that’s really unkind and disrespectful. I would distance, and she would have to accept that as a consequence of her actions. She will end up with no one.

My friend was similar. It was like a demon was in her. I think her real thoughts spilled out, the veil of politeness was thin.

Never forget it. Forgive but keep your own heart safe.

There is no excuse for that.. (don't even need to quote the comment) she needs to get a grip or she wont just lose her husband. She isn't widowed just bitter that he preferred another woman. There is no time limit on grief, which is what she is doing and many stages of grief but being downright nasty is not acceptable.

oh lord this is just like one of my closest friends who was widowed 2 yrs ago. She seems to have had a full personality transplant. I have been nothing other than supportive but the endless negativity and PA comments is totally dragging me down. I have really stepped back for my own sanity. I felt constantly guilty for having my grandchild living near which became the focus of her anger and she is always telling me how no-one has had it as bad as her. The thing is I love her dearly but she is in danger of dragging me down with her.
So no.advice other than distance yourself as much as possible and hope it resolves in time.

She sounds just very very depressed. I was her once. I think it took me four years to get back to anything even approaching myself after my then h had an affair with my best friend.
I was very aware i was probably boring my friends after the first year and I tried hard to keep a check on myself and fake cheeriness when I saw them, but I'm sure I wasn't always successful.

I would neither confront her nor make a dramatic exit. Just be less available one on one, safety in numbers maybe?

I had to end a friendship with someone exactly like this. It was 4/5 years down and it was the same thing, over and over. Full of resentment for position not in her portion, including friends. Also drinking to the point of borderline alcoholic.

There’s only so much you can do. You could try talking to her as PP’s have suggested, but in my case I was the same as you; I know it would only have caused further arguments. Tbh I look at the DH who left in a slightly different light now; after years of utterly despising him for leaving her. You never know what’s been going on behind closed doors.

She's bloody lucky to have never worked for 20 years, yet still be in an 'ok' position financially post divorce.
Perhaps she needs to be put in touch with others in a similar situation but who struggle to feed and house Thier children.

Seriously though OP her reaction seems to be coming from fear. You say she's 'bohemian' etc maybe she's scared of rejection by employers etc as well as all the other stuff PP said.

Call her out for being rude and entitled and tell her to get some councelling if it is affecting her this bad.

She should be somewhat dealing with it now being a year and a half ago and she sounds jealous, like she is putting your life down because she is not happy with her own. She probably does know what she is doing and saying but thinks you won't say anything because it sounds like you are all walking around her on egg shells.

It’s fine to be boring in these scenarios. People do understand and want to be supportive so will listen. But mean is a different thing. No one should compromise their own mental health for the sake of someone else.

i agree; no drama, just don’t see her so much. My friend came back after and I never called her out as I knew it would be met with an accusation of “you weren’t supportive.” I wanted to ensure nothing I had done could be to blame for her behaviour. I just didn’t see her or answered less.