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

There's a big difference between 'not getting thanks in return' and getting insults and hurtful remarks.

I know that one of the stages of grief is anger, but normally that anger is directed at the people who have caused the situation. In this case, that would be her DH and the OW, not her supportive friends.

It has been 18 months since he left. Although she has been thrown into fresh turmoil due to the marriage to the OW and her pregnancy, her spiteful remarks to her friends who have done nothing but try and support her, pre-dated this new bombshell.

She obviously has a charmed life before any of this happened and has no reserves of resiliance to help her but her behaviour has still been dreadful.

I think it's more complicated than that. You are projecting your ideas about work ontovthis woman / all women. Different cultures and even classes in the UK have different ideas about women working. And yes this leaves those women financially vulnerable when it all goes wrong. Trying to start a career in your late 40s is always going to be tricky. The value of the work she did within the marriage is overlooked. He built a career, a pension. The whole "surrendered wife" movement is back, particularly in America, partly driven by dominant men who are buying the Andrew Tate line about how to treat women and how women should behave. And it's awful. But I think we should have compassion for the women who have fallen into these traps, for whatever reason, and not talk about them in derogatory terms eg "meal ticket".

@Cornishcockleshells I went through this with a friend.

In the end she got so nasty that I just blurted everything out about her horrible treatment of me.

I thought I'd killed the friendship. But by that point I had made peace with it.

She came back a time later and we spoke more calmly. I apologised for how I handled it, but that I didn't apologise for the reasons/content. It needed to be said.

We are still friends and she seems to have snapped out of her victimhood.

very late to the party on this, but have you talked to her about menopause? Mood changes are a sign of perimenopause and HRT might help

Did she apologise to you?

You don't know if the work is overlooked or not, because for the same reasons as you give you don't really know how much work she actually did.

I do strongly believe however that everyone has to take personal responsibility and that people should be educated from a young age that giving up work is an individual choice and a risk that they take. I do think perhaps that there might be a caveat where a nuptial agreement evidences that both of the couple have agreed one person doesn't have to work but I do think that evidence should exist before we presume the working party was happy with the arrangement. It's not the law now but I think it should be because it will focus minds at the beginning of that arrangement.

What makes me very uncomfortable is that I strongly suspect most people who end up losing more than half the assets or paying maintenance to the other spouse never consented to being the sole earner. I think a grave injustice is being played out in many a divorce like this.

I suspect that people start out with what what works for both of them but then things change further down the line. But for me a man who wanted a stay at home wife then dumps her for a younger model and leaves his wife in a precarious financial position is all too familiar (not me, but it has happened to several women I know). And tbh it is the alpha men who demanded a compliant wife, and who got one, who are most likely to behave like this. My sister in law is a case in point!

I agree with you if the scenario you describe is accurate. Where I am more skeptical is how often it's actually true in the 21st century because it is quite an old fashioned set up now. I've worked with a few women who wanted it but I've never met a man my age or younger who was keen to support it.

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the kind of divorce settlements that have resulted too and felt they should be capped to a reasonable level. For example, I remember early in my career seeing this case where my firm represented the wife who was in her late 40s. When she married at age 24 she worked on a supermarket checkout and she had no O-Levels. She married some guy who had some well paid job, I think it might have been an accountant or something. Anyway, she walked away with 70% of the joint assets and 40% of his income for life. By that time 40% of his income was the equivalent of what 3 checkout assistants were earning and it just felt a bit wrong to me. I think people should be, at most, put back in a position they would have been in were it not for the marriage.

You are going to have to tell her before she blows the rest ofvwhats left of her life up. I have been in her situation, it hurts like hell, it's frightening and lonely. I used to look at my friends and think why me? She will calm down but the friendship might not last it might be to painfull for her. Unlike her I thought things rather than saying them. I still feel she'll shocked years later,it's like death.

Agreed. Surely, if you have never worked (despite being intelligent, fit, healthy and - I assume - without a significant disability), you must realise how precarious your lifestyle and happiness are if they are wholly dependent upon your husband? Did it never occur to her that this might happen?

I just think that overlooks what some of these women bring to the relationship. Ability to make money is a feminist issue. Men will often have extremely well paid jobs. I worked for a corporate bank and knew guys on mega huge salaries - a stay at home wife was expected. Stuck out in the country in a mansion, raising his kids, doing charity work, organising everything... it is hard to see how, when he gets a younger model (and most of them got younger models) they should be expected to drop their entire standard of living, just because they weren't earning. Even if they had a good job like a teacher it pays a pittance compared with their husband's.

It is these marriages I'm thinking of. And I got the impression that was what we have here. Master of the universe types discarding wives and leaving them to it. OP treated this woman to a spa day so I'm assuming they are part of a set with plenty of dosh.

I'd be a bit worried that she will get much worse for a bit as she processes this news, OP. Please brace yourself for same.

She is in crisis. She has lived a pampered secure life, now she has suddenly had everything she has taken for granted taken away. She is angry, bitter, bereaved, scared, lonely, depressed, jealous and mistrustful. She may be being so vile and pushing friends away subconsciously to see who else will ditch her. Effectively taking control by being the instigator of others leaving her. It's self-destructive, she is basically isolating herself and as her friendship group gets smaller and smaller to those who are equally bitter, and ultimately on her own, she will spend more and more time lost in her head self-analysing and hating herself and everyone around her. She needs something else to obsess about that takes her out of this hole she's digging for her self. Very sorry for her and for you. Best of luck....

She is NOT a child! It’s not about allowing her to do and say what she likes because she’s hurting. She’s an adult and things happen and we all have to get on with it. Her actions are now directly impacting her friends and they are entitled to “make it about how they feel” . She’s an adult and she doesn’t have a free pass to behave any way she likes and to deliberately hurt other people because she’s hurt. If it was a child, your approach would be perfectly valid, they cannot control or often understand their emotions but as an adult she absolutely can. She is obviously devastated but at the end of the day she’s lost, what sounds like a controlling idiot. No one died! Grow up and be good to the great friends you have around you. Many people would have left her by now!

Firstly thank you for being such a good friend, which i realise takes a lot of patience. Are you the closest to her out of your group?
I also like a previous poster ,went through much worse when i was widowed, i hated seeing couples around me walking holding hands, making plans to go on holiday, but after a few years i gave myself a good talking too, it still creeps back occasionally i can name it jealously!
None of my original friends are around me now, im a totally different person, i sometimes dont like this new self i often crave the extrovert, fun loving person i was back then, now im the total opposite, introvert, over thinker quiet.
Your friend is hurt, angry, jealous, of the life she now hasn't got.
The best thing you,( or the closest one of you) on a one too one basis can do now for her and her children is have a good kind honest frank chat,( if you step back/walk away you may send her down a black hole with alcohol drugs who knows but its not good for her or her children, an acquaintance of mine did this) no blame, you feel you want to help her move forward, how can you help her? wait for her to reply, she will probably go down i want him back i hate my life ect, yes you know that but this is now, so how can you move forward rinse and repeat same, not in a public space either, just have coffee no alcohol, you want to help her put a plan together, if she gets angry thats fine just keep your calm, maybe she just needs someone to bring all the hurt and anger out, its not directed at you but at herself.
Perhaps start with lets do no alcohol till Christmas, maybe meet at the gym instead of the pub once a week or something, let her take her anger out on the treadmill, or yoga or simply walking in the fresh air, then maybe ask if you can help put a plan with finances, (not sure how close you are) then put her in touch with someone who specialises in CVs, telephone number of a counsellor, one step at a time, all the time saying you want to help her.
She eventually will move on, but will always remember you.
Good luck.

It's not exactly a common set up now though is it? Maybe it's a generational issue?

I suspect most corporate bankers nowadays are more likely to be found married to someone else with a career of their own and using a nursery or a nanny for the children.

Even with the update OP, you and your friends can still hold firm boundaries gently with her.

"No Sophie, I know you're upset but you can't talk about other people's weight like that."

"I get that you're angry and I'm here for you, but not as a punching bag. Please stop being mean to me."

OP, your friend is in 'crisis' and you need to respond to her like that, with gentle firm support to direct her to get counselling and see the GP. Nothing you do will really help her much at this point, I wouldn't abandon her but I would just calmly call out any bad behaviour or drunken nastiness.

I would also get this thread deleted as it's very identifiable and someone may recognise her and give her the heads up. You have had great advice, I'd take it and get it deleted.

No, notcreally. If your husband earns a couple of million pa I doubt you keep working and use a nanny. At private schools lots of the mums don't work.

Well that should be their choice and their risk but we're taking about incomes that would put you in the top 0.1% of earners now so it's hardly commonplace enough to be a widespread issue for society anyway.

Exactly, cannot believe there's posters on the thread encouraging the OP to continue being a verbal punch bag!

I read the posters responce as measured. There is a way disengenous people try a deflect, it is referring to tone rather then content, it is sly.

Ive only known high earning men to marry high earning women. Or more rarely they met in childhood. Its like hearing about another planet. I never met at private school, mothers who were mis matched from their husband. Dr friends is the mpst segregated. All drs i know married other drs. Late millenial here! I always wondered how do these women raise their daughters and sons, do you focus the girls on finding a huband only... and your sons on finding work. What is the benefit of a sahm who has no ability to live or move through the world, who has no ability to live without her husband.

Tbf a lot of these women started out working. But others didn't or had little jobs. Think Diana and Prince Charles!

Having read so many heartbreaking threads on here over the years where mothers who work and their children are abandoned by the husbands, are on the bones of their ass financially and reach out here for advice which is willingly given. I struggle to sympathise with this woman who has had a charmed life until 18 months ago. And she still hasn't got her shit together, but abuses her friendships.

You can only play a victim for so long imo.