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

It’s normal and hopefully she will get through this phase.
It doesn’t mean you have to suffer though.
Keep communication open but don’t be too involved.

It kinda sounds like the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. (Devastation is pretty close to denial. Anger - check. Comparing her life to yours and all the bitterness - possibly bargaining inside her thoughts? Depression - check. Just missing the acceptance stage.) So, maybe you're right to think the intense negativity your friend is experiencing is a temporary stage. Although, I'm not too sure where in the grief cycle she might be and whether she's experiencing those emotions in the oft-quoted order. I could be barking up the wrong tree, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case it helps.

I agree. As soon as it happened or even for the first 6 months or so, fair enough, cut the woman some slack, but 18 months later? She's now this person. She's using her friends as a punching bag and because not sll of them have told her to get lost shes continuing. She needs to get a grip/ job/ counselling or all 3. That remark about your friends weight and asking how she was still married smacks of someone who all along thought she was better/more attractive than her friends and can't see how their husband hadn't tun off with another woman but hers has.

She unfortunately is suffering the most horrific grief. She lost the love of her husband it’s hard to explain but knowing people that have lost husbands versus husband having affair leaving, they say death was easier

Perhaps she didn't have to care for him for many years being terminally ill, though, eh? I know what you mean, there's a loss of feeling like someone loved you. I'm a young (ish) widow and I can't say I've noticed my divorced friends, of whom I have many, acting like either me, or this lady.

I would not be up for spending money on spas, indulging her remarks and taking her insults. Not at all. I have been in terrible grief, and many of my friends have gone through divorce and widowhood. We have felt sad, depressed, angry, but I don't think any of us have turned on each other or made the other feel bad for simply having a life. There's no need or excuse for this and being left by your husband isn't one either. If she felt terrible, lost, left behind, jealous, usually people go out less and go inwards, not start shitting on their friends' lives.

I'd say something if you are very very close, but I don't think she'll react well. I can't imagine my divorced friends doing this, even the ones that were blindsided, if anything, they needed the support and hugs and nights out even more.

If she comes around to yours and is PA and nasty, at that point you wrap the visit up straight away. Send her home. "Right I have to get ready to do xyz now ( and don't seem to be enjoying xyz) so I need to get on. Shall I get your coat?" And every time she makes a shitty remark just ask her why she is saying that and wrap up the visit. "What is it about my jumper that you hate? Right I must get on, bye".

Unless she has the hide of a rhino and zero self awareness she will get it eventually. If she doesn't then she has zero self awareness so can never be much of a friend. I'd do that and space out each time I see her if she continues to be a shit.

Why is her Right to be rude stronger than your right to feel comfortable? I think I'd be more blunt and say "I'm clearly irritating you so I'm going home now" let her chase you up or not

As hard as it is for you, I think you need to be painfully honest with her, with no half measures.

There are no excuses for any of you to be used as her punch bag.

Be prepared for her not to care if she loses all of you. That's her choice.

Her marriage breakdown wasn't caused by you.

She's been coddled for a year and a half and now takes you all for granted. It's time to take a step back and let her find her feet.

I'd make myself unavailable. I did this with a former friend who's been through similar - every meet up was just hours of bitterness and self pity. If you told her about another friend whose whole family died in a freak accident, she'd somehow had it worse. She'd get pissed, and the vileness would escalate. I've only got a small amount of time for socialising and I didn't want to spend it with her ranting and being utterly miserable. We do text occasionally but it's more a polite check in than friendship now.

She sounds a bit like my mum (currently divorcing my dad). It’s extremely difficult and sometimes I don’t think she remembers how vicious she is when she’s in full flight. She also brings every conversation back to how awful my dad is, is incredibly thin-skinned and always had a temper but has now progressed to throwing crockery. I don’t know what to say — I mostly try to ignore it or move the conversation on, hoping it’ll get better. I’m getting married soon and a lot of the issues around wanting what I have are similar to being friends with people in conventional relationships, though not exactly the same.

FWIW my mum does respond well to me generally and sometimes takes kind criticism as intended, I think because I try to overlook some of the madness. But it’s been a long road and we’re not there yet. She also refuses counselling. It’s incredibly hard, best of luck.

My friends mother asked her the same!

She’s lazy, selfish, arrogant, unbelievably rude, bitterly envious and thinks the world owes her a living.

I’d just stop having anything to do with her, and I’d apologise to the friend on the receiving end of the fat comment for not standing up for her.

I think that would be doing her a favour, and might be easier to receive (sinking to her level) than the “don’t speak to me like that” which can sound condescending coming from someone perceived to be in a superior position.

I’ve been through the “husband’s exit affair left me in reduced circumstances” and been widowed early with children, and self-pity gets you nowhere. I’m now one of the happiest people in my circle.

Edited to respond to a poster upthread, it’s a lot easier to divorce a dickhead than watch the beloved father of your DC die.

Why? Nothing wrong with being a wife and mother. Just a pity her husband was a schmuck by leaving.

I feel for all of you.

The same thing happened to a very close relative of mine. The venom that she aimed at me was appalling, but reading your post has been quite helpful. It makes me realise that it probably isn't personal and that she must be suffering terribly. My relative is over the worst of it, but vestiges of her anger remain - it feels as though she could blow at any time. I am trying to take it in my stride because I don't want to leave her high and dry.

I don't think talking to your friend is going to help. Everything you say will be taken out of context and she will probably explode and accuse you of patronising her etc. So, if you need to address it I would advise putting it in writing so that you get to say exactly what you want to say without her venomous interjections. I would tell her how much you value her and how important she is to you and the friendship group. Tell her that she has your support, but also tell her honestly (without being mean) how difficult it has been to give that support. Putting it in writing will be a valuable record for later in - no matter how she reacts to it. If she accuses you of being mean to her it will there in black and white that you extended kindness. A record for yourself at least.

This is such a difficult situation. Wouldn't it be great if we all handled situations like this with grace and dignity, but none of us knows how grief is going to affect us. It has its own (illogical) rules.

Good luck!

It's interesting that she won't countenance therapy or counselling, because she sounds absolutely overflowing with anger, which is a frightening thing to navigate without professional support. I wonder if she's scared at an instinctive level that if she starts letting it all out she may not be able to stop.

There's a lot to process here. Never having worked is huge. She will need to rethink that to survive, which means she needs to revisit choices and face either the fact that they were poor ones or (perhaps) the fact that they were not freely made. If her ex made it directly or indirectly clear that he wanted her at home being the family support animal, it must feel bitterly unfair now to be cast aside for a more interesting model. And if that was a devil's pact she entered into knowingly for the lifestyle, she not only needs to recalibrate the lifestyle, but also needs to rethink the person she had to become to make it work. That pact is gone and so is the women who was in a position to make it. She must feel the ground has disappeared beneath her feet. Plus there may well be childhood issues feeding into the choices she made and the life she was leading, which all of this will be reigniting. Plus the vast task of getting herself into a position to support herself going forward, which must be completely terrifying as well as being objectively difficult.

You sound like you've been a great friend to her, but this is a job for a professional. I also think that gestures like spa days and nice lunches are somewhat misplaced, when that life is largely over for her for now. What she needs is to talk and get all her ugliest feelings out into the world, and then support to rebuild once she's faced up to the fact that most of her life is currently wreckage that needs clearing away.

Her intense anger at the unfairness and unwelcomeness of it all is a phase that will pass, but in order for it to pass, she needs to accept facts and work her way through them like a grown-up, which is probably not at all something she feels capable of being at the moment. I think I would say that your job at the moment is to encourage her to accept that and get into therapy, and to listen to whatever comes out of that for her, as she needs to talk and get things out to process them. That doesn't mean it's OK for her to be hateful, and reminding her that you are her friends and not a suitable target for her anger is okay and in fact good for her to hear. Longer term, you could help her by challenging and supporting her to do all the things she's scared of - retraining, working, making a new home somewhere she feels negative about etc. She will really need her friends to get through all of that.

But ultimately, the one who needs to do the heavy lifting is her. You can't do it for her and if she continues to refuse to take responsibility for herself, then probably the friendship can't survive. A year and a half is enough time for angry wallowing. She needs to roll up her sleeves now.

Tbh I can see why you would want to pull away but I feel like realistically you need to be there for her more than ever. People need people the most when they are becoming so bitter and sad. It’s hard to love someone so difficult but it’s truely what she needs (and some therapy)

There is someone in my life who is in a similar position. I love and care for them very much so I'm sticking with them, but it's hard!

Don't underestimate the huge trauma of a break up. In the case of my family member, I'm genuinely shocked at the number of people who have expected them to just "get over it", "move on", when they have spent their life with the person who has gone - it's a grief process. As with any grief, there is no timetable or schedule. And when you are consumed in grief, you see everything darkly and negatively. It's like the opposite of rose-tinted glasses! Everything is dark and heavy. Counselling will help your friend but she has to feel ready for it - sometimes it's just too soon to benefit from that.

You sound like a wonderful caring and supportive friend, but everyone has their tolerance limits. Decide what you can offer and stick to your boundaries.

For me, I'm letting the big things go and continuing to support, but pulling up on the little things. So in your case that would be - commenting that my life is perfect, ignore, to her your life probably does seem perfect and she won't see otherwise. Didn't thank you for a spa day, ignore, you did good by taking her there, she may not have enjoyed it at the time but in future she'll remember you were there by her side. Commenting that your sweater isn't nice - immediate reply "that's not kind, no need to be rude".

I think you are right about finding a way to gently speak with her about how some of the things she has been saying are upsetting people who care about her. If you say nothing and everyone just drifts away from her it could become a narrative in her mind that none of her friends have stuck around because she is single now and her finances have changed, can't be trusted around husbands etc and blame you all, rather than understanding that it's her behaviour causing the problem. At least honesty gives her an opportunity to change her ways and appreciating the real reason might also bring home to her the impact of taking her emotions out on others rather than seeking professional help.

Well maybe she was able to be a certain kind of person before because she had a charmed existence by the sound of it. Now that the shit has hit the fan, maybe this IS the real her, or at least an aspect of her character that was previously hidden. Either way, none of you have to be her punching bags, sounds like she is so far out of line now that she's lucky if she ends up with any friends.

I absolutely hate confrontation and my sister can be very, very hard work, with general self absorption and snide little comments and criticisms. One day she said something and I just snapped, I said “hey, that’s enough”. She instantly knew what she’d done and apologised and is more measured now.

I think you sound like a lovely friend but she’s going to carry on until someone tells her enough or she has no friends left. You obviously need to be willing to risk the friendship but it might be the wake up call she needs. Tell her you are and have been sympathetic but she is behaving awfully and hurting people (probably subconsciously her aim, for people to hurt as badly as she does) amd it’s got to stop. Be kind but firm, if you are too namby pamby about it you are likely to just get another outpouring of poor me and bitterness and you’ll be back at square one. You have given enough sympathy and apologising for living, time for some tough love.

I agree that the kindest thing to do is to tell her.

Otherwise you're standing by while she loses her friends - then she really will have lost everything.

You could literally put it like that.

I think most things have been covered already, and I say that as both a divorced person and a still (mostly quietly) bitter widow.

One thing to bear in mind is that anger and lashing out is a symptom of fear, and sometimes no amount of reassurance can easily help with that. Also a pp mentioned self-loathing - that resonates in that spectacularly awful life changing experiences can make one feel a bit like Typhoid Mary, or Jonah, no matter how lovely people are because nothing feels lovely any more. It can also make one so determined that more bad things will happen you almost try to engineer them because at least then you're in control.

That said, cruel comments are out of order so I feel for the OP.

Apparently there are places you can go to smash crockery and throw axes at targets. Without wishing to sound flippant, might that be an option that would be a subtle hint but also potentially an outlet? I'm actually considering it for myself so I can release the build ups of sheer rage I feel about the death of my DP and the three years of relentless shit that has followed. Because it's the domino effect of the first awful thing and the fallout that make it harder to move on if nothing goes to plan. Just a thought.

This^ is a very well thought out post and is spot on in my view @Cornishcockleshells

I would also add : You said your friend has never worked and has been with her ex since they were young. If her life has never thrown her any major curveballs she will be totally unable to comprehend that shit can and often does happen, to anyone. Worse still, she won't have any idea how to deal with it at all. You would be a good friend to have a talk with her. Yes, it might mean you lose a friend - but hopefully, sometime in the future she will realise it was coming from a place of love

No wonder!
It's been a year and a half. Your friend needs professional help. How can she be so entitled and continue insulting people. I honestly hope someone gives her a reality check. Do hou think your friend is abusing alcohol?
I feel sorry for her child.

Severe depression can present a bit like dementia in some ways. The horrible comments may not be 'her' in the same way they aren't with someone with dementia. But it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I agree with others - time for an honest conversation. Tell her she doesn't seem to be herself, and you and everyone who loves her know it will take time to get over something so important but you all want her to find herself again so she needs to start that process by having therapy. If it doesn't work and she gets angry and resistant all you can do is what a PP said and say you will have to take a step back as you feel like being around you is hurtful for her based on her comments. But tell her you'll be there for her if she needs you.