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

I think it’s time to be ready with some comments like, “Ouch!” (accompanied by a grimace) to communicate that this is really not ok.

And then, “Jeez Jane, you’re not going to have any friends left if you keep making comments like that!”

Or simply and sadly, “that wasn’t very nice.”

And then, “hey, that’s really uncalled for. It’s not Emma’s fault your husband had an affair.”

She needs to hear that she can’t keep treating people like that. It’s a type of kindness. I think it’s better to have some responses ready to react in the moment rather than try to have a conversation about it another time as she will probably be really defensive.

@Cornishcockleshells It is likely that your friend, when she eventually comes out the other side, will make friends that are more suited to her new life and remind her less of what she lost. So there is no point in enduring the unacceptable (which is how her behavious comes across) and martyring yourself, because she won't thank you, and she may not be there to support you should your own, different time of need arrive, as she may well have moved on and left you behind.

This kind of madness is the result of subsuming yourself 100% into another person. Always keep a bit of yourself for your own life. My mil is still bitter thirty five years on and alone because of it.

Oh dear, so she’s probably scared hence why she took it out on your other friends. On the plus side she has a degree presumably, so that’s a starting point. Only she can make that move into training or a job of some kind though. She probably didn’t realise that her friends were looking out for her😊

Are all your circle sahm with husbands? And one of you suggested (gently im sure) for her to retrain and get a job?

Oh dear.

The fat friend comment is awful but I'm guessing it fascinates her that someone can be less than perfect and still be loved. In a perverse kind of way it's an encouraging sign that she's looking at the relationships around her and wondering what makes them qualitatively different from her marriage, because that means that she's accepting that it was always a less than perfect marriage and life, she just couldn't see it at the time. In other words, she's starting to be ready for self-reflection, it's just that she's done so very little of it in the past that it comes out in the form of crass and unpleasant remarks. She needs to apologise for that, and as I said upthread, get herself into therapy where she can say whatever she wants without hurting anyone.

So it does all sound tricky and I imagine I’d feel the same as you and would probably need to distance myself.
But one perspective to consider do you think some of the mean thoughtless comments by her may actually not be thoughtless at all but rather her response to actually thoughtless condescending behaviour and comments by others? Obviously not on purpose but it does read like you know what a lovely fab life you have and pity her for her shitty life and not being married to someone better. Likely not remotely your thought process but I can see how that may be how you all make her feel? Like you think she wasn’t smart enough to pick someone who didn’t cheat, did or didn’t do sth to make him cheat etc. If eg fat comment friend had something that could be interpreted in that way that completely makes sense of the mean comment…

It's time to distance yourself and/or respond to her comments as you know you should, rather than staying quiet. You need to call her out.

Has she really changed or is it her true self coming out, that you might have seen glimpses of? Did she perhaps always think she had a fantastic life because she was amazing and deserved it, and didn't acknowledge any luck?

Could you and the other friend(s) talk to her together and try to say gently that you’re worried about her and would she rather you both/all withdrew from her life for a while as being with you seems to make her so unhappy?

She is directing her anger at the wrong people. As other PP’s have said, I’d have a couple of stock responses to say when she says things like that, particularly “that’s not very nice”, “please don’t talk to me like that”. It’s her choice then if she continues like this and alienates herself.

18 months?

You've got more patience than I have, OP.

She is directing her anger at the wrong people. As other PP’s have said, I’d have a couple of stock responses to say when she says things like that, particularly “that’s not very nice”, “please don’t talk to me like that”. It’s her choice then if she continues like this and alienates herself.

this is quite worrying! you shouldn't be scared of a friend. If a different acquaintance said to you that they were scared of saying something even the tiniest bit negative to their partner/sibling/parent surely that would raise red flags and you would be worried about them. She's taking her anger out on the wrong people.

It's very understandable your friend is upset but lives do change. She was lucky to have a great life for a while but nobody lives in a perfect bubble forever. She has to accept this is her 'new normal' and she can live her new life with her (very supportive friends) or lose them as well. At some bad point things are going to happen to other people within your group - parents dying, relationship break downs, job loss, cancer, issues with kids, because that's just life - it can't just be about her forever more.

tbh I'm less convinced about what a lovely person she usually is. It's very easy to be calm and kind and bohemian when your life is perfect, lovely relationship, great friends, lots of money, you've never even had to work and everything has been handed to you on a plate, it's when things go wrong that people show you what they really are like. This might be her real (or at least her new) personality now, and you've got no obligation to stick around and be her whipping boy forever just because you used to be friends.

Too stunned every single time??

It may be that she feels she is looked down in by you all now and is pre-empting, saying what she thinks you're thinking before you can. ( I see that you're not like that at all, but feelings of hyper-sensitivity and inferiority can make people poisonous.) The remarks about your friend's weight sound horrible. It sounds to me like she is desperately flailing to regain some feelings of self-esteem and going about it all wrong.

She can't be that close a friend if you can't pull her up. I can't think of one close friend that I couldn't tell straight if they were being bitter and nasty.
Do you work op? Just with you saying lunch out? Not a judgement as I work pt and have lots of time to do stuff. I'm probably a lot older.

Being upset about her own situation doesn’t give her a free pass to be downright nasty.

Tell her she’ll end up with no one if she carries on as she is.

Unfortunately she's been a victim of incredible betrayal and the loss of alive and relationship is akin to bereavement for the human brain. She will be saying things that are out of character. It's not necessarily okay but at least you know it's a form of grief and not personal. This was such a hard read, my heart breaks for her but also for you as a friend in a helpless position. I hope time is a healer.

She asked a friend of ours how she is still married being so fat.

😂That's hilarious - from a safe distance that is, not for you or for the "fat" wife in question! I think your divorced friend will live to regret alienating all her mates, but there's not much you can do about it - just distance yourself and wait for the dust to settle. Definitely no more spa days for such an ungrateful person!

I know. Quite surprising.

It sounds like she is wallowing in victimhood and needs to get a life. How is she able to support herself if she doesn't have a job?

When my parents divorced my mother was 47 and hadn't worked for 24 years...ever since my older brother was born.

Her reaction was exactly the same as your friends...the bitterness was off the charts. Same horrible bitchy statements to anyone was still married etc. Made her very difficult to be around.

Sadly, 35 years later she's still as bitter, if not more so. Like your friend, she could have really benefited from counselling but point blank refused to even consider it, in fact when I started seeing both a psychologist and psychiatrist after a suicide attempt when I was 23, she was so nasty about it that I was in tears. I've been very low contact with her ever since.

The outcome has been that she has lost most of her friends, and all her family have gone no contact with her. Like others have posted, my mother had always been 'difficult' but my father leaving revealed her true nature.

That's a really unhelpful suggestion. You don't want the friend to feel better, you want her to be punished.

🤷‍♀️

Jesus christ, this is tragic.

I'm sorry your own mother didn't support you through a suicide attempt.

Neither your story nor the subject of the OP can be categorised as merely 'bitterness' - it's more like a complete mental breakdown.