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 seems to be projecting a lot, and doesn't really have any backing from what OP has actually said:
"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. "

Doesn't sound like an abusive relationship or one where the child was expected to care for the parents' emotional needs if they remain that close and helping her out that much, now.

I think your friend needs help, OP.
She's had 18 months worth of practical and emotional help from her parents and what sounds like an incredibly good friendship group, as well as still being financially supported by her ex. That is far more than many people ever have. She might feel like a child but she's not. At some point she has to help herself.

In your situation l would avoid and take a big step back. Yeah her life has been blown up, she won’t be the first or last. She needs to negotiate a decent divorce and live her own life. Plus be less jealous, mean and obnoxious. I say this as someone whose husband ran off with someone else, who was a friend of mine and he tried to rip me off financially

What a difficult situation. I think I'd have to raise it with her, using examples: "when you said that to X about being fat, it was really rude and hurtful to someone who's been nothing but supportive of you."

My marriage also ended 18 months ago after an affair (not mine). I was devastated and very upset about the loss of "my life". I probably bored some of my friends by talking about it so much but I'd never have been horrible to them. They were amazing. I have had therapy which has helped resolve the difficult feelings of why it ended, what I could have done differently, etc. 18 months on I'm happy enough with my life - it's not the life I wanted or planned but I've got another few decades left I hope, and I'm not going to spend them looking back resentfully at the past. There's a whole world out there.

I wouldn't want to be friends with someone so nasty. I understand she's hurt and going through a divorce but honestly, if I'd been the woman who was told she was too fat to be with her husband I'd have snapped back something like, "you're just horrible and nasty. No wonder your husband left you. Good for him!". Never let anyone talk to you that way. If they can dish it out they can take it!

I have been the recipient of such behaviour by a dear friend. She said deranged cruel things " Why do you have children and I don't?". I distanced myself.

It turned out that she had gone off her anti depressants and had had a massive mental breakdown. I regret it now. She later recovered. And we are back in touch.

If she is prickly then don’t engage, beyond trying to get her to focus on the future.

At one level- of course she’s upset, and scared. But yelling at everyone shows she still has her head in the sand. Of course it must be scary to face life at mid-forties with zero work history, but when push comes to shove: what does she think is going to happen.
She must engage with reality: but has no intention of hearing it from you, so I wouldn’t bother.

I think people are muddling up being angry and bitter and grieving and talking about that with your friends, which lots of people do. That's an outlet, yes it can get a bit tedious, but being a shoulder to cry on is fairly run of the mill stuff.

Not many people actually insult their friends, run them down, are ungrateful when they do nice things to them over 18 months though.

One snappy comment in deep grief, but I honestly don't have one friend who would speak to me like this or behave like this, and I didn't behave like this when I was widowed either.

I just want to have a moan and have fun with my friends, I wouldn't be up for years of this type of stuff. I have a lot of friends, but this seems to me like the stuff family would possibly put up with and probably tell you to F* off as well!

Ah OP - but she had a perfect life because she is perfect! Perfect life, perfect husband, perfect her.

She might well have thought bitchy things about people who were fat, got dumped, had bad taste in clothes - but because her life was perfect, she didn;t need to say them.
She could look down on them from her Bohemian life, because she was perfect.

NOW of course, she is just one of 'them'. Same as everyone else. Just another 'Norm'. NOW she'll have to get a job, ffs! look after herself - when other people who are NOT PERFECT have husbands, and lovely lives...even when they are fat!

She's angry, and stuck in angry. I don't know how you get her out of being stuck in angry, and maybe it's not possible unless she gets help.

OP you are better than me, I'd have left her to it as soon as the bitchy comments started.

No, I don't think I'm projecting, thanks.

Family dynamics are complex and not necessarily amenable to being understood from the outside. Narcissistic parents, for example, are commonly liked and admired by people outside the family, at whom their worst excesses are not directed.

So in that sense there probably wasn't much point in asking the OP about her friend's childhood, but it may well be germane. Women who have never worked used not to be uncommon, but they certainly are now. I think that warrants unpacking.

I think it’s a normal stage.
When bereaved through a death it’s normal to reach the anger stage and there’s often bitterness in there too. I’d imagine this is very similar.
Don’t be quite so available, don’t plan any treats I don’t think they help tbh. Still be a friend but you’re not her emotional punchbag.

Everyone deals with this kind of devastation differently. When my H left me I guess I did occasionally feel some slight private bitterness towards happily married friends, but I wouldn’t have ever voiced this to them, or made it obvious. I was on the whole glad that they hadn’t had to experience the misery of a cheating husband and a marriage break up.

Friends and family’s support only goes so far, if your friend continues to be bitter, she’ll end up with no close support network.

I would guess she is in the 'burn it down' phase, where she just wants to lash out over and over. I would tell her directly that you are very sorry for what has happened in her life, but her unkind comments have to stop and you will end any encounter where one comes up. Suggest counselling as a place to work this out.

Some people do this and it’s horrible. I had a friend do this to me when I finally got into a happy relationship after years of being the sad single friend with always a pathetic story to tell. I started to get snide comments all the time now she didn’t have anyone to look down on. Long story short, I couldn’t stand the nastiness and no longer see her.

I know my situation is slightly different but the theory is very similar.

Thank you for all of the incredible replies. It’s been a relief to read them. I wondered when I posted whether I would be flamed for not being more empathetic.

My friend is the first of any of us to be divorced, and as such none of us have any experience at all of what to do. How it works. I understand it is a grief cycle, but she doesn’t seem to be moving past the anger stage - what happens if she can never move past it?

Your posts and experiences have really helped, as I don’t know whether to quietly step back, try and speak to her or whether this is totally normal to be raging for so long, it’s hard to even feel close to her these days as she is like a completely different person from the friend I knew before.

I don’t want to make things any worse.

I am glad I am not the only one, although I am sorry for your experiences. A personality transplant really resonated, but also the deep grief.

Honestly your friend is being ridiculous and you and your other friends need to stop allowing her to get away with being so horrid.

My dh lost his son in February and not once has he been mean or cruel to me for still having my daughter.

Yes he is hurt, angry, grieving, confused and every other emotion under the sun. Yes he is bitter and jealous and gets upset when dd and I fight abiut the normal stuff parents and their tweets fight about. But he appreciates that is his issue and never takes it out in us.

Yes what your friend is going through is hard but it does not give hwr the right to be a bitch.

I wouldn’t necessarily sit her down for ‘a chat’ but I would be inclined to snap back when she next says something. Such as ‘We all know what happened to you was dreadful, but speaking to your best mates like they’re shit on your shoe really won’t help Jenny.’

It might shock her in to reining it in a bit.

sometimes people are just unpleasant. They don't need to have had a sad childhood backstory to justify it.

We already know the friend has had one unpleasant thing happen in her life which explains her current behaviour but it still doesn't excuse it. So even if she did have other issues before that, there is still no excuse for lashing out on those who don't deserve it.

Perhaps the friend she insulted had a terrible childhood and suffered from an eating disorder and friend's cruel comment brought it all back!

We (and OP) don't need to know and really it's irrelevant - if divorcing!friend wants to be psychoanalysed she can pay for a therapist, it's not for OP to be armchair diagnosing her without any evidence.

She has also stopped eating which is a worry, so i think she might also have developed an ED ( hence the comments about weight )

I think never having worked is a massive hole in her personal development which is why she's become unbearable because of some adversity now. Most of us learn to be diplomatic at work because we all have to deal with other adults who are difficult and obnoxious sometimes and we learn to become resilient to it rather than speaking out. Unfortunately, I think it is even true to an extent where people spend too long out of the workforce and become too dependent on a spouse or partner's income.

People lose their independence, sense of identity and their sense of worth comes too enmeshed in this way of life. Then when it's ripped away they become bitter and channel their energies on hurting people rather than getting up and dusting themselves down. I've lost count of the number of clients for example who, if they channeled just half as much energy into finding a job and finding themselves instead of pursuing an ex with unrealistic demands for money in order to hurt them, would be much happier people.

For the OP's friend, the reality is she's facing a sink or swim scenario. She won't be funded by her ex forever and she will need to get a job. It will be good for her and it will shift her attention away from what she had and on to her own future.

Why, at this point, though?

I mean, no friend would get away with speaking to me like that. Or bitch all day if I had invited her on a day out.

Don't abandon her. You may have to take a step back for a while for your own well being, but don't abandon her. She has faced enough of that.

We live in such a sexist world. She has lost the status of marriage. It's a really big deal (I speak as a committed singleton. Believe it or not women's status is still to some degree seen to be enhanced by their association with a more powerful man).

But how is any of that cause to call your friend fat?

Leave her to it