To be hurt by lifelong friend

[broadshore]

Simply so.. my closest friend of forty years celebrated her birthday at the weekend. She made a speech thanking everybody me for coming and mentioned her family. She then began to speak about another close
Friend of hers and singled her out for her lifelong friendship, support etc.
I wa a taken aback as they see each other perhaps four times yearly. They are childhood friends but the relationship that I have with my friend is one of shared highs and lots and we meet twice per month if not more.
We spend a lot of our free time
Together.

For context , my friends family promised to help with food, drinks and preparation but never arrived on time but her other close friend did and went out of her way to help and do last minute errands. I was working so could not help.
AIBU here and being pathetic or did I have more value on our friendship than she?
I find that lately she swings between lots of contact and meet ups to no contact for weeks.
My gut tells me that she is under pressure but she is very proud and will never admit to that.
I also know that she is very disappointed with her family's lack of interest and care in her life .
Bottom line though is that I'm confused .

It sounds like she was thanking the other friend for stepping in and helping with the food and the preparation.

You didn't do any of that.

These speeches of thanks can be so invidious- the people who don't get a mention can't help feeling left out, but it may mean literally nothing except that another person came to mind in a particular context for some reason.
You know that the two of you are good friends and see each other regularly. She wouldn't see you twice a month if you didn't matter to her. Let that be enough.

My friends from my youth, I may only see once a year, or once every few years, but I have a deeper connection with them than friends I've met since my mid to late 20s (I'm mid 40s).
Her family let her down at the last minute and childhood friend showed up and stepped up.
Whether or not the mention in the speech would have occurred without this last minute help is anyone's guess.

This is what I would thought and think from your OP that she thanked you in the speech for attending? She was just more fulsome about the friend who stepped into the breach at the last minute - which I think is very nice actually.

You probably are a close friend who she loves, but sometimes childhood friends do hold a special place in the hearts of people on account of having known each other for almost their whole lives. For me, I find my childhood friendships have a special, sentimental place in my heart.

If you enjoy your friendship and find it fulfilling, dont put too much thought into it.

I agree with this. My sister forgot to mention her husband and kids at her last 0 birthday when she gave a speech. She decided to mentioned people in terms of when she met them (so started with our parents ah her birth etc) and got to someone she wanted to mention because they’d been really ill for a while. And then stopped and moved onto to another topic. As a consequence she didn’t far enough along her lifetime to mention her husband or kids . Everyone knew she cared about them most of all (and she’d had many drinks) so we all just laughed.

I can see why it hurt and there might be other reasons you feel uncertain but I wouldn’t base it purely on this. Long term friendships like yours usually have a basis in real friendship, but sometimes they do come to a natural end.

does your relationship feel reciprocal? If you feel you give it more energy then I would pull back till effort feels more equal. I find I enjoy my friendships more that way. Occasionally people miss the extra I offered but most of the time they don’t even notice as they weren’t actually asking for it,