Breakdown in friend group - who is right?

[Tornad]

I’m not either of these two people.

P, W and 3 others have been friend since school, almost 30 years. Now all getting married, having children, etc. Don’t live locally to one another but still close and see each other very regularly (almost always as a group or one-on-one - i.e. we would never meet up as a three or a four without everyone being invited).

W has always been high maintenance as a friend. She expects us to be there for her, get birthday presents, attend birthday events, etc. She also gives out the same energy. She will always organise gifts,I’ve heaven and earth to attend special moments and be on the end of the phone. So, she’s not a hypocrite or a taker. She just expects a lot from friendship in general.

P has always been more relaxed. Unreliable, late to things, forgets things, doesn’t respond for months at a time, didn’t hear her phone… but she’s really fun to be around. Witty, cool, energetic. But, since having her own kids, P has also become quite high maintenance. Everything is a drama, the world is ending every couple of weeks, everything revolves around her DS. She’s very “crunchy mum” and makes her opinions known on our parenting and nutrition. I’m hoping this will pass because I wouldn’t befriend her if I met her now.

Anyway. W is pregnant and being induced early. She hasn’t said but I assume this is for medical reasons. They don’t tend to induce early just for fun. The date for the induction is P’s birthday. P is furious about this. She thinks that W has done this on purpose to usurp her birthday. She has vowed to never speak to W again and says that it’s “the final straw”.

My initial thought is that P is being ridiculous but, the more I think about it, W has always made a big deal out of birthdays and now P won’t be W’s focus on her birthday, her DD/DS will be.

Who is right here?

You’ve literally said that you would be “rethinking” if this happened in your friendship group. Why are you saying you can’t understand why I’m responding how I have whilst then saying you’d respond exactly how I have?

It seems that you would behave exactly like I have in this situation.

Crunchy as in opinionated as fuck? Or toasts her own granola 😂

sounds like P has been annoying the group with her PFB ‘better mother than thou’ chat and has (hopefully temporarily) lost the plot.

Am guessing but perhaps P senses there’s a perception that she has become a bit tricky these days so there is an underlying tension. This may have led P to overreact wildly to W. Or it could be that everyone isn’t marching to the beat of P’s drum. You’ve not said what P’s previous ‘straws’ were so it’s hard to tell what the fuck she’s on about tbh.

W’s safe delivery ultimately takes precedence. Even if she did pick this date out of a range, an induction is more important than an adult’s birthday, all the time. As to ‘what about my parties!’ W is not P’s birthday monkey. Obligations shift over time.

In your shoes, if P’s less than a couple of years post-partum, I’d be inclined to give her (a bit of) the benefit of the doubt, and wait it out - her personality might re-regulate a bit. She seems to have really changed and I’ve known some women who were almost like they’d been body-snatched post-baby. I think it also happened to me. Not about birthdays but food and nutrition. And I was, on reflection, much more sensitive than usual. Luckily for me I was the first by some distance so probably annoyed my friends less as I was only paddling my own canoe, and by the time they had babies I was back to my old self.

So with that in mind I wouldn’t fall out with her beyond saying what you’ve already said. But I wouldn’t be supporting P in any attempt to alienate or exclude W, that’s wild.

Why not bow out of this argument and see where it all lands in the end, it’d be a shame to lose one another after all these years, and you don’t actually need to do anything to fix this. Just don’t enable any pettiness and you’re in the clear. Your group may be at a juncture where you’ve somewhat grown apart, or this may only be a bad phase. Time will tell!

Bless you OP I get it you’ve all been friends a long time, you probs don’t want to have to choose but also seem throughly aware that W has done nothing wrong and P is way out of line. Would I be right in thinking you’re looking for reassurance here that if you have to choose Team W is the absolute winner? You are not missing anything and although you love them both. I’m afraid, other than showing her this thread I don’t see any way to get P to change her mind x

I would not need to turn to MN to ask who is in the wrong here. I would automatically know myself and would distance myself from a long standing friend who was behaving in such a selfish manner.

My goodness P is unhinged. I suspect she isn’t happy with her life. To take this all out now that a friend is in a vulnerable place and a baby is about to come in the world… shows a lot of hidden jealousy and insecurities for whatever reason.

I speak about personal experiences with people close to me going unhinged when I was pregnant and I had more serious issues to deal with, not because pregnancy is per se worrying etc but because of circumstances (no help) and financial instability, moving house etc. They did show their true colours and I should have learned my lesson as even though they got all “sweet” with baby later, they still showed their true colours again and again, they got toxic, backstabbing and mean.

I had also the reverse: a ex friend turned frienemy, knew around what was my due date when I was having my second baby which happened to be just 2 days before her birthday. She also learned that I thought I wasn’t expecting that it would be the due date I was given baby would come, but possible 1-2 days later. Well, she never was the type to make birthdays a big deal with many friends and take them out, except of a few closest friends and her hubby (but she did expect very good presents and roll her eyes if she thought she got something cheap even though herself was a very stingy person and she even gifted to me a used scarf once which maybe she even found somewhere like on a bench or something -so stingy).

That year when I had a baby organised in the last minute when she had the news from flying monkey (who also was one of those jealous of my pregnancy nr1 and more drama -big story) about my due date. She got a cheap small cake from coop or something and took them out in a pub (not private fuction) some friends who managed to get there in short notice but not her usual “besties” who are more lavish and maybe would look down on her for that last min cheap arrangement but her colleagues and the flying monkey off course. Flying monkey being from husbands family side. She was hoping to get the attention first but I had had the baby 3 days earlier 😅 She splattered the photos of the “party” all over Facebook which isn’t usually her thing, made sure she tagged the flying monkey so I would see it.

I think she got unhinged when she found out that although the flying monkey was/is technically my frienemy she didn’t have a choice than to play the “good person” this time around in contrast with her behaviour when I was pregnant with nr1. She had found all sorts of reasons to cause drama and make me, pregnant with issues, look bad and deserve of her no attention, offer of help etc. (as I said a big story) but got in between the blood family members of my husband (her husband and her sister in law) being asked to be there for us in case we needed it with babysitting for child nr1 .

Flying monkeys sometimes get caught in the net like that. They would like to be toxic as the true low level narcissists they are (and ti switch to full blown narcissists) but they can’t always. She was all smiles in those pics with the ex friend and that ex friend who I believe is a malignant narcissist was looking so cold on her birthday and like she put a fake smile on- I didn’t even see true warmth when she stood next to the flying monkey/ auntie of my husband.

Narcissists and toxic people get unhinged about their birthdays without them being really so giving for their friends most of the times either.
Anyone who gets unhinged about a friends/colleagues/sister pregnancy is a big X on my book now. They are pathetic.

My mother in law died a week before my Birthday last month. Of course, I told people to forget about it because my wife's grief, and that of her child, sister and dad was far more important than a single Birthday was to me. This P should grow the fuck up.

P sounds absolutely insufferable!

Crunchy usually means opinionated, smug, self-satisfied individual who attempt to force their particular parenting methods onto other people. Think lengthy diatribes about cloth nappies, UPFs, breastfeeding, baby led weaning, microplastics, nursery, eating chips/ crisps/ chocolate, watching TV or god forbid an iPad. They’re usually annoying as fuck, especially since they often only have one child and are being bankrolled by a wealthy partner or family.

Nothing you’ve said about P makes me think she is any better. She sounds like a complete narcissist.

OP to give some more constructive advice I think the mature way to manage this is to not get too involved with the actual arguing but point out bluntly that there's a vulnerable, pregnant lady in the middle of all this so the arguing needs to stop. I'd make a point of leaving any watsapp groups etc if it continues but I'd also reach out in private to W and make sure she's ok. She's pregnant and there's clearly some complications. If she takes her friendships as seriously as you think she does she's going to be in bits about this. I'd be focussing on minimising the stress for her and reassuring her that you aren't going to fall out with her. That's the priority right now. She's literally growing another human being and the stress could be very damaging for her and baby.

P is obviously being unreasonable. W can’t help being induced on her birthday. It’s ridiculous to think she picked that date deliberately.

I'd struggle to maintain a friendship with P now her mask has slipped and she's revealed herself to be an utter C..T. SO ridiculous. There aren't even really different sides to consider, it's just one lunatic of a woman behaving like a toddler.

getting involved in other people's ridiculous tantrum is why people say you should all grow up.

Who has time for that shit? P refuses to speak to anyone, ok then. Who cares.

It’s not very unlikely at all .. it’s very likely. I had 3 inductions and delivered all within 5 hours. Of everyone else I know who have been induced, they’ve also all delivered in the same day 🤷‍♀️

The ‘grow up’ comments OP, are aimed at you all behaving like immature children in the playground. 😵‍💫🤷‍♀️

P is ridiculous, you don’t get to choose your induction date ffs.

P is being ridiculous. I struggle to believe W picked that date, my understanding is the hospital selects the date on clinical need and their capacity

Could another angle to it be P is getting shitty partly as she doesn't believe in inductions?

But most reasonable adults would agree either way that the safe birth of a baby takes huge priority over the date of that birth.

I have 2 close family members who share the same date. They have somehow survived so far 🤷‍♀️

What the actual F? This can’t be real.

P is an absolute idiot. Is she really seriously thinking her birthday is more important than W's health and the health of her child?

Not sure what the voting options are but P is 100% the unreasonable one

P is ridiculous. Aside from that W might not even have the baby on that day. I’ve had 2 friends recently whose induction dates got moved because there were no beds.

This might be possibly one of the most ridiculous threads I've ever read on here. P is absolutely pathetic.

@Tornad What did P say in response when you pointed out all the reasons she was being unreasonable?

That goes without saying, but that wasn’t the point I was making here.

It's not clear from your OP what the votes actually stand for. Nobody thinks P is normal.

Looking at this from another angle, I wonder if P is very depressed and thinks no one cares about her. And all her upset about this is coming out in the wrong place.

It is hard being a "crunchy" mum if that's the route she's taking - often seems to involve sacrificing yourself for your child, And lots of potential self-judgment as well as judgement of others for not being crunchy enough.

Or she could just have lost the plot.