Upset with long time friends - long

[momtoboys]

I have three very close, long time friends. All married but one. Each person has one of the group they are the closest to but we have all tried really hard to stay in touch as a group. We get together for theatre, dinner, drinks to catch up; sometimes with spouses, sometimes not. We text occasionally as a group. I consider them all my best friends even though I have friends in my life that I see more regularly.

A few weeks ago we all met up with some other friends to watch an event at a local pub and one friend (the one I am closest to) said to the others "when is our first play?" They responded with a date. I said to my friend, "did you get season tickets to the theatre?" She replied "yes! I assumed the tickets were purchased as a group, but was not certain. A few days later I called my closest friend and said "did you get tickets with the girls or with your husband?" She responded that she had gotten them with our other friends and one of their daughters. I said "I wish I had known, I would have loved to have gotten a ticket with you". She responded "Oh, I'm so sorry - I guess we got talking about it and it didn't even occur to us". She seemed as though she was truly sorry. We talked for a few minutes and I told her I was disappointed but understood that those things happen. She texted me shortly after and said that the friend who had been in charge of purchasing the tickets was calling the theater to see if there was another ticket near where they were seated. There was not. I thanked her for trying and that was that.

I have not reached out to them since. This is unusual. My closest friend has reached out and I have responded but not with the normal enthusiasm. She called me a couple of weeks ago and I let it go to voice mail. I then texted her and said "thanks so much for calling. I have to admit my feelings are hurt about this theatre thing and I don't really feel like talking about it yet. Mostly I think I am upset because you said it didn't even occur to you to ask me. Maybe I need to rethink my expectations of this friendship. I said this is not he end of the friendship and over the years you have all been wonderful parts of my life but I need some time to adjust my expectations and all will be fine". She responded "I'll give you some time but please don't take too long, I miss you".

It's been a long time since I have had my feeling hurt like this (I am an old lady!) and perhaps I am being childish. AIBU to think I need to realize that this friendship is not as important to them as it has been for me? Sorry this is so long. Please don't be outright mean if you respond. I'm a little fragile at this point.

Thanks.

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I totally get it. I also think it was rude to mention it in front of you like that. You've been left out

I'd be nurturing other friendships and making new ones. Maybe meet up with theatre women but it would never be the same.

Thing is though a she’s already said to her original friends that she’s re-evaluating their friendship on the basis of this (and stopped talking to them). If she then rocks up to the theatre with a new group of friends and ‘takes them and leaves’ the old group I’d take that as a pointed message that she doesn’t want to be friends with the original group. That’s fine if that’s what the OP wants of course!

I’m probably near your age op and something similar happened to me recently.
It really hurt because I regularly arrange things and always include everyone. We have a WhatsApp group so it would take more work to leave someone out than send a general message to everyone.
I did talk to the person I am closest with and she sort of apologised, but it has made me reevaluate the friendship.
I don’t spend so much time sorting out events now and I spend more time with other friends.
It made me realise you can’t really rely on friends if they think so little of you that they ‘forget’ you.

There was obviously no ill intent, your friend apologised and tried to sort it. I get why you were upset but you can’t sulk forever and if you want to keep the friendship you need to move past it. And honestly you could just get your own theatre ticket. You sit in silence and watch the play anyway so it makes no difference really that you aren’t all sat together and you can join for the pre theatre dinner, interval drinks etc. then just go off to your separate seats.

But op is upset and actually I admire the honesty instead of game playing and being cold but saying your fine and the other person knows you aint. Its ott but its op reality in how she feels. She may regret it but I also think feeling left out of a group is a normal and common and no its not down to something else going on thats just you trying to be condensing!

Good friends who regularly do an activity together don’t just forget to invite someone - maybe this has to do with the children’s’ feelings on this who are also attending I.e. how they feel about you rather than a reflection of your friends thoughts and feelings on the matter as between a rock and a hard place so torn - iykwim

Yes, I can understand why this hurt op, and I think you were very clear to her about why, which was much better than going quiet or sulky etc without an explanation.

However, I also think your friend has made an effort to make up for it. She tried to get a ticket for you, she reached out with the messaging, and when you explained she said she misses you - all very clear signals that she is sorry.

I think we do have to let people apologise and demonstrate they are sorry, or relationships will just collapse whenever they hit a mis-step. I do see how you feel hurt and reluctant to carry on as before though - but I think you will be the biggest loser in the end and it's time to embrace her apology.

I meant to quote this in my post just now. I think this poster sums it up.

I don’t think the cold shoulder approach is especially mature and comes across a quite childish. Nobody likes to feel like they’re in the doghouse for an extended period of time - especially when they’ve apologised and tried to sort it. Telling them that you want to re-evaluate the friendship to me comes across as you don’t really want to be friends anymore (as otherwise what is there to evaluate?). You can’t tell somebody that and then expect them to wait indefinitely on if you’ll forgive them or not (and then expect to go back to normal)

This is what you need to put right. You've said that it's not the end of the friendship, but at the same time made it clear that you no longer feel the same about them. So it may well not be up to you whether the friendship continues. It's their turn to feel hurt and they can choose whether they want to include you in the future or not.

Mumsnet advice to set boundaries is all very well. But one person's boundaries usually affect other people too, and they can decide what to do with them.

Personally I'd go back, say that you'd been feeling down recently and you're aware that you probably took this too much to heart, and that you hope you can all draw a line under it and enjoy each other's company as normal.

Why do you think it’s condescending? I just think that poster meant that to respond so strongly might suggest that perhaps OP is in general feeling a bit vulnerable in some way. I can get that, I think I’ve done the same in the past. Haven’t we all? Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Now, if she’d said something like ‘have you considered counselling, OP?’ then that would have been dickish.

Seriously?! She was honest, apologised and tried to rectify. It doesn’t seem like they meant anything bad
your text was too much but she responded appropriately. It’s either get over it or lose your friends. Your choice.

I think it is natural to be hurt when you see you've been left out by close friends. I am old too and I have found over the years that there are some friendships where I perhaps value the friendship more than my friend does and other friendships where the friend clearly values the friendship a bit more than I do. I think this happens a lot in friendship groups. I, personally wouldn't deliberatly leave anyone out and as I've gotten older I'm rarely bothered if I'm the one left out. I think that as you told them you would have liked to go and they tried to get you a ticket at least they took your feelings on board albeit too late. As someone up thread said, I took think it was a mistake to take it further. If your friend shows your message to the rest of the group they are all likely to get defensive and close ranks. Probably inevitable if they are feeling a bit guilty. Your main friend in the group seems to genuinely want more contact with you so I would accept this graciously and get in touch. For the future though I would be a bit cautious about considering this group "best' friends. 💐

But we don’t know if they deliberately contacted each other and left the OP out. If they often go to the pub without OP then it easily could have been a face to face discussion when she happened to not be in attendance. OP herself has said that they often do things separately/in smaller groups. It’s thoughtless but it sounds like her friends have apologised and tried to sort it. OP hasn’t mentioned a pattern of behaviour or any other time this has happened. Seems a bit OTT to me to ditch a group of old friends just because of a one off mistake they clearly feel bad about. Only OP can know how representative this is of their friendship in general. Also I’m sure at some point OP has done something thoughtless and upset a friend - haven’t we all?

I would be really hurt by this and would probably just distance myself totally (cut off my nose to spite my face as they say) which is not always the best way forward!

It sounds like these friends miss you and value your friendship, it might be worth getting together to have a bit of a heart to heart and then draw a line under it. It sounds like you have a good circle of friends there and its worth hanging on to,

I completely get it OP.

It's not a one-off event, it's a season ticket. So as part of the group you'd have to hear about all the plays they go and see together. It's not a one-and-done. It's a constant reminder that you weren't invited. The only one who wasn't....

Although you all occasionally break off and do smaller things without the full group being present, it sounds as if you all make an effort to do big things like this as a group.

The problem isn't that the seat can't be added now - it's that you weren't thought of in the first place. And there's not an easy way to fix that.

It's inconceivable that they wouldn't think to see if you wanted a seat as well. The only conclusion I would draw is that they didn't view the friendship in the same way I did. That's the only possible way that you could be "forgotten". And yes, that is a really brutal truth to swallow.

All the nice words in the world can't cover up the fact that not one single person in the group thought of you - despite the fact you normally do things like that all together.

It's tough OP. Being excluded clearly wasn't intentional but that's not the point - the issue is that it shows that they think of the friendship in a different way to you. How else can you possibly explain why you were left out?

I'm not quite sure how you pick back up with them again as there's not really anything they can do to fix it - they've shown how they view the friendship, and that's their prerogative. But it's hurtful if you viewed it as something more.

This would hurt my feelings too. I don’t know how to help. Other people are saying you risk losing the friendship by “making a thing out of it” but the alternative seems to be pretending it didn’t happen, and it was them that did something insensitive so I would struggle. I have a situation like this with my family which I have chosen to sweep under the rug for the sake of still seeing them, but it still hurts!

Your feelings are valid and I understand why you are upset.
However I do think bringing it up with the individuals will sour the friendship more than had you chose to ignore it.
i would put it behind you now and not mention it again. Although I completely understand how you feel. Maybe look to widen your circle of friends and spend more time with other people.

Can you imagine men doing this? This makes me glad I don't have this kind of relationship with my friends. It sounds very claustrophobic if people can't even book the theatre without someone in the group being upset. If you want to go to the theatre, get yourself a ticket. I don't understand the drama, and if I would have received a text like that from a friend I would find it a bit over the top. I don't know why women are strange about this.

I mean maybe, but the other version of this is they were just being a bit crap. I’d never purposely do this to anyone, but I am a bit scatty and disorganised, and certainly have done similar things by accident and can imagine that happening in a group of friends.

Now, that would be an understandable reason not to be a friend of mine, I get that. But the bigger dramatic explanation just wouldn’t be true. What would be is that we see friendship in general differently vs the specific one in question - and this probably would be a good reason to end the friendship because it would just happen again. And maybe that’s the real reason that OP and her friends should go in separate directions.

But she’s not pretending nothing has happened - she’s raised it, her friends have apologised and tried to fix it. What else can they do? It’s thoughtless but doesn’t sound malicious. I’m sure we’ve all accidentally forgotten to include somebody at some point (or done something equally thoughtless). OP can either decide to take a step back from this group or not - but she can’t expect to tell them she’s re-evaluating the friendship, stop talking to them and then just expect to go back to normal if she decides to get back in touch.

That makes no sense. You don’t have any friends and avoid your wider family, in case you might one day have to deal with a minor incident of thoughtlessness, such as the OP has experienced?

When it all came out I wonder why your closest friend didn't suggest you getting a season ticket also?

Presumably they knew you would be interested & able to regularly go?

The purpose of going to the theatre with different friends is just so that she can continue to enjoy the theatre without sitting on her own or missing out completely. It wasn't intended as a means to deliberately snub the others. No reason why she can't tell the others that she was hurt to be left out but will still be going the theatre and maybe will see them there. If they see her and approach her for a friendly conversation then maybe the friendship can be salvaged, if that's what she wants. If they ignore her simply because she is there with someone else then that's on them. They surely can't expect her to just sit at home for a year after they left her out of the season tickets!

This is the kind of situation where I think to myself 'could I have accidentally done this to a friend that I loved and valued?' and the answer is invariably 'yes'. Sometimes our brains let us down and we simply let something slip even if it is important to us. They obviously weren't trying to deliberately exclude you and they tried their best to rectify the situatikn as soon as they realised their error.

I think part of the problem is that is that it seems like a bigger deal because it's an ongoing series of events. One small-ish oversight a few weeks ago feels like a lot of separate exclusions as each play comes up. I hope you can preserve your friendships (and maybe apologise for reacting so strongly but explain it's because you value their friendships so much?).

I think the point is that OP would always have been included and somehow she wasn't, not that a larger group of friends group and regroup to do stuff.

Yes, I agree.

She was straightforward and honest.