Friend keeps dragging up the past

[scotchpotch]

Not so much an AIBU, more of a WWYD but posting here for traffic. DH and I have been together for over 35 years. We see this particular friend once or twice a year (she lives in a different country, I’ve known her from school age). Every single time we see her, she brings up a huge, public stupid drunken argument DH and I had 30 years ago in a pub on NYE where I was in the wrong and made a fool of myself (I’d assumed he was having an affair - he wasn’t, he was actually planning a really fun ‘experience’ type gift for me which involved lots of clandestine phone calls!). I apologised and we agreed to draw a line under it. I cringe every time she mentions it. I’ve tried everything I can think of…laughing along with her, breezily brushing it off, redirecting the conversation, telling her it makes me feel uncomfortable, asking her to stop talking about it. DH has also asked her to let it go but she still mentions it every time and we are walking on eggshells as we both know she’s going to drag it up again! What would you do? Any ideas welcome. We text and call regularly and it’s never mentioned - only ever face to face.

"ANYWAY, Sandra, has anything at all interesting happened in your life over the past 30 years - because it most definitely has in mine since THREE DECADES AGO!!"

I would tell her via FaceTime or by a separate serious message or whatever when you are arranging the next meet up specifically that:
“I know xyz happened in the past but I would be grateful if you’d not being it up when we meet as it’s really upsetting for me and makes me really sad. So can we please leave it in the past forever now where it belongs and not discuss ever again”.

If she ignores this request and still brings it up I’d do what a previous poster suggested and maje her feel uncomfy by twisting it round.

If she still brings it up the next time you meet I’d start the convo by saying:
“great to see you again so let’s just get this out of the way so we can enjoy the night as I hate you bringing it up, yes i did xyz years ago so can we move on yes so how are you, youre looking great…”. If she takes the hump sod her.

can you tell her to shut up and that the topic has been done to death and it was nothing to do with her in the first place? sounds like she needs you to be very blunt about it. tell her that you are on the verge of not wanting to meet her over it being dragged up again. may make her reconsider?

You need to be more blunt.

‘I’ve told you I don’t like you bringing this past incident up. Why do you keep choosing to make me uncomfortable?’

if she says something stupid like ‘well you shouldn’t have said it then’ you’ll have to stop the friendship. Either tell her it’s because she’s repeatedly choosing to make you uncomfortable or just phase her out. I would tell her though. You feel uncomfortable in her presence because she chooses to bring up things from long ago that are sorted, knowing how uncomfortable they make you feel. So, you feel she isn’t a good friend and you can no longer see her.

she is doing it on purpose. Maybe she’s jealous of your and DH relationship and wants the 2 of you to argue again.

Do you have any embarrassing stories about her?

“I know , so embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as that one time you …..”.

I’m a petty, childish twat though.

If she ignores your requests not to bring it up then let the friendship drop. Both of you have told her and still she carries on. It is wholly disrespectful. You do not need this in your life.

If she asks why you seem to be so unavailable then tell her. Say you have asked her not to keep bringing it up but she has ignored your requests, so it is easier for you not to have to put up with this......

"This is getting really boring now. Why are you so fixated on something that hsppened decades ago?".

Stand up and sing "Let it go... let it goooooooo" 🎶

Great responses, thank you. I was worried I was the one who overreacting or being unreasonable as something brought up as a ‘joke’. Sounds like I need to be firmer and I will ask her by text not to mention it before we next meet. If she does, it’s goodbye from me! I don’t think she fancies my DH but she is lonely and hasn’t got many friends, so maybe that’s why she gets fixated about this one event. Or maybe she just likes making me uncomfortable. Either way, you’re all right; it’s not a great friendship if she doesn’t respect my feelings.

You need to tell her that if she raises it again, you will tell her to leave.

😆 In full Elsa costume, perhaps?

I agree to bring it up first “Hey friend, you’re ready for your second glass of wine, you’ll want to start bringing up the time I was completely in the wrong. Shall we do that now to get it out of the way?” or

“Well [friend] you’ll be pleased to know that I won the bet. [DH] said you’ve wanged on about for 30 years and won’t mention it any more, but I said you enjoy making me feel hurt and embarrassed too much to stop. And here we are.”

To be honest, if she starts on the “shouldn’t have said it then” I would go for the jugular.

when I tell her it makes me feel uncomfortable she says stuff like ‘well you shouldn’t have kicked off then/you should have thought about what you were saying’.

You should have thought about what you were saying 30 years ago, and you didn't, so it's fine for her to bang on about it every time you see her?!

She really isn't a very good friend or a nice person!

Its because she has nothing else in common with you? Like school friends who talk about playground stuff well into their 80s

We have an aunt like this. Expectation that she'll be invited and when she does she has a drink and starts needling away at people.

She last did it at an appalling Sunday lunch several years ago to the extent that we have never seen her again. It was just too soul destroying to keep putting ourselves in the way of her spitefulness. Life is better without her in it.

Yes, I agree.

I had a friend who'd bring up random comments made years ago and ask me to explain what I'd meant by it. She was the type who enjoyed making other people uncomfortable in a 'gotcha' sort of way.

She started dropping things into conversations that were relevant to my life but I hadn't told her about. She admitted inserting herself in a friendship group with my ex's wife (the woman he cheated on me with). She was getting gossip about his previous girlfriend (me) and then testing me with the gossip to see what I'd say.

I knew this woman for 30 years. She wasn't really a friend. I was her entertainment. Her life fell apart and after several snivelling phone calls about the self inflicted drama, I realised I didn't care. I told her I wasn't going to be taking any more calls from her and to find a therapist.

I was done but it took me far too long to get there. I don't miss her.

I think she's jealous of your relationship and is trying to "prove" that you're not actually happy together.

If you really want to keep the friendship, then I'd write her a message (saying it's from both of you) that says you feel like she's trying to cause trouble in your marriage over a misunderstanding from 30+ years ago and that if she does it again then neither of you want to see her again. Make sure it's a united front to show her she's going to have problems with both of you if she does it again.

Absolutely unbelievable that you would continue to have contact with her and invite her into your home to upset you again and again.

I genuinely cannot understand that. She doesn't like you, she doesn't like to see you happy, she certainly doesn't want to allow you or your husband forget a low point in your relationship.

Horrible woman.
Let her go.

She sours any time you spent together by picking the scab in your relationship, never allowing it to fully heal.

It's really fxxked up that you both would agree to be around that.

I can understand that your concerns were significant at the time, but obviously - as you say - it's ancient history now; and it wasn't even something bad that DID happen all of that time ago, but just the worry that it might have.

Can you find something minor and slightly embarrassing at the time but otherwise unremarkable that happened to her decades ago - and keep mentioning it every time she brings this up?

Did she once accidentally put salt in her coffee instead of sugar? Did she once comment on a book that she'd borrowed from the library, when she'd forgotten that she'd actually bought that one from a bookshop? Did she once forget to put her clocks forward and turn up to work an hour late? Did she once accidentally hand over a fiver instead of a tenner when spending £7.42 and the shop assistant had to ask her for more money? Did she ever sneeze in public and do an involuntary fart as well?

Has she really done/seen/experienced nothing in her own life In 30 years that this is the only 'anecdote' that she has to this day? One that wasn't even hers but somebody else's at any rate?

What @wizzywig said. Maybe it's because she thninks you haven't got much else in common. Maybe it's a compulsion. I would bring it up before she does or ask her seriously why she brings it up every single time. It's very odd if nothing else. As PP says we all did stupid stuff when we were younger.

I had a ‘friend’ who used to do this too. Every bloody time we’d meet up she’d bring up something I told her and just wouldn’t let it go even when I pointed out we had far more interesting things to talk about! I think it made her feel better in some way. I dropped her eventually and never looked back 👍🏻

I’d say it makes you feel humiliated and your husband uncomfortable, so please stop. If she doesn’t, then I’d let her go. I had a school friend who would criticise my family, life decisions and my opinions, stating it wasn’t me (based on who we were as teenagers). I’m 55, I’ve matured and with life experiences, a family and kids, I have changed from who I was at 15 like most people. She never moved on and it was tiresome, she also liked repeating embarrassing stories to my DH from when we were teenagers. It felt like she did it to humiliate me so I don’t see her anymore. She still lives with her mother and didn’t make a life for herself so I think that’s why she’s still stuck in the mid 1980s.

Explain that you dont like hearing it - everything you said on here. After that, tell her calmly that if she ever mentions this again you will never speak to her. And follow through.

I agree. I dont think this is quite as innocent as she makes out.

I think she is jealous of your relationship and thats why she continually brings up the one time you've had a huge public row despite it being 30 years ago. The fact that when you told her it upsets you she didnt even say "oh sorry! I didnt realise" and then stop, it means she knows it hurts you and doesnt GAF. In fact, she even blames you for the fact she has to keep regurgitating it because she says "well you shouldn't have done it then". Think about how ludicrous and nonsensical that is.

She is not a good person and I think after a few glasses of wine the mask slips and her spitefulness and jealousy comes out. I dont think firm words will stop her I'm afraid. I would be distancing myself- she doesnt have your best interests at heart.

There are literally thousands of topics of conversations to have at a dinner table, and she continually circles back to this one. Ask yourself why.

When she brings it up, just ignore it, give no reaction at all. Don't give it any attention, just blank face.
Also try and not have any feelings around it anymore, it's just a silly thing from the past, everyone makes mistakes and that's ok. If you don't feel embarrassed about it anymore then when she brings it up you won't react to it, so you're not feeding it anymore.