AIBU to rethink old friends after they reacted badly to delayed flight and prioritising my family?

[WhiteDress86]

I (40F) am originally from an Asian country but moved to the UK a few years ago after meeting my English husband (40M). We now have a 4-year-old daughter.

I have a small, close-knit group of friends from secondary school: two women (Mary and Susan) and one man (James), all around 40. We've known each other for decades and have been there for many of life's major milestones. I was a bridesmaid at Mary's wedding, and Susan was my maid of honour. I consider them my core group of friends.

Since moving to the UK, I've been taking my daughter back to my home country roughly every six months because my parents still live there. I'm an only child, so it's important to me that my daughter gets plenty of time with her grandparents, especially as they are getting older. I also try to arrange meetups with my friends while we're there, but because everyone works full-time and our schedules are difficult to coordinate, it's not always possible for all of us to meet together. Sometimes we manage a group meetup; other times, I see them individually.

This trip, however, has left me extremely disappointed in my friends.

Because of the insane cost of airfare, I decided to try a new airline with a very short connection in Frankfurt. Unfortunately, we missed the connecting flight and were rebooked onto the next flight, which was 24 hours later.

The original plan was:
1/8: Land in my home country
2/8 evening: Meet my friends and their children

Because of the missed connection, I didn't actually arrive until 2/8. When I realised we'd missed the flight, I initially told my friends that I could still meet them because I could take a taxi directly from the airport to the venue, which was only about 15 minutes away.

However, just before landing, I reconsidered. My parents were coming to pick us up, and after a 14-hour flight, plus an additional 24 hours of waiting around at the airport while entertaining a 4-year-old, I was completely exhausted. I decided that it made more sense to go home with my parents and let my daughter spend her first evening with her grandparents rather than immediately going to meet my friends.

I texted the group to ask if we could reschedule.

I was immediately met with anger. They accused me of ruining their plans and being flaky and unreliable. I explained that our flight had been delayed by 24 hours, that we'd spent an exhausting additional day travelling and waiting around with a young child, and that I wanted my daughter to spend some time with her grandparents.
Instead of understanding, the animosity continued.

Mary, who is also a mother, said that my daughter had two weeks with her grandparents, so this pre-scheduled meeting should take priority. I reminded her that the situation had changed because of the 24-hour flight delay and that both my daughter and I were exhausted. I also said that I hoped she could understand why family came first in this situation.

Susan then chimed in with: "PM us individually to meet up and we decide if our schedules are free."

At that point, I left the group chat. I feel like the friendship is effectively over.

I do acknowledge that I probably should have told them immediately, when I first missed the connection, that I wouldn't be able to make the meetup rather than initially saying I could still attend and then changing my mind. I genuinely wasn't thinking clearly at that point, though. I'd just spent an exhausting day trying to navigate an airport with a 4-year-old and get us onto another flight.

What really upset me was the extent of their reaction. I expected some disappointment because they'd made plans, but I didn't expect what felt like anger, accusations and a complete lack of sympathy for the circumstances.

James, the male friend in the group, defended me in the chat and has been supportive. My husband also feels that my friends' reaction was unnecessarily harsh.

So, AIBU? More generally, how could I or my friends have handled this situation better? Was I unreasonable for prioritising my daughter and elderly parents after a 24-hour travel delay, or were my friends justified in being upset because I had already committed to the plans?

Well that explains it. They reached their limit.

Absolutely. It sounds like the plan was always to inconvenience someone, either the friends by cancelling at the last minute or the parents by having them drive all the way to the airport, only to find OP in a taxi on her way to see her friends. From the update, this sound like a common occurrence too.

Rather than cancelling so late it’d be better, at that point, for you alone to have met the friends and your parents taken your DC.

you could ask James to add you back to the group chat you flounced from, apologise and try to meet up with whoever is available during the visit.

OP: They accused me of ruining their plans and being flaky and unreliable

Also OP: unfortunately yes im not known to be reliable

What exactly are you surprised about OP?

Also also this talk of priority is seeing grandparents and family come first. It sounds like you often make plans then decide something else is more important which is simply rude. You should apologise to your friends and tell them you understand why they're annoyed. Your time is not valuable than other people's just because you have a child.

Well this was probably the final straw then

Also your OP should read "AIBU to be annoyed my friends finally called me out on being a flake?"

You made a series of poor decisions - booking a flight with inadequate transfer time and then thinking you would still be up for a night out direct from the airport after a mammoth journey. But that’s not the core issue here, it’s your communication. You should have made a call to postpone as soon as your flight was pushed back 24 hours, but even then if you hadn’t and cancelled at the last minute said something like “I am so sorry to let you guys down, but I am absolutely shattered after being delayed and just cannot make it straight from the airport. I know it’s probably too late to reschedule a full get together, but I try to catch up with as many of you as I can when I am here. Apologies for the inconvenience !” instead of your nonsense about prioritising family.
It seems you like to be the victim in these scenarios and your less flaky friends have had enough.

You should have realised when you missed the connection that the best thing to do was cancel. Did you miss the connection because your plane was late or you failed to move fast enough? With a young child a tight connection was always unwise.

Saying you were prioritising family adds insult to injury.

Think they are rethinking you , as you change things last minute. They might have understood better had you messaged during your delay.

I think this was badly planned all round but yes, YABU. You should just have put your big girl pants on and gone to the event for a few hours. You’ve got 2 weeks to catch up on rest. Especially if you’re unreliable generally. Sounds like this is the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Sorry I think events now have shown you it is time to consider your own actions. The flight was delayed - it was at this point you should have thought it was right to cancel. A four year old going to dinner after a 14 hour flight? That’s nonsense.

Your friends were there with you intending to get a car but somehow you had arranged it and communicated with your parents to pick you up. So everyone is bending backwards for you and then you let people down.

And then your response in the group when they are rightly annoyed is high-handed and you come with some degrading nonsense about ‘family first’. Huh?

You also say this is a pattern and you’re unreliable. You got this completely wrong, own that and apologize.

I think you should have apologised and your behaviour is very childish. It was ludicrous to arrange to meet them on the day of travel. Your child and yourself were bound to be tired whether you missed the connecting flight or not. They have arranged to meet you with their families so there kids would be present.They"ve more than likely had to plan to arrange this so it is an inconvenience for everyone. I would have been understanding but I too would have said lets meet separately as coordinating schedules with 4 separate families is much harder than 2. If you are there for 2 weeks then 3 half days out to meet friends really wouldn't have been so much time away from your parents. It isn't all about you. Friendship requires compromise.

Mumsnet hates the unreliable - I think they sometimes are just people with more on or who struggle to arrange things. I would have a lovely night with the friends and happily see someone on a different night after a flight delay. I couldn’t care less if friends shift things round. That said if you have been flakey before just suck it up and consider that your friends feel hurt - say you love them and want to see the. But we’re just over whelmed after the delay. Talking about prioritising family is rude - it means you are less for therm which while true is rude. Thank lovely Names for his support. Be humble and see if your friendship can be saved.

You've made quite a lot of bad decisions and now you've lost these friendships

The title reads "AIBU to rethink old friends after they reacted badly to delayed flight and prioritising my family?"

It should read "Are my friends being unreasonable to have had enough of my flakiness"

And the answer, is no, they are not neing uinreasonable to have had enough of you chopping and changing arrangements, inconveniencing them and flaking out at the last minute.

Well there you bloody go.

Even before this information I was team friends, because it’s shitty to cancel at short notice and add on the unnecessary spiel about prioritising family which just sounds like they’re an afterthought to you. But if you’re repeatedly unreliable you just sound like a bad friend and I’m not surprised they’re sick of you.

Nothing more annoying than people who come to visit when everyone else is working, you take time out to meet them and then they cancel. Your friends are right to say that they can meet individually but finding a collective date may not work.

I say this as an Asian person living in the West with an 18 hour journey home…you could have left the daughter with the grandparents and popped in to see the friends? But going from the airport to this was always unrealistic.

And if your flight was that delayed you had plenty plenty of time to drop your friends a quick text.

I suspect the others are right and your friends have had enough of your flakiness and since you are now the ‘visitor’ they don’t feel the need to accommodate this.

I'm sure your friends will forgive you if you are able to give a sincere apology, and try to see it from their POV and the impact it had on them.

As a flaky person myself who is pretty disorganised and not good at time-keeping, even I can see why they were annoyed. You need to preplan travelling with precision, factor in delays and try to be proactive when things do go wrong, especially when plans involve others. It's rude to be cancelling things so last minute, especially if someone is putting themselves out for you. They will be feeling second best if you say family first (my DH seems to like that stance, I find it slightly odd at times, especially when some of his family don't reciprocate!).

Eventually, people get fed up of the waiting around to be cancelled on last minute. I've been guilty of it in the past, and occasionally still am. The key to being a sensible, thoughtful adult is not messing people around too much, apologise if you do, and be mindful of their time and effort taken to plan.

Lots of good replies here, take heed of the advice.

Im with you OP as long as you haven't been flakey in the past.
I can see how you thought you could power through the situation but having the child with you changes things.

I've been friends with my group of friends forbetween 15 and 40 years. In that time of course things have happened and plans have had to change or be postponed on the very last minute but everyone understands. I missed my close friends 60th after it had been planned for a year and gave her very little notice, another time I was sat in a restaurant waiting for a different friend. She is always 10 to 15 mins late but after half an hour with no word I knew something was up. As she set off to meet me she got a call that here elderly mother had fallen down the stairs. Nobody fell out with anyone.

Things happen, good friends understand. You have been treated badly by them

Kindly, I hope you are OK. Because even reading this makes me feel exhausted.

She said she’s not known for being reliable?

Your friends have had enough and are letting you know that they won't put up with you being flaky any more.

You're acting as though missing your flight was also out of your control, when you'd deliberately chosen a risky short time between flights - which is insane at Frankfurt (the most recent connecting flights I did in Frankfurt earlier this year involved 2 buses, a train and a half mile walk - all within the airport; it took me an hour and a quarter, and despite leaving 2.5 hours between flights it was still quite stressful).

If you want to keep your friends you are going to need to be more reliable.

You're not prioritising family, you're prioritising yourself. That's up to you, and I totally get being exhausted in that situation, but people only have so much patience with flakiness and you could have foreseen how you'd feel as soon as you missed your connecting flight.

Okay this changes things then