Friend has cancelled on me last minute

[hungryowl]

Due to go away this weekend from Friday to Monday. Friend has been having rocky patch with husband. She has messaged me today saying she can no longer come as she needs to focus on her family and not have a boozy weekend away. I paid for the whole thing and she was going to cover activities. She has just done me a bank transfer for the full amount so I’m not out of pocket.

We have had many outings before but in the message she specified that at 42 she no longer really fancies boozy weekends and she feels that I haven’t made an effort to reach out at all in recent months and just doesn’t want to go anymore! I think she’s peri menopausal but it should be no excuse cancelling last minute. I wanted a break away from my family as well. I have told her she needs to prepare more for her kids going to uni this month and preparing for empty nest feelings. I don’t like her husband and have been questioning her relationship with him to her whilst they have been arguing and advising heavily to leave him because as she’s getting older she’s now going to pottery and walking groups and spending more and more time with him and I feel like we are losing our connection. I want to go out and be social like we normally are and she’s being extremely boring. Her husband has issues with me because I had an affair but was fine with me before now he seems to think I am a scary influence.

AIBU to just cut her off now?

Good on your friend for standing up for herself & setting boundaries with you. You sound very bullish, entitled and arrogant. She sounds like she's finally had enough of trying to tell you nicely she doesn't want to do the things you think she should want so she's living her life on her own terms. Good for her.

Absolutely definitely cut ties with her. She really doesn't need an elderly drunkbuddy if she can have a lovely peaceful life doing crafts and spending time with her husband.

She is NBU to decide to work on her marriage, and to not want boozy weekends any more.

You are NBU to feel upset and offended. But go anyway!! Why on earth wouldn't you?

I think the friendship might end up fizzling out. You are at different stages and want different things. The fact that you don't like her husband and think she deserves better is irrelevant here. Please stay out of her marital issues and let them sort it out between them. Maybe you'll find that some of your other friends are more keen on doing the same activities as you?

Having said all that... I'm a few years older than you, have never been on any kind of drinking-based weekend, have no real concept of how that might look, but would hate to feel overstimulated, knackered and hungover after that. It sounds like hard work!

You need to realise that you are admitting she told you what she wanted and you went off and arranged something different with no discussion. Had you done so, then the weekend break may never have got this far as you would have both realised you wanted different things from it.

You are coming off as controlling and I think you need to rethink the dynamics if you want to save this relationship.

Indeed. Sounds controlling on OP's part

This is the problem, she's telling you what she needs but you think you know what she needs better than she does. Be a friend and listen to her

TBH I sympathise more with your friend. She refunded you so you’re not out of pocket. Life is chaotic and as a premenopausal woman with older teenagers, life is changing. Stop making it all about you.

I find that very hard to believe, as therapy generally doesn't make people selfish,

if anything it would be people going into therapy and being completely unaware of how selfish or demanding they come across to others??

with this perhaps becoming apparent during the course of therapy...

with hopefully the intent to also moderate these behaviours as an additional unintended therapy outcome/goal - as facilitated by a good therapist

In reality, its generally (but not always), the unselfish/over-givers/people-pleasers that find their way into therapy and as part of their process, start finding out about their boundaries, self-interest and assertiveness. This can be quite a shock for others who became very comfortable with how that person was prior to therapy.

He is probably glad of a weekend off

Me me me me me me me.

Or not prioritise a piss head dullard ahead of her health and marriage.

Wow. Do people like this actually exist? Now I think this is just a wind up as no one can genuinely be this daft.

Almost everyone else thinks you are in the wrong. It isn't last minute and she has paid you in full so you can cancel and also get refunded. Go out and get wasted with your husband.

You sound like an awful friend. She has told you she wants to stop drinking and you steamed ahead with planning a drunken weekend. Grow up you aren't 19 anymore.

She doesn't want to spend time with you. You call her boring! No wonder she doesn't want to go away with you. You're going to turn up at her door and hound her??? She's wel shot of you, you are controlling and aggressively so from your posts. Fuming indeed. Block her. It will be a huge relief to her.

It sounds like you just want someone to drink with and if she refuses then you will cut her out of your life. That's not a real friendship. She asked her partner for help to stop drinking? And she is 42? That's a normal age to be done with regular socialising by poisoning yourself and losing control of your body. Quite a late age actually. And if it was her normal for decades, she will need to stop now to help repair the damage and avoid making it worse.

I'm not reading drip feeds - I read the OP and one more update - I haven't yet read anything at all about what you think the partner has actually done wrong to warrant you trying to end his relationship. You just think he's boring. It isn't boring to enjoy pottery, walks and conversation. It is boring however, to need alcohol to have a good time and to get drunk so you don't get to actually build lasting memories. The absence of good, lasting memories is literally boring.

Why does fucking 'perimenopause' have to be shoehorned into every single thread on here these days?!

Sounds like he has helped her realise that you are not a friend and you are using her. You don't want to do what she suggested because it's YOUR holiday and you want to get drunk. She doesn't. You are horrible about her being boring because she has realised you are using her.

I guess it's possible the poor friend is stuck between a controlling husband AND a controlling friend...

Team lady staying in doing pottery and other boring stuff anyway.

She doesn't want to spend time ‘letting her hair’ down to the extent you do. Sounds like you’re quick to blame her partner for being controlling because it’s easier than owning up to your relationship with alcohol.

I can understand you being annoyed about her dropping out so soon to the weekend but you do sound controlling and think you know best when no one knows what’s going on in anyone’s relationship unless you’re in it. Hope you leave her be and you still enjoy the trip!

You keep on about the husband being controlling but you sound quite controlling, who are you to decide how she wants to spend her time. People are allowed to change.

Surely as you are such a fun person to spend the weekend with, you could get someone else to go with you especially as its paid for.

Absolutely no point now engaging with OP . She clearly isn’t capable of looking at the whole picture. It’s all me me me …selfish and self absorbed.

Agree …it’s tedious!

My husband's friend (married, 2 kids) had an affair. I'm not going to encourage him meeting up with that friend because I now think he's a scumbag. But I haven't tried to prevent it.

However, if my husband was a recovering alcoholic and friend was both a scumbag and likely to encourage my husband to drink, and if my husband wanted a weekend just hanging out doing craft classes or at a spa and but his scumbag boozy friend decided he knew best and booked bars and clubs and told him he was being boring...well yeah, I would be heavily suggesting that my husband can do better friend wise and should consider leaving this friendship. Times that by a million if I knew scumbag boozy friend who overrides husband's wishes was also telling him to dump me.

Your friend has either grown out of bars and clubs or woukd love to but go needs to avoid them because she has issues with alcohol. She asked for a spa and you booked nightclubs. Maybe reflect on how you come across and your role in this OP.

Maybe she's realised in her therapy sessions that you are a toxic friend? You certainly sound toxic.

If I had a friend that constantly told me to leave my husband because "she doesn't like him" then booked a boozy / clubby weekend away when I explicitly told her that I would prefer a spa weekend, and she responded as you have? I'd bin that friend off whether we were "like sisters" or not. You seem to not care AT ALL about what your friend wants and needs at the moment. You are rude and disrespectful about her husband, you lietrally talk about her choosing "a man" over you. It's not a random man it's her HUSBAND.

I honestly think you sound like a selfish, pushy friend, and she's just gone along with a lot of your plans / ideas and now she's grown up a bit and realised that you're not a true friend.

You don't support her. You don't listen to her, or empathise with her. You've called her boring multiple times. You seem to have no loylaty to marriage (refering to her husband as "a man" and admitting to cheating on your own husband) And they way you keep talking about how she's "ruined your trip" makes me think that you are the selfish one.

I think that maybe it's your turn to go to therapy and self reflect. You sound like your 20 years old, not 42.

Do her a favour, and leave her alone to work on her marriage. It's not like you'd be a good support for her if she did leave him, I imagine you to be the "I told you so" type - Nobody needs a friend like you.

It’s another bloody reverse. They are so obvious. It’s really hard to write from
the other perspective convincingly, as it shows repeatedly on here.