Upset friend I am gutted.

[Highfivemum]

A bit of advice please as beginning to doubt myself. I have no relationship with any family except my DB. complicated and very hard childhood but me and DB are happy now and both in a good place. However we were contacted by a family member a few years ago. ( who we didn’t known but had done an online DNA test ). We both choose to ignore this person. Too much has happened and too many awful memories to even think about. We are both happy with our choice. However my friend who I would consider my best friend has started discussing our choices with her new partner. No idea why but he is very vocal and Opinionated in my mind and he has convinced her that we are wrong to dismiss a new family member. This has escalated to it becoming our only conversation and this morning I told her if she didn’t drop it she can’t forget our friendship. She has taken it hard. I feel awful. We have been friends for 15 years and it hurts so much. But my childhood was truly traumatic and she is just bringing it all up again. My DB agreed with me as she also was going on at him to. But was I being unreasonable

TBH she would have lost me when she started discussing it with her partner, before she and her partner got vocal about it.

Bringing it up again after seeing it upset you so much before, continuing to bring it up every conversation after you’ve made your position clear, and gossiping about your trauma with her boyfriend.

She’s not a friend at all. In fact she’s a terrible person.

I would never contact her again. If she reaches out with a full sincere apology you can decide what to do, but this is all absolutely on her and her problem to fix.

Also see if the DNA site will remove your data, or at least your contact details so this never happens again.

Two things

1. Friendships can be healed. You don't know where this is going to go. In a couple of weeks or months you may be best friends again. As John Lennon said after he and Paul had made up after their horrendous falling out which broke up the Beatles 'Well if you can't fall out with your best mate who can you fall out with'?
2. I am from a dysfunctional Irish Catholic family. There were 13 siblings. Poor mum. I realised after I was about 30 that I shared little in common with them and just drifted away. I realised that families are just a group of people that you know by accident. There were three older brothers who were particularly problematic for me and I just stopped seeing them. I felt much better for this approach. They had their own issues arising from our shared background but my own happiness and peace has to come first. I didn't want them dragging me back into self doubt etc.

I hope this helps. Don't doubt yourself, you have done nothing wrong as far as I can see. You have to look after yourself. Your happiness comes first.

Good luck with it all.

All done thanks.

thanks all and I am so sorry other have gone through similar trauma.
I am not going to contact her for the moment. She did text me in the night to say I had deaply upset her and she was walking away which punched me in the stomach even though I was the one who said too.
to be honest people’s thoughts on here have really helped me. I struggle ever being confrontational and have never argued with her. I would have thought she would have realised the last time when I walked away in tears and said please do not discus it she would have got the message. But I do feel bad for reacting the way I did.
thanks again

People who have not been through traumatic childhoods do not understand. that it takes huge strength to walk away, especially as humans are so conditioned to embrace family connections even when they hurt us. Noone makes these decisions lightly or easily.

You are doing what is best, right, and healthy for you by having no contact with people that hurt you. You are right to protect yourself from people who don't support you.

Why do you keep describing the family member as a random person that has “crawled out of the woodwork”? They found the OP because the OP had put their DNA on a public site designed to find family members? Ok the OP has now said that was a stupid thing they did when young (which they had never rectified in the interim by removing it) but that isn’t the family member’s fault. People on these DNA sites are actively looking for relatives so there is a reasonable expectation that they will be fine with being contacted. And if they then reject contact, it can be hard for the family member to understand and they can’t unsee what they have seen in terms of the existence of the new family member. I think you are being very derogatory of the person who used the legitimate site for legitimate reasons and had a legitimate expectation that the OP wanted to be traced.

Agree with @SALaw - we went through one of those sites to trace DH’s relatives on his dad’s side, I’d hate to think of them speaking like that about us. The relative did nothing wrong and likely has no idea that their actions were upsetting.

Obviously this doesn’t mean the OP owes them anything!

@Highfivemum what strikes me is that your former friend has actually behaved very badly to you. They’ve gossiped about you, pressured you, seen you get upset, carried right on anyway, and then when you got justifiably angry they have complained of being upset and now somehow you’re feeling guilty.

They should be upset. Because they behaved badly.

You were correct to react angrily. Because they behaved badly.

I’m sure you know that children from abusive backgrounds often find it difficult to form healthy relationships and set reasonable boundaries in later life. Take this situation as a prompt to look at your friendships in general and whether they are positive, healthy relationships. It might be worth exploring with a therapist if that’s an option.

Exactly! It’s none of her business & she has absolutely no right to badger you & your brother about your decisions - who the fuck does she think she is? And her partner sounds like a massive twat! Do not feel bad for telling her to shut up about it!!

Not quite the same but I decided to contact my step df from when I was small. (He has a hobby with a website I came across. )
Those emails stirred up horrific childhood memories -(perfectly pleasant emails but stirred up some awful stuff -not related to him but to my dm )
.I became quiet mentally unwell and stopped replying.

Your friend seems very dim.. and possibly they want some gossip to enhance their sad lives.
Don't keep too much hidden op. I am awaiting therapy for bad mh in my 50's..

Instead of holding her hands up and admitting she has treated you badly she has turned the tables on you making out you she is the victim here. Classic manipulative gas lighting to make you feel you are in the wrong for being upset by her actions and reacting to her repeatedly triggering you.

OP, please do not listen to people who will tell you that because she has not experienced what you have, she cannot understand.

You walked away crying the last time and she continued on.

She is a nasty nasty bitch and no friend to you.
She is no loss.

Your friend is not a friend. Any decent person would be sincerely apologising for overstepping the mark and asking for your forgiveness.

It sounds like the pair of them have watched too much Long Lost Families and fancy themselves as the new Nicky and Davina.

I think she’s been hounding you and your DB on the subject to try to make you crack and tell her all about your traumatic past so she can go and gossip about you to her bf. She is no loss

@Highfivemum you sound like a really caring friend and I'm sorry your friend has reacted the way she has. It is her loss to lose you as a friend. You've done nothing wrong and have reacted in a way that merely was asserting your very reasonable and understandable boundaries. I wish you and your DB well.

"sorry you upset her" after she repeatedly tried to "advise" the OP even though she had been told not to???