I am a middle aged mum with a good job and some exciting career opportunities ahead of me. I don’t tell you this to boast, I say it to explain I’m not a timid, anxious or insecure person. However I have found myself the recipient of behaviour at the school gate which has reduced me to tears (in private), and has made me feel like I am 13 again, unsure, on the backfoot, hurt and confused as to how this happened. How someone who I once felt very close to, and would have confided in, in a matter of weeks has become the person I dread seeing most. I am emotionally intelligent, so I understand the process of what is going on, I understand that I have encroached on this friends territory, and am more involved in the school now than I would have been a 4 years ago - and that this must be difficult as this territory has always been the thing she is awesome at. I decided after a few months of very subtle lines of territory being drawn to distance myself from the activities and to a lesser degree her, but essentially just to remove myself from the conflict. I always believed it takes two to come to a fight and the best parenting advice I ever gave myself was “just don’t turn up for the fight.” But this has made things worse as she believes me now to “have a problem with her” and I believe she has retold the narrative in such a way that she is the one who has been hurt. I have seen the “knowing looks” passed between her and other parents at the school gate. If I make the effort to speak I get a cool response and cold shoulder body language and if I try to avoid feeling like a shunned 13 year old desperately looking for a friend in the playground so I don’t stick out like a sore thumb and don’t approach her, I am ignoring her. I can’t seem to appease the criticism no matter what I do. Even writing this I am upset and this is just not like me. I am a kind person I think, and I am incredibly hurt by this friends behaviour but I am just as hurt and paralysed by the thought that people are being drawn into sides over this. There has been a very definite cooling off of friendly conversations by other mums at the gate too. For all my capabilities I am at a loss to know what to do to address this situation in a way that doesn’t create more hurt.