Sorry to post with something that might sound relatively trivial but could use an external opinion (but please be gentle!)
I know it is not that uncommon for university friendships to drift and it has been a good decade since I left.
Things with my friends went a bit wrong a few years ago.
I'd got married and got a part-time job, while DH had gone back to being a student so I was also being the major breadwinner. And over a meal out, two of them were really nasty to me about what I was doing to my career, saying I was playing second fiddle to my husband, and why on earth was I supporting him financially (it was only for a few years and it has switched back round now to me scaling back and him earning more).
At that point we were ttc, and I had gone part-time with a view to there being a baby on the scene quite soon.
However, in reality it has taken us several years to get there, and much heartache on the way (fertility problems, miscarriages inc. a very very late one, hospitalisation, ill babies).
During that time, I didn't go out of my way to see people who could make me feel worse and actually spent a lot of my time on my own just holding my head above water. My career was the only thing I had going for me, and it knocked my confidence to have it disparaged so and didn't want to risk these girls doing it again.
I was pretty upset that this group having heard the news were not supportive to me at a difficult time; but now I am emerging from the difficult years look back and realise that perhaps it seemed that I was unavailable, perhaps my problems touched too much of a nerve for them to really reach out. I thought they were friends who were more like family but perhaps they I placed them in the wrong category and were more like acquaintances.
Anyhow things have come to a head now, in that one of them is getting married and I haven't been invited to the hen or wedding. It does hurt, but I can see she might just want current friends involved, might be limited for numbers etc.
I did in fact bump into her recently after a long gap (she does live quite near, while the other girls are in different towns); and she mentioned the wedding, which was why I was a little bit surprised not to hear any more. She did message when DS was born to say she was glad he was well (he'd been ill after the birth) and I invited her over but she never came. There's been no more contact apart from that, except that a 5th friend (who has been very supportive to me) sometimes drops bits of news as she is the bride-to-be's best mate.
So I'm not sure what to do. I probably should just move on and take this as a signal that she's really not interested (I mean it's about as clear a sign that you can give not to invite someone to your wedding, esp as she was a part of my hen and wedding a few years back).
But it would be nice to p'raps send a bouquet of flowers and invite the whole lot of them to a party we plan to hold over the Summer, a get together of friends (the first we have felt strong enough to host for years now that we are in a better place).
I've lost confidence though, am wary of friendships now and of how they work.
Am even scared about inviting people in case no-one wants to come! Tho have discussed with DH and got a list of invitees.
Would it be appropiate to drop the group an email invite? And think about sending flowers for the wedding? What happened was years back, I'm in a better place so whatever they say about my career it won't knock me, but hopefully they will have grown up a bit and have realised that as you get older, combining career, work and marriage is a complicated thing? A lot of friendships have fallen by the wayside, and I am building up a new circle; but it just feels sad to be excluded in this way, even if it is a consequence of drifting.
Any advice welcome. Have really lost confidence in my own judgement.
Ultimately after having written and read that back, this doesn't feel like friendship anymore. DS is now 2 and only one of them visited when he was 6months old, as she was shopping in my town and we were summoned to meet her while she shopped. Another got back in email contact when he was born then when I explained the difficulties we had had in the lead up to having in, never replied.
Really confused about what to do.