Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Friendship Issue - how would you proceed?

64 replies

CarpoolKaraoke · 19/05/2016 12:20

This isn't an AIBU and I felt uncomfortable with taking 1 part of the issue and turning it into one which I could've done, and made it very clickbaity, but actually the whole thing just makes me very sad Sad and I just didn't want it to end up in the Daily Mail. I regularly post and have NCd and will lose specific detail to make myself and my friend less identifiable.

I think I'm being dumped as a friend.

Have known both my best friend and her now DH for a very, very long time. I was one of her bridesmaids when she married. In the run up to the wedding, everything very much revolved around my friend for about a year, but nobody minded, I didn't mind, I absolutely loved being her bridesmaid felt touched and proud and she wasn't a bridezilla or anything, but post the wedding she has found it impossible to 'let go' of being the centre of attention, making things about her/her wedding that aren't about her. I don't want to give the specific example but a tragedy happened and she tried to link it to the wedding in a superbly crass way.

Last winter, I became very ill and had to be hospitalized. Despite repeatedly reassuring me that she would be there for me THIS TIME if this illness recurred (I've been ill before and she hasn't been) she not only wasn't there, but was very dismissive, and sent me texts that read like they'd been written by a stranger. I still totally believed that she would at least be up to visit when I was discharged and not only did she not, texts petered out almost totally too, even when it was her birthday I only got a perfunctory one thanking me for my gift. I did try and address it months ago, but was told "everything's fine, just very busy etc"

To add insult to injury she has made the effort to meet up with another friend to "support" her with something highly trivial (imagine local baking competition) even though it's a further distance, I suppose because it's more light and fun Sad I wasn't trying to "bring the drama" I just wasn't well! And it's just VERRRRRYYY fairweather of her. I see these memes about "dumping friends who aren't worth the energy" and can't help but feel that this is what she's done.

I literally haven't seen her since the wedding almost 3 years ago, and have now received an (unsolicited) list of pre-approved gifts for her PFB Shock which I wasnt aware was even a thing!!!! And the worst thing is is that some of them aren't for baby but things more suited to a wedding list.

I just think she's disappeared up her own arse and I don't even feel like getting the baby anything now even though I'm expected to.

I miss my friend. It's a long friendship, but I not only feel like she's a different person, but that maybe she was ALWAYS like this and I just didn't see it til now. Have examples but won't drag on.

What would you do?

OP posts:
DumbDailyMail · 30/05/2016 20:35

I literally haven't seen her since the wedding almost 3 years ago

So why the angst? Confused I can't imagine why you were bothered about the email. I'd have assumed it was sent by mistake. Buying a present was an odd thing to do and saying you will buy another present is even more peculiar. Confused I struggling to understand why you would do that.
Sometimes you have to take responsibility for you own actions. No one if forcing you to send birthday and baby presents, you are choosing to do so. You can and should choose to stop.

gandalf456 · 30/05/2016 20:45

How high is your self esteem? Mine can be quite low but even I would have ignored the list. What do you think she'd have done if you had not got a present???? Sent you a bitchy text ? It would have been a great opportunity to tell her why.

Now that you have got a present you've opened up a can of worms when you could have let the friendship die. You still could. DO Not get anything else

TheCrumpettyTree · 30/05/2016 20:50

Stop pandering to her and don't buy any more presents.

memyselfandaye · 30/05/2016 20:52

Stop buying things!

RunRabbitRunRabbit · 30/05/2016 21:04

FFS don't buy another present after the first one has been sneered at!

Might as well paint the word "doormat" on yourself and lie at her feet.

Btw, it is creepy to keep buying presents and sending messages to someone who has dumped you, even if it is a friend not a partner.

You are better than her. Move on.

dangerrabbit · 30/05/2016 21:08

Why wast your money. Let this friendship go.

Creampastry · 31/05/2016 07:09

She doesn't give a toss about you. Don't be so needy and walk away.

ElaineVintage · 31/05/2016 07:37

She's laughing at you Carpool. Don't let her do this!

LellyMcKelly · 31/05/2016 07:41

You haven't seen her for 3 years, not even when you were ill, then she sends you a list of baby gifts? Er, no. That ship has sailed.

CarpoolKaraoke · 31/05/2016 11:10

She hasn't officially dumped me she sent me birthday and Christmas presents this year - officially I'm still her "best friend" to be honest in the last 12 months I equally haven't phoned at all and haven't texted much it's not like I'm bombarding her with contact in fact I may have started it - I got a text about a year ago. Thought FFS and didn't reply straight away, then my phone broke and I forgot the text.

I have already said I'm buying the baby something else so I have to now, and then I'm ghosting.

I'm not needy OR a doormat but I do feel badly treated certainly

OP posts:
springydaffs · 31/05/2016 11:34

IMO you hang on to old friends, even if it's by a very, very thin thread.

I have an old friend who behaved very badly for various reasons - in a similar ball park to your friend - and I distanced myself to a speck on the landscape... But didn't entirely bin her.

About 20 years later (sorry to say) and now we're very close. She recently came through with flying colours at a gruesome time in my life. I'm so glad I kept her on the periphery in the interim.

Tempting to say she's changed, of course Grin Waiting for her to grow up go back to the lovely and kind person she had been when we met was painful and I often wondered whether it was worth it. But we dribbled along, barely any contact, and came back together eventually.

That said, I binned my oldest friend without a backward glance. Horses for courses.

Sorry this is so painful Flowers

CarpoolKaraoke · 31/05/2016 11:43

That's what I'm hoping springydaffs - but I'm happy to distance for now. We are in very different places as well as locations.

OP posts:
Atenco · 31/05/2016 13:44

IMO you hang on to old friends, even if it's by a very, very thin thread

That would be my philosophy. Our personalities are not set in stone. I know I was wiser at the age of 16 than I was at eighteen, and I was nicer a few years ago than I am now. And, as I said, her husband will have affected your friend's personality for good or for bad.

springydaffs · 31/05/2016 15:19

In a nutshell, it's fair to say my friend's life has smacked her around a bit - hence her climbing down off her high horse.

It's so lovely to have her back after her long sojourn. I loved her all along but, my goodness, she was a royal pain in the arse for a while.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page