So-called best friend

[user1471425679]

To cut a long story short, the woman that I thought was my best friend has not met (nor made any effort to meet) my 6 month old DD. She has promised to visit but the visits never materialised. How do I get over this hurt?

Oh gosh I can understand why you are so hurt. I wonder whether she would really like a child of her own, and therefore finds it too difficult to visit you & your baby. She may feel envious and resent your new family.

Otherwise she may think that she is not interested in babies, and you two may be at different stages in your lives. My closest friend always said she didn’t want children... ever. When I had my first baby, she eventually visited and stayed for about 20 minutes, whilst our other friend waited outside my house in her car, she didn’t even ask to come in!!!

My closest friend got pregnant 3 years later.... and loves being a mum and it brought us even closer. And the friend that stayed in the car that time, had just adopted a toddler after yearning for motherhood for about 8 years!

So people do change. I think she is being thoughtless and a bit selfish. If your baby is 6 months old now, I’d be contacting her to meet for a meal and a drink in the evening to see if there is a friendship to salvage here.

If she is still not keen then get out to local baby and toddler groups and make a few new social networks for support and good laughs.

It took me a year before I met bfs baby. It wasn't about her I was so down with pnd and anxiety from having my ds 9 months before she had her dd. I just couldn't go visit. You don't know what's going on behind closed doors.

It took every little bit of strength in me to visit my best friends and their children due to a termination I'd had that I bitterly regretted. I couldn't cope with the baby showers, scan photos either and I'm dreading my niece/nephew being born in six weeks. Once again it'll be a stab in the heart reminding me why I hate myself so much. That I'm evil and deserve this pain.

(For reference I am getting help for this)

Do I sound over dramatic? Probably. My point is though, my best friends don't know any of this. As close as we are I am to ashamed of what I did to tell them.

Just, maybe ask her if she's okay before you cast her as a villain.

If she’s your best friend why haven’t you raised this with her? It’s time to have a frank discussion.

Not everything is about you. Or your baby. Meant in a kind way.
If she is your best friend cut her some slack. There must b3 a reason why she has not been, think about her and what might b3 going on for her.
Congrats on your new baby.

Where does she live in relation to you and what are her circumstances? Is she working, does she have kids of her own, would she normally have visited within this time frame?

Depends. Need more info. If she's only a few miles away and doesn't have any issues such as suffering from infertility or having suffered a baby loss that would make the visit painful for her then I agree it seems a bit off of her.

But if she lives hundreds of miles away, works full time, is struggling with personal problems, ill health or coming to terms with childlessness then I think you should cut her some slack.

And of course, if she has young children of her own and there is huge distance involved it's not always easy to arrange a good time to visit.

My bf did this too with my second baby. There was no special 'backstory' or reason for this (those making excuses for her behaviour need to at least recognise it may just be pure laziness) I remember how hurt and confused I was - same as you.

When you have a baby your world stops. It is life changing and the most incredible thing to happen to you. Meanwhile for everyone else life just goes on. Your bf is clearly out of sync with your life/ this feeling for whatever reason.

I did it have a frank discussion with my bf, after eleven months when she still hadn't made it over. There was no reason, she said it was because she was a single mum and found it hard to see a happy family unit that she had so wanted....but she would definitely come...she never did.

It was deal breaker for me, and I haven't spoken to her for nine years and never will again. You don't need a selfish self absorbed bfs and I haven't missed at all.

Rocketgirl when you say ‘made it over’ I assume that means from abroad...or do you mean she was in the next street?

Until you have been in this position it is difficult to describe how hurtful it is, I felt that she was deliberately rejecting my newborn baby and deliberately hurting me. Her lack of a credible reason made things worse not better.

In my case it was simple jealously, yours may be too. Something unimagined, it might be just that your not as close as you thought.
You will go on to make kinder and better friends.

No, she lived 1/2 hour from here.

My BF didn’t come see my DS until he was 4mo. She came once and then I didn’t hear from her again until about 4 weeks ago (he’s now 14mo.) I was never mad at her as I knew there must have been something. I was of course very upset and thought my DS had done something. Turns out my BF had had a miscarriage shortly before but didn’t bring it up due to my traumatic CS and “didn’t want to make it about her. “
Talk to her. It’s not all about what’s going on in our bubbles, no matter how bad it is.

How far away is she?
What's going on in her life?
Has she been in regular contact?

I haven't yet seen my bfs baby, born in December, but I've had stuff going on with my marriage ending, DC has been ill since December with asthma, ear infections, hand foot and mouth and sickness bug. As much as I'd love to get there so far life is throwing obstacles in the way.

Has she been in contact with you though? Texts/phone calls etc? If her contact with you is normal then maybe she’s just not interested in kids? It’s perfectly ok to have no interest whatsoever in someone else’s baby. Maybe suggest having a coffee out somewhere when someone else can mind the baby for half an hour? Or maybe she thinks she’s doing you a favour by not getting under your feet? Have you asked her? I think you need to speak to her directly about why she’s disappeared for the last 6 months and take it from there.

There could be a lot of factors here. It depends on where she lives in relation to you in the first place. If she lives far away then I wouldn’t expect her to have visited yet, but if she lives within 20 miles I would have done. Also, does she have any history of miscarriage, termination, difficulty conceiving, PND, a recent broken relationship or mental health difficulties? Any of those could make it very hard for her to visit.

Have you invited her? Given her a date/some dates?