I'm possibly going to come across as an arse, I hope not, I love my friend and I don't want to be a self righteous busy body.
Anyway, she's one of my oldest friends, part of a close knit group. She's probably the leader of the pack. Very strong character, quite formidable, very lovable. Earlier in the year, she confided to a couple of us that she was having marriage problems. A shock because this was the longest standing most stable relationship of all of us.
Things went from bad to worse, they went from trying to sort it out, to him wanting to leave her and the kids. It was like he couldn't stand to be in the same room as her any more.
We went through the whole OW thing, she found nothing, he could have hidden it well, who knows. He had an about turn though and they decided to do counselling and work on it. All seemed to be on the mend.
We don't all often get together with families but recently there's been a couple of events that we've all turned out to with OH's and kids. It's been a bit of an eye opener. Lovely friend constantly gives her H and kids a hard time. Lots of negative comments from her, eye rolling from kids, stone cold detached expression on her H's face. He made a comment to my DP about that being how life is nowadays. It sounds horrible, but she's done what she always feared she'd do, she was her mother. Only if her mother was on speed!
But then at the end of one of the nights, you could see after a few drinks, when all the kids had gone off, they were having fun together like old times, which was nice.
We met up at the weekend and she said things still aren't great. She knows he's unhappy but she thinks he just doesn't love her anymore.
I am not for one minute suggesting it's all her fault, and I know that when you're with someone who seems to dislike you, it can be a bit self-fulfilling and negativity can prevail. But is there anyway to say to her tactfully to maybe try and reign it in a little bit and see if it makes a difference? I should probably just butt out but I honestly don't think she realises what a taskmaster she is sometimes. And I think if she generally stopped giving them a hard time, they could all be a lot happier.
I wouldn't ever contemplate saying anything if she wasn't confiding in me that she doesn't know how to save her marriage