So hurt, a 24 year friendship seems to have ended, is it my fault?

[spikeycat]

always seem to be asking for advice here, sorry...

It was a good friends wedding a few weeks ago, and we went along. When we sold our car a few weeks later I found the bloody card and gift vouchers, I was mortified, but figured I would give them when we met up to discuss the honeymoon etc. That was supposed to happen saturday night, but I didn't get called. I called another friend who went on sat today, only to find out that they did all go out and I wasn't invited. I was really really hurt. And the reason is the friend who's wedding it was didn't want me going out as I didn't get her a card on her big day.

Lots of nasty things were said about me, how I never return calls etc and two of our group have fallen out (the bride and my best mate who stuck up for me). I really don't know what to do, I am so hurt by all this!

I did go on a hen weekend abroad (at a cost of about £500, plus other money I spent out etc). I left my breast fed baby to go, and both children were left for the first time so it was a big thing for me. I can not believe she would do this over a 2 quid card and some vouchers. The thing that hurts me the most is the way I was excluded, I don't go out a great deal (who does with 2 under 2!) and feel so pissed of that I am being slagged off for something that was a genuine mistake, and the fact she didn't tell me herself! help!

Oh, spikeycat, that's horrible. I definitely think she's overreacting. Can you write to her to try and explain the misunderstanding and smooth things over? Obviously lots of things have been said now, but a 24-year friendship is surely worth making the effort for? For your own peace of mind I think you want to be sure that you've done everything you can to salvage the situation. If she still doesn't want to know, then she's not a friend worth having. (On the other hand, your best friend sounds tops!)

call her

pretend you don't know anything about it

ask her about her honeymoon

tell her you know it will take a while to write out all the thank you cards for presents and not to bother about yours because you know her well enough to know she's grateful

.... how does she knkow your card didn't get thrown away with all the wrapping paper?

the trouble is it is always someone who gets ousted by her, and I feel like its just my turn. I can't discribe how upset and hurt I am, I think its really cowardly not to frint up to me, if I was that pissed with someone I would. Am going to e-mail her this:

Hi bla
Have phoned bla bla this morning to find out why saturday night didn't happen only to find out that it did and I wasn't invited on your say so, to say that I'm hurt would be an understatement!
I can understand why you are pissed off with the card situation, but if you had had the courage of your convictions and spoken to ME directly about it you may have not felt the same way.
I left your card in the car, along with some vouchers as for some reason I could not access the link that was sent to me for your wedding list and I couldn't go in and choose something from the list with two little ones playing up in the shop. I found the card when we sold our car a few weeks ago and was going to give it you when I saw you (which would have been saturday night had I been allowed to come). Anyway, I'm not making excuses for myself, thats what happened.
I can not believe you were/are blanking me out of our group friendships for what is a minor faux pas, and lets face it, fucking a friendship over for the sake of a two quid card and 30 quids worth of vouchers! Why couldn't you have just called and said?
I did at the end of the day spend about £500 going on the hen wk end, which I am not moaning about because I enjoyed it, but I went there for you, cos I love you and wanted to enjoy that experience with you.
I'm sorry you have fallen out with bla bla about this, as I think its all so pathetic and pointless. I do at the end of the day bla have two children under two and life does get pretty hectic for me at times, however, I like to think that I do make the effort when it comes to firendship, you obviously don't think I do and for that I'm sorry.
No point going about it, I guess I thought more of you and our long friendship than you did of me.

any comments mumsnetters?

Well, it's to the point. I can see you really want to get this off your chest, but are you prepared for it putting the final nail in the coffin of the friendship? I'm not saying your wrong, and you may have the kind of friendship that can stand this level of heat, but it's an irrevocable step. Emails aren't like face-to-face rows and she's going to read it cold. It says everything that you want to say but be prepared for a backlash. Just a word of warning.

um .. don't do it spikeycat .. you'll just inflame things

you need to write an 'unemotional' note to her, which will need you to sleep on it

so don't send anything for at least 3 days OK?

oooh good letter SC - you get your point across with emotion without sounding like you are about to knife her

spikey cat try writing another one now you've got that off your chest. I know you're hurt and understandbly so but if you send this I think it will close a door you may not be able to reopen and TBH all the info you've had is second hand. I would ring her.

Fuck, I sent it -

I just don't like back stabbing, and to be honest I feel like that if the friendship can teeter (sp) on something so silly for her why bother??????????

Think i better get down the docs and get some happy pills, seem to be fucking up all my relationshis at the moment and doing nothing but feel extremes of sadness or anger

Spikeycat, I totally agree with Twiglett - wait. Rewrite. Then wait. Then rewrite again. Then wait again!

Your friend really does sound like she's done the dirty on you. Vent here, but unless you really feel you want to end the friendship, don't do anything yet.

Oh shit, posts crossed. It's done now, and you've got it off your chest.

Don't worry if your friend doesn't get back to immediately. She might be waiting three days to get persepective!

Can you talk to one of your other mutual friends who you can trust not to stir things?

don't worry you can always send another in a few days .. it wasn't so bad, you did tell her what she meant to you

hang in there, it'll all seem a lot of fuss over nothing in a few weeks

Well, it's done now. The ball's in her court to salvage the friendship if she wants to. I think however she responds you still have the option to email again in a few days when you've both calmed down. If you want to, that is. If you think it's a friendship not worth having, then you've done the honest thing.

yea, and I have done, haven't stopped crying over this this morning, which is pathetic as who cares, theres bigger things wrong in life eh!

I'll let you know if I get any feedback. She can be quite vicious herself so lets see huh???

Oh honey, I'm sorry your feeling so bad over this. Friendships can be bloody hard work sometimes. Almost as bad as sexual relationships without the bonus of sex when making up! Be nice to yourself today.

You might find that you need to have a 'full and frank exchange of views' to get it out of both your systems. I had a fantastically fierce and honest argument with my sister and now we are better friends that we have ever been before.

I have a lot of sympathy spikeycat. I used to have a really good friend - had known her since we started secondary school - after Uni we found ourselves living near each other so we got even more close. We would go out in a foursome (with our dp's) and even went on holiday together. Over the years I had watched her fall out with practically everyone in her life - she didn't speak to her father for 4 years, she had a big bust up with her sister and refused to go to her wedding (she was bridesmaid!), fell out with work colleagues etc. I somehow thought I was exempt - 'til she did it to me. To this day I don't know what sparked it off - she simply stopped talking to me (in my house one evening- just blanked me for the night!) We then didn't see each other for 3 years. Part of me wanted to ask what it was I had said or done that was so terrible but, like you, part of me thought well, whatever it was, over 15 years of friendship can't have meant that much to her.

I have seen her since and things were cordial (but oh so cool). She now seems to be trying to rekindle the friendship - emails and cards but, frankly, I've moved on, got married, had two children, kept my good friends, found new ones, and I don't want to know.

I think some people are serial faller-outers - perhaps they are just too unforgiving/demanding to sustain a real life relationship with its ups and downs. She had said things during our friendship which had hurt my feelings/upset me - but I had let them go, because that's what friends do. Whatever it was I said or did (and if it was so terrible, surely I would remember it!) I don't believe most people would have thrown away a friendship over it.

Btw, the last correspondence I had from her was an invitation to her second wedding. The dp she was with when we were friends (when we all went on holiday together) she has since married and divorced. Serial faller-outer, as I said.

You've sent the email now so see what comes of it. At least you have said your piece - I didn't have the nerve to and just let it go. Try not to be upset over it though - she isn't worth it.

Well, at our wedding four years ago, a couple of people didn't give us a present. I didn't make a huge deal of it and certainly wouldn't have stopped being friendly with a person because of this, but I was pretty hurt at the time, and didn't say anything. Your friend presumably thought you were deliberately hurting her by not giving a card or gift. She was wrong, but it was a silly but honest mistake. She was lashing out at you because she was upset and thought you were being the bad friend. Personally, I think a response like: 'God, sorry, you must think I'm awful but when we sold our car recently we found the card for your wedding and the gift vouchers we bought you in the glove compartment. We obviously forgot to give them to you and I'm so embarrassed..." might have made things better faster, as she would have been mortified and apologised back (at least, I'd hope so). We often think we can read other people's minds and tend to assume they have bad motives for what they do and that's what your friend did. I really hope you can get over this. 24 years is a long time to be friends. If it is really upsetting you, then maybe you could actually call her and speak to her? Tell her you think you have both been feeling hurt and assure her that you made an honest mistake.

I agree aloha, and thats exactly what I was going to do, however, she has decided to run me down to everyone with out even having the balls to say it to me!
As i said in my e-mail to her, I totally get why she was pissed - its the other stuff thats hurt
Not having a go at you at all, I just feel like I made an error, and rather than speak to me about it I have had the judge and jury and the verdict before I got a chance to give evidence!

my inlaws fall out with everyone but their speciality is "neighbours" usually over boundaries for some reason. FIL thinks he can just take bits of next doors garden for his own benefit and then wonders why they all get funny with him. He tried to tell us our next door neighbours garden was encroaching into ours FFS

Oh I totally agree she was in the wrong here. Absolutely. No question. But at the bottom of this is that you made a silly, innocent mistake (forgot to give her the present you bought), and she also made a mistake in that she assumed your actions were deliberate. She was hurt and upset and lashed out. I'm not surprised tbh that she didn't call you to talk about it, I don't think I would have done either, and she was wrong to attack you in front of a group of friends, but I have also assumed that the two people who didn't get us a wedding present were at best thoughtless and at worst, despicably tight, but have never said a word to them. I suppose it's possible their gift just got forgotten somewhere, but they've never mentioned it....

Also SC my best friend of 20 or so years too was clearly pissed with something (!) i had done and I posted a couple of months ago on this as I was really upset. Her mum delivered a present to me and we had a long chat about why and how X and I had come to be like this. I explained how I felt about the friendship and how I felt she put no effort into it. Her mum went back and explained my side of the story (which did annoy me) but the upshot is she is now less selfish and calls me weekly !

thanks everyone, I am putting it in to some context now. I can totally understand why she was unhappy, I would be too, but I have e-mailed her since her honeymoon asking if she had a good time and she sent a lovely e-mail back, saying it was great etc, so nothing was said then? Its just being excluded from the night out etc that hurts, I think if she felt strongly enough to do that she should have felt strong enough to say something to me directly?

umm, SC, look at it like this. whose situation is more straightforward/easy to fix: a wedding guest who has messed up and, for understandable reasons, forgotten to hand over a wedding present? or a bride whose good friend seems not to have bothered to get her a present?
surely it would have been easier for the guest to apologise and de-fuse any bad feeling (even a long long time after the wedding) than for a bride to confront someone who hasn't given her a present.
yes it's all very petty and silly but weddings do weird things to people. small things become very important.
i get the feeling though that there's much more to this than the issue of the present, and the issue of the non-invite. perhaps it's one friendship you don't feel is worth saving.

Ah Spikeycat, how many of us are brave enough to confront people like that, eh? Esp if feeling fragile and wounded? If she thought you deliberately hadn't bought you a present, then she probably didn't even know what to say. I think most of us have the tendency to complain to others rather than approach the object of our ire directly - Mumsnet is proof enough of that !
Yes, she was wrong and she made a mistake about you (as bakedpotato says, weddings do make people go a bit doolally anyway). Maybe you have other issues with her that make you think this is a friendship that isn't worth saving, but if you do, maybe now is the time to talk to her. It is totally your call though.

Well, I'm feeling fragile and wounded, and I've confronted her about the situation
I wouldn't have even known about all this if my other friend hadn't of stuck up for me, it would have been nasty whispers behind closed doors.