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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

To withdraw from toxic friendship group ?

186 replies

Judygiraffe · 30/09/2021 10:08

So I'm 29, and am friends with a group of girls I met at secondary school , age. 29. Last year one of my friends , "left the group" as she felt it was toxic. She said she felt that both of us were just there to make the others feel better about their own lives , and I'm beginning to agree.

The queen bee married her childhood sweetheart at 22. At the time , because k wasn't in a long term relationship , I had a few more sexual partners than her. She'd regularly make comments to imply I was a slag, e.g. "I'm sorry, but your not discarded vagina is just not as sacred as ours."

However the marriage broke down when she was 26, ( she works at a university , she cheated on him with one of her 19 year old undergraduate students). Immediately after the marriage broke down, she signed up to dating sites and was having multiple sexual encounters, ( including threesomes), with men she met off the internet. She never apologised for repeatedly calling/ implying I was a slut previously, and instead went on to judging and making harsh comments about people she felt hadn't had enough sexual partners , ( she's now changed from judging people she feels have too much sex, to judging people who have to little sex).

Despite this , I was supportive of her during the time of her marriage breakdown. She'd ring multiple times a day, and I was supportive. Yet we went out for a meal with another girl in the group a few weeks later, and she rveeted back to openly mocking me for sleeping with more people than she had in front of the other girl, ( at this point, she had actually slept with many more people than I had, but didn't want the other girl to know this). I didn't say anything to reveal she had been having threesomes / sleeping with more men, as I didn't want to embarrass her.

She regularly gives the , ( unasked for) opinion that Lucy* , ( another girl in the group), "doesn't know how to be single" and berates her for getting together with her new boyfriend too quickly after s relationship break up. Despite this , she was signed up to online dating sites within days of her own marriage breaking down....

She regularly mocks me and Lucy for making "bad choices in relationships" but skirts over the fact her first husband had a lot of issues, ( he'd regularly shout racist abuse out the car windows at other drivers, would regularly shout "j , get the f out if my chair, I want to sit next to my f* wife" at group meals), and that she then dated on her undergraduate students.

She regularly makes comments about Lucy's tattoos being badly drawn and tacky, despite the fact she herself has tattoos.

The queen bee told her new boyfriend I had previously been raped, and he casually brought this up in conversation the first time we went out for lunch together, which left me feeling awkward. He regularly gives pseudo diagnosis's to members of the group , ( one evening he repeatedly told me I must be autistic cos I didn't look people directly in the eye, and refused to listen despite the fact I wa getting tearful and trying to explain I have a diagnosed visual impairment that makes that difficult). He also tells anyone that will listen that Lucy* had classic abandonment issues due to the fact her parents immigrated abroad when Lucy was 19.

We also have a mutual aquantance who has a mild learning disability, ( still functioning enough to work, drive , live independently etc). She has recently announced an engagement to a lovely man, ( I have met him), and instead of saying congratulations, all they can do is laugh and mock cos she had a broken engagement to someone else four years previously.
Am I right to just slowly stop bothering with the group ?

OP posts:
MassiveHoard · 20/10/2021 20:04

Any group that has a queen bee isn't worth bothering with IMO.

SleepingBunnies21 · 20/10/2021 20:09

I'm just trying to imagine any boyfriend uce ever had doing what he's done to a girl I'd fallen out with/was having issues with .... I can't, thry si.oly would never have gotten involved or stuck their nose in. Even if I'd asked them, I think they'd have said no.

Likewise I'm trying to imagine any boyfriend I've ever had doing what he did to you at thst first meet lunch (or ever), and likewise the behaviour towards the quiet guy in the group; again, I simply can't imagine it; because they're normal, well.adjusted people.

He's an absolute nut case.

You'd feel.soery for her if she wasn't he way she was.

SleepingBunnies21 · 20/10/2021 20:12

Also feel.sorrg for anyone forced to interact with him through work etc.

He would always pick his victims though.....if he didn't, he'd get smacked on the regular.

tootootaataa · 20/10/2021 21:01

Good. They are a bunch of twats and you are better off without them.

PennyPooBags · 21/10/2021 10:26

Queenbee and her bf are both horrible aren’t they.

You are well out of it.

Judygiraffe · 22/10/2021 12:32

And now some leaflets about "adult diagnosis of autism" have been posted to me. There is no note with them, but I recognise QB's boyfriends handwriting on the envelope. Do I bin as I'm feeling incandescent with rage right now ?

OP posts:
RepentBirthingPersonFucker · 22/10/2021 12:57

Do nothing
They are spoiling for a fight, don't give them it

Curioushorse · 22/10/2021 13:11

Bleurgh. Bin them. How weirdly obsessive (and also quite offensive to autistic people!). Arrange to meet up with friend who also left the group. Go for a drink and embrace your new life!

I also, at about your stage withdrew from a friendship of similar length from school. It wasn't toxic, she was nice enough, we were just so different. I had changed and grown as a person a lot since school (unsurprisingly), but whenever I was back with her she treated me like we were 12-year-olds again, and I was low on this geeky pecking order that just didn't exist now we were adults.

I do think about her occasionally, but I've never regretted it.

Ihaventgottimeforthis · 22/10/2021 13:21

Oh recycle them and forget.
I think the drama of you moving on from them will probably fuel a few group chats, until the next person gets the guts to leave and then the rest of them gradually realise they have nothing going on in their lives apart from creating a toxic narrative about other people and they are bonded by fear and bullying :-)

lisaandalan · 22/10/2021 22:40

I would stop bothering with them, but would go out with them one more time to tell her a few home truths about herself in front of everyone once she started on me. X

nicecheesegromit · 23/10/2021 07:46

They're doing this to get a reaction from you. Anything you do will just give them warped satisfaction. You have to just ignore and move on. Eventually it will all die down. You have to get out, new hobby/ job / whatever and find some new friends

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