Help!
I'm a social person in many ways but feel like I only have a few close friends that I share and feel supported by, maybe less than a handful, but it feels like I'm always the one who will bend over backwards to give support.
Anyway, there is one friend 'G,' that I am always their go to person whenever they have any kind of crisis. For example, their last relationship they seemed to cut me and all other friends out as soon as it started.....then 2 years later when it ended drastically after most of us had seen or heard very little from them, I was the first person they contacted for support. I felt like I was on call, constantly, often there for hours while they cried and sought advice, this went on for months as it clearly hit them hard.
I don't have a huge amount of friends but the ones I do have I often think of as having some importance in my life, which is very demanding with work and family, specifically as I focus more time on my children and my eldest who needs my time and support due to his ASD.
So to cut a long story, this friend 'G' , who I thought of as a friend, would contact me to see me or ask for advice or support...but when I would contact them to meet they would already have plans or would get back to say they were meeting friends (that were mutual friends, but I would not be invited).
At one point I was invited to an afternoon meet up with friends and this particular friend 'G' was there also (they didn't invite me or even mention it) we both left together and decided to get some takeaway food as they lived in the same area as the friend we met that afternoon....and then as we left the takeaway she said that I would need to get a taxi home as I wouldn't be able to eat my food in her house as her lodger and lodgers boyfriend might not want anyone else in the house due to covid. (I had been in the house week before and the lodger/bf etc did not have an issue).
It felt really humiliating as it was almost like an unexpected thing that after getting the takeaway food near her house we would then walk the 5 minutes to her house to eat it (I lived 3 miles away and we had walked around awhile to get a shawarma place that was open)
So, I let it slide thinking I was being too sensitive, there were other points where I was not invited out but later found out that my friend had been out but never bothered to include me.
This all become more of an issue for me when I split up with my partner of 25 years and I had to leave our shared home for my own wellbeing. Most people at work and people in general assumed that I would be staying at 'G's' house, my kids even asked if I was staying with 'G' work colleagues and even my inlaws asked if i was at 'G''s place. However, as soon as I contacted G to let them know that I was in a bad place, that my relationship had ended, they just went silent. I didn't hear a peep from them for three weeks, yes, 3 weeks!
I felt like my friend that I had supported, that some people had warned me about as being self absorbed, had completely deserted me. I felt completely alone and did not feel like I had other friends that I could rely on for support, so booked myself into a hotel.
Eventually 'G' responded (3 weeks later) to my messages and said that they had been really busy and said that they hoped I was ok....no offer of support or anything relating to staying at their place even for a night, was forthcoming (they had a spare bedroom.....they have a 3 bedroom house and one lodger, no children).
Then in June, a mutual friend of ours was having their PhD exhibition up in Orkney. 'G' contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in going up there so I said yes, as it would be a good opportunity to meet our mutual friend and spend time together.
We went up via train and camped around Orkney for a week, we both filmed and photographed some stuff as we are both artists. While up there we talked about ideas and discussed themes and concepts for making some artwork which G wrote down and asked me at length about... that we would then exhibit in Orkney before taking to other venues....with out intention being to go back in March when we had time, to film the material and then make the work together for the planned project.
So...to go forward, I speak with 'G; fairly often, usually at least twice a week either in person or via whatsapp etc.
Last month, during a chat 'G' tells me that they went up to Orkney a month previous, and had gone back to some places we visited and filmed more material, they had visited some people and recorded interviews and filmed more material. They had not mentioned to me that they would be going back to Orkney (we live in Manchester so it's not around the corner). I had seen G in person a number of times and spoken with them a lot since their Orkney visit yet they had never even mentioned their plans to me or even after their visit, it all seemed very random and very sneaky. They then said to me that if I wanted to go back at Easter (as we had planned) they would help me with 'my project'
I feel completely upset by this, a friend who has stabbed me in the back for their own gain, someone who never bothered to support me when I was in crisis, someone who never invited me to anything.....yet would always contact me asking for support, advice and so forth,
I feel like I've been completely taken advantage of here, exploited for various reasons and so on. i'm so angry at myself for not listening to the advice from other people!
What do I do? Do I confront G, cut them off?
As I think about this, the more and more it becomes obvious that it was always a one sided friendship, that G often took my ideas and profited from them, never invited me to anything and always played me.....I later found out that confidential information I shared with them was discussed openly with other people and I became an object of gossip.
I feel so broken by this but also so stupid for being so naive!!