Friends dumped me after divorce - so sad - miss them

[Veronicawcaw]

I have just escaped a marriage with an abusive narcissist and my friends supported me for the first year. He has taken my money, my home and my child. I have a new relationship with a lovely man who my friends liked and were so pleased for me.

They now 2 years in have now mainly cut me and I never get included in invitations and my attempts to meet up are politely fobbed off.

They still have their tidy lives, immaculate homes and their children. I am excluded and it hurts. I am trying to keep it together as I like most have to work for a living and with the financial abuse and alienation from my son it is hard. I miss my friends. Were they just vapid and only there for the good times - do I really not need them at all?

I think @BlueSlate somehow picked up incorrectly about your child @Veronicawcaw, you didn't leave your child. However, I do think everything else she has written is spot on

Our group of friends had two ladies get divorced. One has moved in with another man. We don’t really see or speak to either anymore. With one last, it is now many years since the divorce but every time we saw her, every conversation had to be about her situation, her ex husband and on and on. We could never talk about any other topic and it became draining over time.

The other lady would only talk about how wonderful her new man was and how different he was from her husband. Didn’t help that her new man was very opinionated and must have felt inferior to one friend’s highly educated husband as the new man seemed to just want to bully/pick on this husband. All very unpleasant either meeting up just us ladies or as couples. (We do have two single ladies in our group too so it is not just married ladies).

There can be two sides to every story and these friends were, in fact, there for you during your marriage, experienced some of his unpleasantness and were with you for the first year after the divorce. They did not just drop you. Something has changed

I am very sorry for all the ladies in this thread who have been let down by friends. It is really helpful to hear from them but also the objective advice from other posters has helped me understand better.

I really didn't go on an on about my problems. I always try to keep it light but when you are personally in danger then there is no keeping it light. My ex husband is an abusive man. He has now in addition to my other losses contributed to the loss of most of my close friends. That really is galling.

My new partner never volunteers anything about my ex husband socially and I don't bring him up - I was always asked and poked for more information. So yes I do feel it is unfair. I think I over shared at my lowest. My friends have neat lives and good for them, I wish we all had. When you have a neat life you really don't understand those who don't or what it's like. Yes we all have problems but some are not as devastating as others. I continued to show an interest in their children when I didn't see my own. I listened to them rave about their exam success, parties etc with a smile and interest. They never realised this could be remotely hard for me to hear and I never told them I just smiled and showed an interest.

I think the consensus here is that a true friend is rare, friends are not family and don't have the same level of ties, they are not in our lives forever and there has to be mutual benefit to the relationship. I was in a desperate situation and over shared I now think - but not to an excessive degree.

I will really be careful in future and if desperate pay for counselling.

@Veronicawcaw I actually realised that quite a few of my friendships were based on who I was before the trauma and they came from me having been trained from childhood to put up with significant amounts of invalidating bullshit. I read somewhere that the people who put up with narcissists have been trained from very young to put up with narcissism and that there are others who just don’t because they haven’t received that training.

What I am saying is that it is quite possible that you have a friendship arsehole magnet based on your early conditioning.

The reason I say this is because there were loads of people who were fantastically supportive of me too as well as the arseholes who were pretty useless. They just were not people who I thought would be if that makes sense. So there are really good people out there too. You probably need to work on yourself though so that you start setting the right friendship boundaries.

@Veronicawcaw

I left with my teenage son at the beginning of the 1st UK lockdown. I shared him 50/50 with his Dad. All solicitors offices were closed. I didn't know what to do. It took his Dad 3 months to alienate him. Then there were more incidents of domestic violence, police and social services involvement. In the end social services said they can't do anything as it doesn't quite meet their threshold.

Every family solicitor I speak to says it is too late as my son is a teenager. If I am lucky enough to get Cafcass involved they are apparently useless and will interview my child and accept he wants no contact.

I have trawled the internet for 2 years, reached out to family, friends, school, GP, neighbours anyone who could help but they after initial attempts naturally don't want to get involved in such an aggressive situation. I can't see my child's health records as they say he is Gillick competent whilst his interview as with My ex sitting over him.

I am now trying my MP.

So what I think I am saying is I miss my friends, I certainly didn't dump on them. Nobody knew details of the abuse as I never told anyone. They knew when I left that it was tough (yes I did talk about for a year but not exclusively - and they did ask and nosey about it) but then had enough of it. I have been strong, tried to fight for my child, kept a roof over my child's head, kept my job throughout lockdown, lost my parents, my sibling has also embezzled my parents' money and won't process probate or allow the estate to pay for any repairs to the dilapitdated property where I now live - so there we are.

So not a situation where I left my child with a dangerous man, a situation where I was foolish enough to believe that children need fathers even if that father is a bad husband. A situation where there was nowhere open for advice and now the window has gone.

Oh I’m so sorry what a nightmare situation. You did what you needed to do with the information you had at the time and your ex has made you pay. Sorry for my harsh questions and thanks for explaining - it’s so much more complicated when they are teenagers.

When your child is older, he will likely reach out to you again and hopefully you can both start to heal.

You keep saying your friends have "neat" and "tidy" lives but how can you know that for sure? They may have lots going on behind closed doors that you know nothing about and are presenting a front to the world just like you did when you "smiled and showed an interest".

Maybe they are nonplussed as you have been through an awful experience but 2 yrs on are happy with a new man. You were in crisis and they provided support. Maybe you did over share, but that's understandable. I get that this hurts and feels like it's another thing he's destroyed but that old cliche - time is a healer, is very true. Maybe they will eventually creep back into your life and your DC will get the measure of his DF. Keep reaching out OP but continue to build your life as what else can you do.

It sounds very difficult. Your son will grow up and make contact or you can contact him. Write to him now and keep copies so you can show him if he doesn't get them. Try and enjoy what you have and try new experiences to find new friends. Nothing wrong with reaching out to the old ones but build a new you.

I think it's very common for people to abandon friends during their time of need or when the friend is in a situation that is unsavoury because it is frightening for people to see a gritty reality ie. it might happen to them too.

A lot of people are extremely selfish and small minded tbh. The good thing is you will meet more open minded people now that you have vacancies in your social life.

I came on to also say you're not alone. I escaped a similar situation. I lost almost all of my friends. I then made a great new circle of friends who again have dropped off one by one after I re-married (covid didn't help either). What I've realised is that my second friendship group was based on trauma, we were all single mums who had extremely difficult ex's. They were all fantastic but there was not much we had in common apart from emotional support, discussing court cases/child issues and dating. I also see we were all in need of counselling/internal work that pre-dated our separations (difficult child hoods was also a bonding topic). I've now had years of therapy and am really carefully trying to build a healthy friendship circle. I've had to grieve the loss of my friends, I miss them but do understand why we bonded and what went wrong.

I've just moved to a new area and am looking for friends that are hobby/interest based. I don't know if it's possible to get a great new friendship circle in your late forties but I'm going to try.

Good luck op, it's a really crap situation which must smart after all you have been through. I recommend counselling and hope things get better for you.

OP it sounds like you have had a really rough couple of years and need a break. Is it possible that your friends disengaging is linked to the timing of your new relationship? Could they perhaps feel that your new DP can support you now? Or are they perhaps less keen on spending time with him?

No one really has neat and tidy lives. Your situation may be more overt and extreme, but everyone has their stresses and no one really knows how it is for others. You've been through a lot and maybe changed a lot too so maybe it's right that you all move on from each other. It is sad and it's okay to miss them, but it doesn't really sound like you like them all that much. I hope you can make some new friends and that things work out so you can see your DC again.

I thought I'd read that the OP had lost contact with her child. I must have been mistaken. Sorry.

But I disagree that other people have eat and tidy lives. One woman I know who pveryuch presents that image has a horrible marriage with a philandering husband but you'd never know to spend time with them!

Se people just don't discuss their lives amd can't cope with supporting someone else when their own situation is so shit.

Others have worked really hard to create a neat and tidy life for themselves and don't want anyone else bringing it down. And I can't blame them.

I've been on all sides of this scenario myself.

Just as we tell women on here that no one owes them, or anyone else a relationship, the se goes for friends.

They are supposed to be mutually beneficial and when it feels like they're not, they fade. I think a year or two support is asuch as anyone can hope for. After that, friendships are supposed to be fun.