I am tired of speaking about this with my friends and my husband literally shouted at me for bringing this up again today. Please, if someone can tell me how I can get over this I'd be forever grateful
So, during my pregnancy I connected with around eight other mums to be, to form friendships and companionship during our upcoming mat leave.
One in particular, lets call her Ava, I thought I'd got on well with: Ava is lively, friendly and goes out of her way to help all of us. Her generosity is unmatched.
At some point into our mat leaves, some drama happened in the group where two of the girls were somewhat unkind to another. They basically accused her of knowingly bringing her sick children to a gathering where most of the babies got ill, and Ava's baby caught bronchiolitis as a result.
This girl, lets call her Helen, was mortified. She apologised profusely and swore she didn't realise her kid was ill. I believed her and took particular umbrage at how she was made to feel.
When I next saw one of the unkind girls, we can call her Polly, I didn't hide my feelings and when she asked if I was OK I was honest and told her how she'd made Helen feel. She gave a qualified apology, saying Helen is a disruptor, doesn't take advice from us when her children fall ill and maybe if she did they would be healthier. Her tone was that Helen is a neglectful mum.
Nonetheless, she messaged Helen directly and apologised which was good because they sorted things out between themselves. Good.
Now Polly is the mums I was least close to. I found her to be quite self absorbed. One of those people that talk over you and is only quiet so they can think of the next thing to say. She's also really negative, and pretty dramatic which I found draining. Id always offer to help anyway, as we all did, but it just never seemed enough.
I never spoke about Polly, about how I didn't like her, to anyone, until one day Ava and I were out together and Ava broaches the subject of the whole drama with Helen. I felt Ava was safe, so I told her about my feelings towards Polly. Ava joined in, saying how she also finds Polly negative, that her partner finds her super negative too and that when she visits, always overstays her welcome to the point that Ava feels she needs to feed her because she's there for so long.
A few weeks go by, Polly and her friend had become somewhat frozen out of the group because the others also felt they were too negative and a bit judgemental.
Then one day Ava messages saying she's very worried about Polly, how she is really remorseful about what happened, and that shes feeling isolated as if she had no friends at all. I was sceptical. Polly has 5000 friends on facebook and friends irl who help her and her family. However she insisted that Polly is vulnerable and susceptible to the influences of others and thats why she acted that way.
So the other girls and I warmed up to Polly again and thought Ava was being noble, by helping someone in a bad position.
After that, Polly and Ava seemed to have become best friends. They would often share picture of them together and their babies with the group, sometimes to things none of us had been invited to. Ava started saying things like "come to my house, ill cook for you" or "youre welcome to a playdate at mine" whenever Polly would hint she was lonely or had no plans.
There are other friendships in the group but no one else behaves this way. Things arranged between individuals are kept between them and no one fawns over their mates like this. And there are other good friendships there, that's a fact. Its gotten to a point that if Ava goes anywhere and invites the group, Polly shows herself availably immediately. I personally don't want to spend time with her and noticed the others will often not join either. I only really see them when we arrange to all meet which usually happens about once a month.
To begin with I thought how nice of Ava to help someone in need but as their PDAs carried on I started to wonder if any of what she told me was true? I began feeling as if I had been manipulated into saying how I truly felt. That maybe I had been spied on?
All I know is it makes me sick to see them be friends. Maybe I am jealous, that Polly despite her shortcomings found herself a good, true friend and I didnt?
Thing is I was genuinely OK to begin with, but as the PDAs kept coming in I found myself more and more annoyed.
The chat is on mute, and Ive not gone to recent gatherings, mainly because Ava doesnt think anything of bringing her kid out when he had just recovered from HFM (still had blisters and my baby caught it off him) or RSV and that's annoyed me anew.
Ive been told me to just leave the chat and cut ties but I feel the right thing is to continue pretending all is well , not show my feelings again, otherwise if I do then I lost the game, I am weak and pathetic.
Thank you if youve made it this way. I know you will say I just need to get over it, but believe me, Ive tried. Ive made other friends, I have my own interests, I love my life. They just annoy me and I dont know why!
AIBU and crazy and just completely insane?