Mum friends or frenemies? Can't get over it

[BloomingOrchidea]

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?

None of this should be occupying any headspace. So 2 friends got closer, that happens in all friendship groups. People form tighter bonds and naturally gravitate to some but not others. Really, who cares? If their PDA annoys you then that sits with you and I would distance myself and come off SM. It’s just jealousy though really and that’s not a nice trait. You need to find your own tribe.

I lost the will to live after the first paragraph. Put simply, if people make you feel shit about yourself, distance yourself and or bin them off.

It really is as simple as that.

You are obsessed with Polly and Ava. You are friends with others in the group leave it at that and keep it moving. Not sure why you care what Ava and Polly are doing. It's weird

Also why do you care if they plaster it and send pics? It's not up to you to control that.

It sounds a toxic group and more like 12 year olds than grown women. Take a step back from all this. You will be much happier in the end.

I read your OP, which was painful and I can't even bothered to read your updates.

Just move on and remove yourself from this playground behaviour.

I hope things sort themselves out for you

Perfect advice.

A lor of Mumsnet is very sniffy about mums groups and investing in new friendships. I think that's really sad; these groups can be really meaningful and that's wonderful. I think there is also an over representation on Mumsnet of socially awkward or reclusive people, so I would take all the posts rubbishing mums group with a grain of salt, if you actually enjoy the company of other people.

Even if you don't like Polly, by bitching to or with Ava, you lost any moral high ground. I think you should try to take this as an important lesson in friendships moving forwards, and either refocus on focusing on what you love about the group and other individuals in it, or else slowly phase yourself out in a friendly way.

Can I also say, you addressed Polly to her face, criticised her behaviour to another mum, and Polly didn't become spiteful and double down, she listened to what you had to say, respected it, and apologised to the other mum. That shows she respects you, and is able to reflect, be humble, and grow. Maybe you are underestimating her?

In my experience it is harder to make new genuine friends as you are older, so better to be open to the idea with lots of people. Some will stick and others won't, but you might a least have some nice times together along the way

Some of my closest friends are quite different from me and the friendship grew gradually, and we probably weren't that fussed about each other at first.

Is it really worth losing a whole friendships over relatively small incidents. Move on, clear the air, get over it and let it go. We will can upset friends at times, but sometimes ghosting, going NC seems so overboard.

Op, I don’t want to be rude, but this is all incredibly juvenile.
For a start, I cannot think of anything worse than having a group of ‘mum friends’. These people are rarely real friends. Sure it’s nice to have support and camaraderie during pregnancy and the early months, but after that is where it usually begins to become fractured.
Secondly, your post could well have been written by an 11 year old, and if that’s what this group of “friends” is regressing you to, then it’s time to get out.
Im sure you have actual real world friends that love you outside of your ability to procreate. Focus on nurturing these friendships rather than the likes of polly and Ava

You don't have to be friends with anyone you don't want to be.

Move on.

And toddler / primary years are a good hunting ground for long term local friends.

Which one is Helen?

Do you want to be friend swith these people? If not, then leave the group chat. Doesn't matter if they "won". If you do want to ne friends with them then go to gatherings, be pleasant to Ava and tell Polly how Ava is so lovely now that you know her better and she'll feed it to her.

She is whose baby was unknowingly ill and made the other babies including Ava's really ill.

Hello. I can understand where you’re coming from. My NCT group were nice enough but I didn’t really gel with anyone specifically and I could see sub groups forming which made me a little sad. But I knew at the end of the day these ladies were just not my cup of tea. So I still went to the group meet ups to get out of the house but lowered my expectations of what was going to come from it. Group meetings faded as people went back to work, moved etc and somehow myself and another mum who’d also been a bit on the fringes became really good friends and we still are 10 years on. So I’d suggest trying to lower your expectations of what will come from this group and see where else you can meet other people. From what you’ve described though, whilst I appreciate it’s not the whole picture, the mums don’t sound particularly nice and would be people I’d want to avoid. Sounds all a bit too complicated. One of the things I’ve realised is that it can be exhausting and circular to try figure out other people sometimes. I think maybe this is part of why you can’t let it go. Don’t feel there’s something wrong with you. Lots more lovely people to meet and you will find them. Best wishes.

I don't know if it's just me, but I struggled to process all that.
It just became a jumble of Ava did this, Polly said that, Helen did this.....I just lost track and had no idea who had done/ said this, that or the other.

I'm not being rude the only thing I got from reading it was memories of my high school days - teenage girls constantly bickering
I've thankfully never experienced anything like this since I became a mum/ adult.
Having said that, I avoided mum groups when mine were little, so maybe I was just living in my own bubble.

TBH I only made it halfway through your post before getting bored. This is teenage girl drama. I think you should just forget it all, be friendly and act like grown ups.

You seem to hero worship Ava, she can do no wrong despite causing your DC to pick up her DC's illnesses on 2 occasions. You say she knew about the illnesses at the time, yet despite clearly being out of order, she's lovely. It sounds like you stalk her and Pollys socials, for what? So you can be jealous of their PDA's? Don't look if it bothers you, which it clearly does.
I think you prefered the dynamic when Polly was frozen out, as you and Ava were getting closer until Polly came back into the fold. Maybe Ava likes to latch onto one particular friend at a time, and show off about it, thats her perogative. It was becoming you, now its Polly, so your nose is out of joint.
Normal course of action would be to ignore Polly and Ava's get-togethers and focus more on others in the group, but you seem to be obsessing about them.
You've made friendship a competition, which causes issues in a group dynamic.
It all seems like playground behaviour. If this is the biggest drama at the moment in your life, I'm not surprised your DH wants you to change the record. Stop gossiping about it to your friends too, I'm sure they will get bored of it, it's really not important enough to go on about and says more about where your head is at.

Also…can not get with the idea of getting really cross about one child accidentally giving an illness to another. I mean this is life. Unless you never go out or carry your child around in a hermetically sealed suit then there is no way to stop this happening. With the best will in the world you can not always know what germs you are harbouring and when they are little they get stuff all the time so you would never go out if you were constantly trying to second guess potential illnesses. This seems a hangover from covid, where new mums get outraged that their kids have a play date and pick something up. It’s life. Get over it. They could have picked it up anywhere. Unless it’s rabies then try not to worry about it! 😂

I’m struggling to understand why people posting pics of themselves together in a group chat is bothering you. It seems to be because you think it’s poor group chat etiquette?

I wouldn’t give two hoots. As long as you’re enjoying your life, why be bothered with what others are up to. If you want to see any of them individually, go for it. If you don’t, what’s the problem if they do?

I never talk about people, not even to my closest friends. Because I don’t think it’s very nice and don’t see what it achieves. In fact, it’s pretty dead convo. I prefer to talk about other stuff, rather than picking over someone’s personality. None of us is perfect and life would be pretty boring if we were.

I’d stay friends with them all and meet up as a group regularly. It’s nice to keep in touch with people, and it can lead to friendships or opportunities/help later down the line, when your kids are different ages. If you particularly get on with any of them, see them individually. If you don’t, then don’t.

It sounds like it might help for you to focus on other stuff and put the group dynamics out of your head. You’re perhaps sensitive because you’re tired and it can be pretty mind numbing doing baby stuff with people all the time.

Will you be going back to work soon? If not, perhaps start doing stuff without your baby, just for you? So you meet a bigger range of people.

I get it - I just think people should leave it a bit longer before mixing if theyve had something serious like RSV for example.

Best advice I got before my first went to primary school was to keep my head down for the first year and watch how things played out.
By the second year I knew who the nice normal parents were, the queen bees, the gossips etc.
Similarly with the children we had an idea who was fun, kibd, inclusive.

My children all have dear friends from day 1 and their parents, whilst not close friends are such lovely people.

The key is to be friendly, avoid gossip, and not become overly involved in either your childrens relationships or their parents.

Keeping it friendly and kind gives you enough distance if thibgs go south with them.

Fortunately that never happen but it can, even between nice children.

You mean a cold basically?

No you didn’t, by your own admission you also bad mouthed her to the queen bee. Clearly looking for support to ostracise.

you obvs have some very odd rules, don’t socialise for x amount of time after a cold, don’t show you’ve friendships within the group, etc.

im sorry but I think the issue is you. And if you don’t distance yourself they will do it for you. I’m sorry op. Try to relax. You can’t control the group, the made up rules in your head need to stay there, stop being judgey, don’t bad mouth people. Try to get a handle on your jealousy

I tend to overthink friendships and group dynamics too, OP. It's surprisingly stressful! I think, for me, it stems from being regularly bullied/excluded in primary school. Those feelings do tend to linger!

And it's perfectly natural to feel a bit of jealousy when you see people have what you want (a close, supportive friendship) - even if you don't want the same level of friendship with those particular people.

It sounds like you're feeling calmer about things now. Try to let the PDAs wash over you a bit and focus on building friendships with people you have more in common with.