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?

If you’re not comfortable they are not really your friends. Join groups meet other mums. Or just do separate meets with the ones you are more comfortable with. I think you are overthinking it.

Our friendship group has survived our children being friends and falling out and frankly not being friends any more. Kids now all heading off on gap years / uni we are still friends and see each other several times a week. Our kids friendships with each other are irrelevant now and their childish failings out are water under the bridge.

Had a similar mum group - thing is all that connects you is that you have kids the same age and live in adjacent postcodes. In ten years time (and I know this from experience), those children will be in a mix of schools, have different hobbies, some of the women will go back to work and you will find that you have bugger all in common, so are not close friends anymore. You will wonder why you invested so much time and energy in them as you now need to find new - real - friends who actually share common values and interests, starting again in your mid 40s.

Frankly, I’d leave them on mute. Meet them when it suits and focus on finding real friends doing things you actually love - volunteering, walking the dogs, book clubs, choir etc. As they gradually fade out, you will already have begun to phase them out anyway.

Oh, and I’d stop talking about them to DH. It drove mine potty.

Expecting an entire group of people to bond and form strong friendships because they are coincidentally pregnant at the same time is bonkers. It might happen very occasionally but in most larger groups, over time people will decide that they get on better with one or two others and become frends primarily with them. This is how real friendships form because of, y'know, personalities.

You've recreated the drama of the school playground but unlike there, you are not stuck with the people concerned for potentially years. No need for (more) drama, take a step back, meet up occasionally if you want to and in the name of all that's holy, stop inflicting this on your poor DH and other friends!

@BloomingOrchidea I think there is a bigger picture and a smaller picture. The bigger picture is about making friends when you have kids and a support system. That I get and other people have spoken wisely about.

The smaller picture is about this friendship group. Why can’t you continue a friendship with Ava while she remains close with Polly? I have friends who are good friends with others who are not my favourite people but I like hanging out with my friend, so I overlook that.
Why not give Ava the benefit of the doubt and continue to be her friend? While seeing Polly occasionally?

We don’t all need to be besties. We can have concentric circles of friends, some who are closer than others. Pre kids didn’t you have friends you wouldn’t mind meeting as a group for a movie or drinks but they weren’t 1:1 part of your inner circle? I didn’t think this was that unusual..

And no one should be freezing anyone out. As a group surely you guys can meet once every few months with Polly. Nothing bad will happen. Then Ava can meet Polly more regularly. And YOU can meet Ava separately to that.
Since we are not at school and hanging out with each other from 8-3 we can be a lot more grown up about how we spend our time.

You objecting to Helen being frozen out but were very happy when the same thing happened to Polly is probably the most telling point of all. This isn't about Ava and Polly oversharing their friendship, it's the fact that Ava saw through the hypocrisy and therefore saw through you.

This is still very teenage behaviour.

The wide eyed innocent response of "all I did was..."

Admit to yourself that you hoped to stir the group against Polly, and it hasn't worked.
Move on and find different friends and don't try marking the group into hiarachies and pushing those who you don't like out.

Quite unfair on teenagers. My teen girls from 15 ish onwards have had calm friendship groups who are very careful about each others feelings and are totally “chill” when some of the larger group do things in sub groups.

Focus on your family. This is wasting far too much of your time.

I have been in a similar situation OP and although there’s truth in what other posters are saying about giving it too much headspace, overthinking etc, it does hurt and can be confusing to work out what you have done “wrong”. It’s not nice to feel as though you’re not good enough for whatever reason. However I once heard a quote I find helpful with situations like these- “Accept people as they are but place them where they belong”. Leave them to it, don’t stay angry and waste your own energy but just be aware of your importance to them and return the same effort/energy :-)

surely it's far more likely that Ava wasn't particularly keen on Polly originally and was telling you the truth when you discussed her, then felt guilty when Polly got edged out, and then when she got to know Polly and spent more time together found out they had a lot in common/grew to like her, so they have now genuinely become friends, rather than assuming Ava was lying, trying to trick you into some sort of 'confession' and is/was being fake for some unspecified reason?

People's opinions can change as they get to know someone, either for the worse (Yours of Ava) or better (Ava's of Polly). It's also very normal for some individuals to gel better within a larger group and become closer friends. Nothing weird about any of it other than the amount of time you are spending stressing about it all given they aren't even your 'main' friends!

Just drop back, keep the whole group as acquaintances and appreciate the relationship for what it is - a group of mums who happened to have babies the same time as each other, which was helpful when you were all in the same boat but, even if you keep in touch and meet up now and again, will naturally become less important to you as your kids grow older.

The only thing you have in common with these people is that you all had babies at around the same time. That in itself does not make them your friends. It sounds like playground 'she said this/she said that' bickering to me, and some people carry on like that for years.

No wonder your DH is so fed up with hearing about it all. I'd just drop it and move on.

OP, however much your DH or other posters tell you to get over it , "it" matters deeply to you. Stop trying to get people to rationalise you out of it because that's clearly not working. So accept your feelings, accept that they're pointing you to something that clearly does matter to you and work out what that is.

Are you longing for a friend? Is exclusion an old theme in your life? Only you can figure it out. I'd put my energies into doing just that.

What principle is keeping you in the chat, Blooming? Are you getting some good out of it? Otherwise it seems like you are just hurting yourself?

I think she’s referencing the WhatsApp chat between the Op and her friendship group….

SEVERAL times a WEEK?? Is that not a bit stifling?

I saw my mum friends as a very light friendship. I had two who became very bitchy and cliche - basically we were out as a three and my main mum friend basically only invited the other mum back to hers, not me, and then kept going on how they were buying eachother gifts.

I just didn't see them again. And then when we met up in a group they were fauning over me saying "why haven't we met up recently!" But I didn't give any of them much headspace.

As an adult, if you find a friendship group is too much work, you can just grey rock and take a step back for a bit, claiming you're busy until you want to see them again. You don't have to cut people off completely - I've now done this loads of times with bitchy friends.

And actually, sometimes you need those friends (I had a very bitchy friend who later helped me professionally) so much better to take a step back than fall out with them or cut them off entirely.

Stifling? What an odd comment. Yes large local group of friends of about 20 of us - some of us do an exercise thing then go for coffee weekly/ drinks in pub on Friday night for whoever is up for it /poss a Sat night out / random other events book club etc - men too having a social life basically. .