How to phrase an awkward conversation with friend...

[gummychops]

I'll try to be brief, but would appreciate some words of wisdom or advice about how to handle a phone call I'm expecting this evening.
I've posted about this topic before generally, in relation to disappointment with the level of support I've gotten from certain friends through the end of an abusive marriage, and since separating.
My friend, let's call her Jane, was my best friend since college. So 25+ years. She was my bridesmaid, I was hers (both weddings in 2013) She's godmother to one of my three children. We used to be very close & could talk for hours. This has all changed in the past few years.

Briefly - my marriage started to get rocky within about 4 years, & went seriously downhill approx 5 or 6 years ago. My exH was verbally & emotionally abusive, among other issues. I kept it to myself for a long time but confided in her eventually. She was supportive & caring initially, but this gradually dwindled.
Approx 2 1/2 years ago I decided for definite that I wanted to separate, & went to a solicitor to start the process. (This was after a few years of trying to get my husband to agree to separate voluntarily) It has taken until Jan this year to finally get my exH out of the house. He fought the separation tooth & nail, ignoring all correspondence from my solicitor & not turning up at multiple court dates, forcing numerous postponements & reschedules. The last few years have been horrendous.
Jane has barely kept in touch over the past two years. The odd text every few months, asking how things were in a vague way. I always replied, & tried to keep her up-to-date with the latest twists & turns in the legal saga, but as succinctly as possible (just in case people think I was boring her to death with long essays). I wasn't full of misery, but sometimes spelled out quite clearly how awful I felt. One particular text I sent mentioned how down, depressed & lonely I felt.....No response for 6 weeks.

Cut to now. Husband moved out mid January. She didn't phone then or hasn't since. Has sent a few texts.
She has her own stuff going on. Her mum is unwell off & on, & my friend has been organising care for her. Friend is also in the process of selling her house & looking for a new one. I have tried to keep up-to-date with all of those happenings in her life.
So anyway - I called her a few days ago for her birthday, & left a voicemail. She replied today that she would return my call this evening.
I won't hold my breath...but if she does call.... I don't know how to conduct the conversation. I'm so hurt & disappointed with the low level of support & friendship she has offered me during an extremely tough period of my life. I don't want to spell that out though.
Somehow, I want to say - I hope she had a good birthday. Ask after her husband & kids. Then quickly jump into asking about her mum's health, & talk about that for a bit. Then ask about house stuff. Keep the conversation from turning to me.

But if/when she asks about me & my life, I want to somehow convey that I don't want to talk about it. She's too far behind, too much has happened since we last spoke, I don't want to rehash it all now. I would have loved to have spoken to her back when I was going through everything, when I was in the thick of it. There's no point now. I needed support then & it wasn't there.
How do I convey this in a non-bitter way?

What about "way too much to speak about now, let's talk when we next meet" then it's up to you when that is.

She isn’t a friend in my view.

I agree with this, if she not been there for you then she’s not a friend xx

Well you could say it straight:

I don't want to talk about it. Too much has happened since we last spoke, I don't want to rehash it all now.

Then stay silent and see how she responds and tries to fill the gap.

I had a friend who was being abused and we got fed up telling her to ltb as she wouldn’t. I got fed up hearing about him and what he’d done. The bastard. She deserved so much better. Her own mother hated him. Because of what he did to her. But she thought it wasn’t that bad and wasn’t his fault and blah blah excuses excuses as she didn’t want to leave. Thought she could change him. She couldn’t.

Maybe that’s your friend, tried to be supportive for you but couldn’t hack it when you wouldn’t leave your partner and she got fed up trying. Meanwhile shit happened to her and perhaps you weren’t around for her.

I think there are two sides to every story. Maybe you could try and start again. Talk about it all. See where the truth lies. Maybe shes just not that into your friendship now. In which case you walk. Or maybe she will be your bestie again when she realises youve just clicked about what a bastard your ex was and now you get it. And are fully present for her.

It sounds like you were trauma dumping on her for years, she got a bit overloaded by it when she was also going through the wringer. She probably just didn't have any more emotional space to do anything other than give you basic responses.

Don't catch her up. Meet her with where you're at now.

In your own words your marriage has been trouble from the start and seriously bad for 6 years .. that’s a lot of drama and trauma to sit through even though I get from your perspective you are loving it. People just don’t have that capacity anymore .. they have too much of their own stuff to deal with. It’s the sheer length of time. People will be supportive but generally only in bursts and this was long term. I wouldn’t dump her or say anything.. I don’t think you will like the reply and there won’t be any coming back from it. If she asks say too much has happened and move on. Try and keep it light and upbeat .. it’s hard I know but she’s not your support animal and this is coming from someone who tends to be that to lots of people but I don’t expect it I’m return from most .. I have great friends but some I know are just not good at that side of things ..doesn’t mean we can’t be friends it’s just they are not that kind of friend

Living it not loving it !!

Thanks for replying.
It wasn't that kind of situation. Nobody was telling me to LTB, & me ignoring them. I told friends what I was going through & that I wanted out. Unfortunately he refused to accept our marriage had to end. Refused to move out. Stalled everything numerous times. We have three young kids & I had nowhere to go, plus I owned the house, so I didn't have the option of leaving him. My friend knew all this.

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@gummychops she's not going to call

If she did, I don't know how you convey it in a non-bitter way. I think the only thing you can do is say that you feel she wasn't as good as a friend as you were hoping.

That isn't something I would say. I would just imagine that they provided whatever support they were prepared to and either you accept that or you don't.

I supported a good friend through a horrendous divorce. I also helped her out with her daughter. Then I had a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago and she practically told me off for asking for help.

So now I'm really wary of supporting anyone. She's not the only one by the way, I've been let down a lot. I think some of us are prepared to do stuff for our friends and others are not.

i'm not sure what the point of a conversation about this would be really.

Having left an abusive relationship with my DC’s Dad nearly 4 years ago, it really shows you who your real friends are. Although it’s sad, in the long-term it’s a good thing. I’d no longer pursue it. Sending hugs. It’s not nice.

Thanks for your reply.
The thing is, I don't want to talk about it all now. In person or on the phone. That ship has sailed.

I haven't mentioned - exH has moved into a place unsuitable for kids to stay over or even visit. He takes them "out" to the park etc, or for dinner, but their only home is with me. Aged 9, 7 & 4. Therefore I am very much unavailable to go anywhere, unless with the kids in tow.
Friend hasn't invited "us" to visit her house, or to meet up somewhere near to her or halfway. I don't feel I can invite myself & 3 kids to her house or her neck of the woods, not without some indication that she wants to see me/us.
I suppose I could invite her & kids to visit us.... I haven't done that in fairness..
Maybe it seems like I'm trying to expect her to do all the running. I suppose I just expected that she would be making the effort/suggestions to see me, as I'm the one going through a terrible time.
I know I probably sound very self-absorbed - I genuinely don't think I am

What I meant by "it's up to you when that is" was that it could be never. It just gets you past the next hurdle.

I know I’ve had friends go through tough times and I haven’t got the personal or psychological capacity to do anything other than send a sympathetic text or be a listening ear over an occasional coffee. I don’t want to offer more. I can’t offer more. It’s highly uncomfortable for friends to involve me in their deepest trauma. I don’t want it. And I don’t expect to have to explain myself about my boundaries.

Maybe she’s like me, and doesn’t see friendship as being this intimate?

Given past experience, she likely won't be asking to be brought up to speed, except maybe a quick snapshot of what you're up to right now. In case she does ask for details about what you've been through with the ex, be prepared to say "a lot has happened since we last had a good talk back at (x time/place) and it's too exhausting to rehash" and maybe give her a one-sentence summary. But also be prepared that she does not ask, and expects to simply jump to now as if you've been living an ordinary life with a few "normal" changes all these months.

If you're deciding whether or not to continue the friendship, I do think meeting face to face would be a better indicator of where you two stand with each other, but I'm not sure I'd bring the idea up if she doesn't. If she does, I might mention that you're essentially single parenting while ex gets settled (or however you're comfortable putting it) and so children would likely need to be included in any meet-up and let he do some of the work of brainstorming a plan.

It's really hard to say without knowing the friend's view - is it possible that she might similarly feel that you are not very involved in or invested in or supportive of HER issues, even though you have consciously tried to be? Or she simply doesn't need the level of support you do/has other sources of support and so doesn't understand how much you've needed her and she hasn't been there? You might be setting yourself up for disappointment hoping for any acknowledgement (maybe even of any real understanding) of how much she has hurt you or let you down. That disappointment is going to feel like a LOT given that you're already under a big strain and dealing with so much. It may be time just to mentally draw a line under the friendship, or treat it more as a distant relationship, and appreciate what the two of you had back when you were really close.

Thanks for giving your perspective, I really appreciate it.
Well it's not looking like I'm getting a call this evening....I can't say I'm surprised. I think you could be right, that she's probably unlikely to ask for too much detail about what's been going on for the past six months. Your line about being too exhausted to rehash it - that's a pretty good way of phrasing it....
I feel like I need to almost change my tone when the conversation moves from talking about her & she asks about me. Would it be passive aggressive to say something like...... "well, my life & my troubles....hmm, I guess they're my life & my troubles. I've learned that I need to cope with it by myself. Anyway, good to catch up. Take care, byeee!"

When I was going through a hard time in my life nobody knew about it. I'm great at painting a smile on in front of the world. But inside I was falling apart and simply didn't have the bandwidth to support others or have deep conversations. For my own mental health I needed light, surface level conversations because i was really struggling to keep a positive mindset. Maybe your friend was going through something ypu didnt know about and couldn't be there for you.

Or maybe she's a fair weather friend and bailed when the going got though.

Either way your relationship has been changed forever.

If she asks how's life, just gloss over it and say good. Then quickly change the subject. If she digs deeper and asks about your ex give @Rainbowshine answer.

Sometimes friends get fed up listening to your drama after years of it, and just switch off.

your friend has her own life problems: the world doesn’t revolve around you

I don’t know what you want from this relationship, OP. Do you want the friendship to be as it was before your marriage, or when things were going better for you? I think that’s unlikely, because you are both different people now and it doesn’t sound as if you have much shared history recently to build a new relationship.

If you want her to want to revive your friendship, it doesn’t look that likely at the moment. If you want a showdown, or just to give her a dig as your last post sort of implies….probably not worth it.

All I would say to you is that life is long, and we undergo many changes in the course of it. You may meet your friend again in years or decades from now and rediscover the intimacy you once had. You may never hear from her, or about her again. You probably don’t have much influence on which of these outcomes -or many, many others - will transpire.

What is in your control, though, is your ability to lay it aside. Resentment hurts us just as much, if not more, than the person we are resenting. Bitterness corrodes our own soul. Try to let it go.

I hope things take an upward turn for you 🕊

That's a bit mean.

Her mum is ill and she’s having to arrange care for her.

that’s a very difficult thing to go through.

What support did you offer her?

That’s a good point actually - when you’re dealing with an elderly relative on the daily, your capacity for anything much else goes out of the window. It’s full on and exhausting. Did you consider that op?

"too much has happened since we last spoke, I don't want to rehash it all now."
If she asks, this is your answer.

She has clearly stepped back from the friendship in the past couple of years - really all you can do is accept that.

Sorry, that wasn’t kindly phrased.

but please, have a think about whether this is something you do: friends can get sick of it