I want some advice on a friendship please. I have moved up north from living down south for 2 1/2 years now and I met a friend who introduced me to a group of ladies about 18 months ago now. The ladies all knew each other as their children went to the same nursery, we formed a group and the group was a really nice group of girls.
We went out for dinner regularly,
mostly drinks. My friend who I became close with she was in charge of the group,
Admin of the what’s app I mean but she created it really.. She organised a baby shower for me when I was pregnant. She did lots of hosting at her house. We all had a great laugh together. I always said to my husband how nice the other girls were. My friend made a real effort with me and we got along well. We also went on play dates with our children, and I thought she’d be a friend for life. She did things for example liked dropping a takeaway curry round, she dropped honey and lemon round when I was ill in my pregnancy. She was very generous.
After I had my baby this friend became a lot more distant with me. She stopped dropping the food and takeaways around which I wouldn’t expect from a friend to do anyway but she became a lot closer to some of the other girls in the group. And as a result, she stopped making an effort with me. She wouldn’t reach out very often and generally the friendship felt quite different.
One of the only reasons I can think this was happening is because I had a baby and I couldn’t go out quite as often as I wanted to. Since then my friend has had a few issues going on with her family life and I have also had some issues going on with mine. But my friend has started to leave me out of the group and when I say that I just want to give an example. Her son had a birthday party and she made out on the group WhatsApp that it was a school party for her son. Actually I found out that pretty much everyone in the group was invited in the nursery chat to the class party apart from my kids. I was upset because my friend told me to keep the date free which I assumed we were invited, but actually we weren’t. My friend would also do social things without asking me and I would see most of the other girls were there- all posted over her social media so she knew I’d see.
The hardest thing that I’ve found is I’ve tried to reach out to my friend and organise to see her but every time we organise a date she always cancels last minute and when I say cancel I don’t just mean once or twice it has happened lots and lots of times. I’ve tried to be flexible with her because she has lots of issues going on at the moment, but it has been difficult when I have a baby and I have to plan a lot more things in advance. I’ve kept the date free and she either doesn’t even contact me on the day when we’re meant to be seeing each other or she just cancels and the other difficulty is that she still sees other people.
She posts a lot on her Instagram page and she’s always out with the other girls in the group and that’s what I found the hardest is that she clearly is seeing them and not me. For a while I felt neglected and upset because the group has been important to me, especially where I moved from down south and I didn’t have many friends up here. She’s also in a similar position where she moved from London up north and she knows how it feels not to have those friendships.
So what I did was I contacted her and pulled her up on it and said that I was feeling like she was avoiding me and not seeing me, I’m not sure whether that was the right thing to do or not? She told me that wasn’t true. She said that she was going through a hard time and she sometimes pushes people away when she does this. But I told her that she was going out with other people and that was what I found difficult is that she could see others but not me. She basically made excuses for every time she’s seen someone in the group and it starting to become a bit tit for tat.
We were all meant to go out for a birthday lunch for her birthday which I was really looking forward to. A lot of preparation had taken place for me to go. Sadly the meal got cancelled at a very last minute- 2.5 hrs before we were meant to leave. This upset me as I had organised childcare to help with the children. I have got three children now, including a baby and I was pumping milk in order to feed my baby and lots had gone into it. My friend messaged me just after it got cancelled by one of the other girls who was organising it. My friend who I have fallen out with sent a jokey text saying ‘this is what happens when you organise something haha’. I didn’t find it very funny so I called her. On the phone she wasn’t sympathetic at all. There was no empathy, no apology for the short cancellation and things got more awkward from then on.
The argument then hit a peak because I came back from visiting family in London and when I came back I had organised to see my friend which I knew wasn’t gonna go ahead because she always cancels on me and sure enough she did. I then lost the plot in the sense that I got really upset upset because she then saw one of the other girls in the group the next day and then I pulled her up on it again in a voice note. I was saying how much she’s upsetting me by cancelling. As a result of the voice note she has now ghosted me. I tried to reach out to her twice and each time I have silent treatment or she’s very rude in the messages saying that I’ve made it all up in my head and that she hasn’t been ghosting me.
I’m just wondering how this is going to work when we live in a small town and see her most days on the school run. This was a friendship I thought would be one that would last a while and I’m definitely going to feel isolated from the group now because this person is she is the leader of the group but she organises everything. She has very close friendships with the other girls. I just want some advice. Is this friendship worth trying to rectify in the future or does this sound like someone who is a bit fake? Does this sound like someone who bothered me with gifts to begin with to try and get my friendship and it’s now dropped me off when she’s found better? Better connections I mean and I am starting to feel like a bit of door mat if I’m honest with you any advice is appreciated thank you. Also wondering now if the other girls were ghost me because they don’t want to get cut from the group essentially. But not one has reached out to me to ask if I’m ok.