Feeling sad my bad marriage has ruined my friendships

[pinkbuttonss]

To cut a very long story short, my marriage reached a crisis point a couple of years ago and very nearly ended. I confided in my two closest friends and told them just how bad things had been at home (no violence or abuse, just loneliness and resentment. Some mean behaviour).

Ultimately I made the decision to stay. I initially had hopes my marriage would improve but that’s not really borne out. I am staying for the moment but that may change.

My two friends at the time were great and very supportive, but it was clear to me they thought I should leave. I feel my decision to stay has now put some distance between us and it feels like there’s an elephant in the room when we meet. I feel they have lost some respect for me.

I no longer talk much about my marriage problems because I know there’s nothing more boring and frustrating than someone constantly moaning about a problem but not doing anything to fix it. It’s left me with not much to talk about & I feel awkward.

We met for a coffee at the weekend and I'm
still feeling sad. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

I've been your friends in this situation a few times. I think you've read the situation correctly.
I suppose you could say something like- friends, I feel like there's a bit of distance between us, I guess it might be because I leaned on you but didn't take your advice. I just want you to know I really value your views and I understand if you feel I've disappointed you in some way by not following through. I'm so sorry, I just don't have that in me just yet. I hope we can still be close because I love you guys a lot.
Then don't discuss your marriage anymore because that will be infuriating for them.

Surely you have other things going on in your life other than your bad marriage? If not go do some hobbies or catch up on the news or something.

dairydebris That sounds like excellent advice

I think you have to confront the elephant in the room - my friend was with a guy who was a total pig, not just unsuited to her, an actual pig. He was awful when they had their first child, I did all the jobs that the 'dad' should be doing, visiting her in hospital, taking her food, getting the house ready for her to come home.

She then told me they were getting married and asked me to be witness. She said he was really stepping up and they were going to be a proper family. I was her witness, I helped her celebrate. And then he was such a massive arsehole THE NIGHT OF THE WEDDING that they both took separate flights home!

After that I said to her that she would always be my friend but I NEVER wanted to be in the same room as him again and that while I would always be a shoulder to cry on for her, it would not be when it came to him as she would be mad to stay with him. I was really clear: "I don't want to hear another word about D - not ever."

She kept to that until the evening she nearly left him and called me, and I was prepared to go and get her and the baby and bring them to mine and she changed her mind - of course that was an extreme situation. They had two more kids and remained together for another six years. We were still friends, but not massively close, but part of that is due to living in different countries. Then she finally broke up with him and I went over to visit her. Since then we've been thick as thieves as we always used to be. Neither of us has lost respect for one another, but it was important to be really clear about boundaries.

How did the meeting for coffee go?

Maybe your friends are wary of broaching the subject, in order to not upset you.

It sounds like it would do you some good to find a hobby or two, in the meantime.

Thanks all.

I think I’m a bit worried of raising it outright. I would feel very sad if they basically said we don’t respect you as much as we used to.

I do think it’s much easier to be in the position of giving advice than the one having to make huge decisions that would upend your life. I have young DC so it would really mean a seismic change to their futures. Both of my friends are in happy and supportive marriages, and whilst I know they absolutely mean well and have my best interests at heart, they’ve never had to face what I’m facing and I do think it’s easy to say “just leave”.

thanks @GreatLimePeer The coffee was nice but I did feel there was this unspoken thing in the air.

I think you’re right that they may be cautious about raising it, and they may think they’re following my lead as I’ve stopped talking about it (because I don’t want to frustrate and bore them).

Maybe I’m overthinking it.

To those saying surely I have other things to talk about, I would say that when you’re in a sad and lonely marriage, it can be all consuming. I’m glad you don’t have experience of that.

its difficult to confront issues if you are a certain type of person. This may be both what is holding you back from saying this to your friends but also part of the problem with your marriage.

really think about why you don’t want to say anything to your friends and what is the motivation behind this.

Not being able to speak up will mean you are not being yourself, and that can be quite corrosive both to yourself and your relationship with others.

Well you're either projecting your own feelings about your failure to leave your husband, or you're correct that there is some distance between you and your friends. If you discuss it with them at least you'll clear the air and they may be able to reassure you they don't think less of you... and that would also tell you something about how you feel about your own choice to stay.

Absolutely. It is not just you to consider in all of this.

As with many things in life, people often have no idea the feelings and experiences involved in things, unless they have been through something similar themselves.

It is a big positive that your friends were willing to meet up. Hold onto that and I would strongly advise holding off from bringing it up. Concentrate on rebuilding the friendships and definitely look into hobbies for yourself, you will have lots of positive and fun new things to discuss then.

This is one of those rare situations where no one is in the wrong.

The only thing I would say is that while I agree it isn’t that easy to leave, it may be easier than you think, especially once you’ve done it. You might wonder why you didn’t do it earlier.

So you're staying in a shit marriage and it's consuming you and you think it might be costing you friends.

Have you thought about getting individual therapy? Maybe that can help you deal with the low feelings from staying in a bad marriage and you can develop some kind of plan for having a life outside of your marriage since that's a long term and ongoing chronic situation.

So you want to bitch about your marriage but don’t want to do anything to change the status quo, yet it is your friends ‘behaviour that you take issue with.

Put yourself in your friends position. If not talking about your depressing marriage that you are unwilling to change leaves you struggling to talk about anything else, then you might want to ask yourself what you are currently bringing to the friendship table.

Living in a lonely relationships does suck but it’s no excuse to be a poor friend.

I was in your friend's situation. Except i was not in a loving supportive marriage, years ago i had made the decision to divorce with two children ages 3 and 2 . So i did not say "just leave" without understanding the difficulties. My friend stayed with her "mean" (abusive and controlling husband) and last week she called me all excited that she is quitting her job to be a stay at home mom and that her husband bought her a Mercedes as a gift. She wanted to be to be all excited about the Mercedes as if i forgot that he is a bully and EVERYONE including her therapist had advised her to get out. I will still say her friend, but honestly I wonder why i spent hours on the phone with her listening to the moaning. Meanwhile i am a single mom living out the practicalities of that reality with no car at all. What did i take away from all of this? She's got her Mercedes and i have my personal dignity. But at the end of the day, the situation revealed a stark value difference between the two of us and its hard to pretend otherwise.

I am the friend in this situation. My lovely friend stays with a man who treats her badly. I've been shocked, worried for her, determined to help her, now I'm just resigned to the fact that she's never going to leave him.
I'm still her friend. But I don't want to talk about her partner. Nothing is going to change, I have nothing new to say. If she tells me something negative he's done I just say "oh well, you know what I think about that". And she does know. I'm not going to say it again. And when she tells me something nice he has done I find that hard to listen to, knowing the things he has done in the past and will do again.

So now there's a bit of a barrier between us because we can't talk about our partners. Conversation is not as natural as it used to be or as it is with other friends. It's just not the same.

I don't respect her any less, I get she's stuck in a hard position. I'm here for her, but I don't want to discuss her relationship any more.

I'm sorry you're in her position and noticing your friends drawing back. But I get why they're doing it. Just accept you can't discuss your partner with them and find other things to talk about.

Are you lacking in conversation because your marriage is all consuming? When I meet with friends, most of whom are married, we cover so many topics.
Unless there is an immediate issue, we never spend an entire afternoon talking about relationships.

Yes- I was your friend in this scenario and it was exhausting listening to hours and hours of crying and hurt about how awful he had behaved. Of course I listened and supported and cared and was there for her constantly, but then she stayed with him and it became harder and harder to know what to say.

There are only so many times you can support someone with the same issue that keeps repeating over and over again, its draining as hell.

If I am being brutally honest, yes I did lose some respect for her, how could I not? I never showed it of course and we are still friends but my tolerance for listening to his latest antics is now zero and she knows I wont discuss it any further because well- whats the bloody point?

I do think it’s much easier to be in the position of giving advice than the one having to make huge decisions that would upend your life. I have young DC so it would really mean a seismic change to their futures. Both of my friends are in happy and supportive marriages, and whilst I know they absolutely mean well and have my best interests at heart, they’ve never had to face what I’m facing and I do think it’s easy to say “just leave”.

Yes, then you need to stop discussing it with them. You cant have it both ways I'm afraid, thats really unfair

I've been on both sides of this. I was in a horrendous relationship a few years ago - although I'm very good at internalising so most of the people in my life had no idea how dreadful it was. The 2 people who did were supportive but ultimately knew that I had to come to the decision in my own time and eventually I did.

A year later I make friends with someone in the same position I had been in. I tried really really hard to help, support, care and encourage her but even when the police (and social services because of her kids) she still kept going back and eventually I had to take a step back. They're still splitting up every other week, the house getting trashed and then back to soppy Facebook statuses talking about how much they adore each other 🤷‍♀️

Not completely the same situation but please please don't underestimate the effect it has on the people around you

I don't blame your friends at all. I wouldn't want to be close to someone who was so poorly boundaried, I would find it massively frustrating and annoying and yes, I would lose respect for them.

Me and 2 others had to stepped back from a friend many years ago, due to this sort of thing.

We all talked gave advice listened etc, she said she wanted out and to leave him.
After we had offered to let her stay at our own homes till she was back on her feet, she said she is going to stay and work on her marriage.
It started all over again, it became trauma dumping in the end same old thing over and over moaning moaning moan, we had enough and stepped back from her, it just became miserable being around her with her sob stories and doing nothing about it.

Shes still with him 14 years on we have all moved on with life, one friend still stays in contact via message maybe once a month, but its the same crap, other friend just gave up as did i.

We are all still very close still go out eat holidays etc just not with her anymore.

I've been on both sides of this. It is tiresome to be in a dysfunctional marriage but also to watch a friend you care about refuse to do leave a dysfunctional marriage. I think what is really bothering you is not that there is this unspoken thing between you and your friends, but that you know they are right, and you should have left.

What a strange answer. You can’t have too much going on in your own to bother to post that!

They're not real friends if they don't respect your opinion. Yes, it can be frustrating if someone goes on and on but doesn't listen, but unless you did this all the time, there's no excuse for them being like this.

I literally said in my OP that I don’t talk about my marriage anymore. I’m not quite sure why there’re so many comments implying I’m constantly complaining to my friends and refusing to take their advice.

Thanks for all the comments though. It has given me lots of food for thought.