cammy85
Shiny_Rock
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2008
- Messages
- 455
Ok, this is going to be really, really long, I apologize. I’m sorry to vent and spill my issues, but this has been stewing and I needed a bit of an ‘outlet.’
As much as I love planning my wedding, a friendship that had always been somewhat strained has essentially fallen apart, and while I feel like I did the best thing for myself, it still hurts to lose a friend. I do think the broken friendship has been coming for a long time now, it just took the wedding to amplify the issues.
We kept the wedding party small. 3 on each side. One friend from HS on each side, one friend from College and on each side we each have one sibling, also in the wedding party. I thought long and hard about this, as there were two other people I was on the fence about including in my BP. My one friend is getting married in the same timeframe as me, and is a bridesmaid shortly after her own wedding, so I think she’s happy to not have the cost of being a bridesmaid at mine, but she is still very excited about talking everything wedding with me. My other friend, I had a feeling would feel snubbed, but based on our past history, I did not want the drama associated with the friendship entwined in the wedding plans. I did, however, want her to be included, in some way, so I asked if she would read one of our two scripture passages. She was so excited initially, but I guess I should have predicted it wasn’t going to be that simple.
A little backstory: we’ve known each other for almost 20 years. She has been through a lot in her life (tumultuous family circumstances, lots of counseling) and I know things still aren’t peachy with her. In the time we’ve been friends, she’s ‘unfriended’ me several times (juvenile I know, but this was jr high and earlier when it happened) and then I would try to mend the friendship and we’d go back to normal. Until something would happen again and the cycle would start over.
Anyway, after she accepted being a part of the wedding, not even a week later I get this long drawn out message from her saying now that she doesn’t feel like she belongs, that she feels like I’m asking her out of some obligation because we’ve known each other for so long and that she feels like she’d be taking the place of someone we wanted more than her. I really feel like she talked to someone and they said something along the lines of “how are you not a bridesmaid? I’d totally be mad if I wasn’t a bridesmaid.”
I talked to her again, wanting to see if she’d bring it up, and she acted like nothing happened... at all. Finally I broached the subject with her, saying “if you’re uncomfortable, I totally understand, and I don’t mind at all, but I just wanted to talk to you about it and just see what you’re feeling.” Lo and behold, she changed her tune again, excited again about reading.
A few weeks later, I get another message from her about how she feels out of place again, how we’re growing apart and how she feels like there is no place in my life for her anymore. She also mentioned that she wasn’t sure if she is even coming to the wedding anymore due to school and finances. She told me not to be upset if she and her boyfriend just huddled in the corner at the reception because she won’t know anyone there and it’ll be uncomfortable and they’re probably just going to leave early anyway. Seriously? I’ve been to so many weddings where I don’t know anyone minus, on occasion, a date. You know what, I talk to people.
She made it sound like I was forcing her to be a part of the ceremony. I felt angry, hurt, and guilty. I know we’re growing apart, but I would try to send messages and call every once in a while to see how things are going. Unfortunately, I got tired of the same old “woe is me, my life sucks – but I’ll live” response.
I got fed up at this point, it’s like she was trying to hold my wedding hostage, as if we would hold everything waiting to see if she would grace us with her presence. This is been kind of the story for our whole relationship. She would say something along the lines of “I don’t feel like I should be there”, and I would have to come back with ‘No, really, it would mean a lot to me if you would come!” so that she would feel wanted (?) I don’t know. But I’m certainly not going to force her to come to my own wedding. Especially if she is going to be as miserable as she predicts. I’m not going to spend my whole reception feeling guilty because I wanted her to be involved in the wedding and now she doesn’t know anyone and I don’t have the time to coddle her all night.
So I talked with my family and my fiancé, and I finally decided that the drama isn’t worth trying to fix anymore. I’m done with trying to play peacemaker. I basically told her that since she is unsure whether she will even be able to come due to classes and distance, and because money is an issue I feel like it would be best to have her come as a guest to take any pressure of attending off. I told her that if she can make it, we’d love to see her, if she can’t, we totally understand. If she comes, I don’t have to feel guilty that she was ‘forced’ to be there. She said that’s perfectly fine and that she still will try to come to the wedding.
While I was home, she mentioned she wanted to get together. I was home for a week, but there were a lot of family events, wedding planning and appointments to make, and the only time she was free was when she was hanging out with some friends of hers, most of which I don’t even know. I also didn’t get the message until after she’d left the restaurant, so going was out of the question by then anyway. So we weren’t able to meet up. I get another message now about how she is sorry about what happened to our friendship and how she’s tried but it’s just not the same. I’m pretty sure she isn’t planning on coming to the wedding at all now.
I’m heartbroken that it’s turned out this way, but I don’t really know what other options I had. I am tired of indulging her insecurities, I’m frustrated that she essentially tried to hold the wedding planning hostage with her plans of whether she was coming or not, and I am mostly upset that she tried to make me feel guilty and like I was forcing her to come to an event that she is going to be so uncomfortable at and that she will probably just leave early anyway.
Honestly? I’m also a little glad too... I’ve been putting up with this behavior for almost 20 years now, and I now I’m realizing that this is a toxic friendship. It’s been the same cycle of behaviors over and over again, and I’m tired of seeing my phone ring and knowing it’s her complaining about how she has no money, school sucks, life in general sucks, but she’ll live. She guesses. For the sake of privacy and not disclosing too much of her personal information, she’s also had some self-harm issues. I’ve gotten calls in the middle of the night about something she’s done, and from halfway across the country, I had to call her local friends (none of whom I know) so that they could take her to the hospital. This has happened several times, and she goes to counseling once or twice afterwards, then stops. Then eventually it happens again. I know people need help sometimes, I understand that and I am all for being able to help out, but if you need professional help and refuse to get it, that’s where I draw the line. I don’t want to enable.
Obviously, there are a lot of issues other than the wedding itself, but I think that was the last straw (there is also more to this story but I think this post is long enough as it is). I know that it’s selfish, but she never once said she was happy for me. Or even mentioned the wedding or engagement unless it was to talk about backing out of it or not being able to come. I’ve had complete strangers be more excited for my upcoming wedding than her. I can just imagine if she had actually been asked to be a bridesmaid what issues would have come up. (For the record, the bridesmaids I chose had never met each other before, but they get along great and have been awesome for helping me decompress and distress. I’m so thankful I stuck to my guns)
If you’ve made it this long, thank you. Tell me I’m right, tell me I’m wrong, I can handle it. If you have any advice, any thoughts, please feel free to share. I’m still a little overwhelmed by all of this, but it feels so therapeutic to get it out of my system.
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