Friends reacting weirdly to divorce
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Anonymous
| It sounds like you deeply dislike both of them. Go ahead and end the friendships. They’ll get over it. |
Anonymous
Widow's get sympathy that divorcees do not. That's the truth. Right now pull back from your friends a bit, and just focus on your kids and your career. |
Anonymous
| An example of friend #2's behavior - the one who keeps mentioning her relationship with her husband. For the past 3 years, I've gone out trick or treating with my youngest and their family and one other family. The six of us would take all six kids around and visit other families in the neighborhood. Some of the houses had driveway parties for adults and it was all fun. My younger son is great friends with hers but also has another best friend who has come along for several years because his parents work. I sent a text asking if her son wanted to meet up with mine and if she wanted to walk around again. She said she was staying home for the night but the kids could meet up if they wanted, so I decided to as well and asked my son to coordinate on his own. He asked me to drive him to the meeting spot. When I got there, three adults were there. The wife of the other family and the two of them. I was surprised and realized she had just coordinated without me, but said nothing and said that I was going to go home and give out candy since that was the original plan and to have fun. My son had his own phone and I told him he and his friend could stay with them or go off on their own. She calls me at 8 pm asking me if I wanted to meet up. The other woman and her husband had gone home and she was all alone with the kids. So I'm useful as a friend if she has no one else. |
Anonymous
I think I deeply dislike their passive aggressive behavior yes. I like their caring and fun side. |
Anonymous
No one is perfect. If you want to stay friends with them, you have to accept their flaws along with their good sides, just like they have to do for you. If you cannot do that without resentment, then they aren’t friendships worth keeping. |
Anonymous
It wasn't there before though. We were all just friends without the jealousy and passive aggressiveness. I can accept faults but don't need to constantly be at fault. Why do I need to put up with abuse just because they have feels? I'm hoping just scaling back will help. The kids are older and can coordinate on their own. Maybe in a year or two things will calm down. |
Anonymous
If the friendship dynamic has changed, then you need to be open to how you might have contributed to that change rather than assuming all of the blame lies with them. So far you have not shown that kind of openness at all, so i don’t think there is anything else I can do to try to help. They are not here for us to get their side or give them advice. Only you, and you can only control yourself, not them. |
Anonymous
| tldr |
Anonymous
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OP,
If friends listened to you then you should listen to them. You have to learn to be more stoic with divorce. Sharing too much will bite you in the ass. No matter why you divorced you are now learning that in the patriarchy status you didn’t even realized derived from a man, derived from a man. Prepare to be treated worse than when you were married. People see you as a weak member of the herd now. Sad fact about our society. You have to make good money and hold your head high and make a good life anyway. -BTDT |
Anonymous
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Sorry OP. I just can't read your posts. Too long and too focused on your own self.
Sometimes annoying traits in a person are blunted when they are part of a couple. When they become single, people can experience their annoying trait without any filter and then they tend to drop them. Your communication style is annoying. Also, no one wants to know your sad story and trauma. No one wants to hear about your problems. People are quick to unburden their problems on others. They are called Emotional Vampires. Please don't be one. Get a therapist. |
Anonymous
Seriously. |
Anonymous
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Fact of life - IRL, no one wants to hear your sorry saga. No one.
There is a reason that DCUM is so popular. But even here, short posts and paragraphs. |
Anonymous
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People are weird about divorce, especially women. Women who distance themselves from you, suddenly need to remind you constantly that they are married, act like divorce is contagious- it says a lot more about what’s going on in their lives and the strength of their marriage than it says about you and your friendship with them.
People are also really weird about abuse and addiction. Same for a terminally ill child, mental illness, and special needs kids. People don’t know what to say, so they often say nothing. Even if they don’t acknowledge it, they are likely subconsciously looking for ways to insulate themselves or convince themselves it can’t happen to them. The idea that bad things happen to good people and that it couldn’t have been predicted or prevented is quite scary. Everyone thinks if it was them, they would leave an abusive situation easily and immediately. Unless they or someone they are very close to has experienced it, it seems so black and white to them. Most people haven’t been in your shoes, so they may say awkward or hurtful things. You will have to rely on your knowledge of their character whether they meant to be hurtful or if they are just handling a sensitive topic awkwardly. |
Anonymous
I agree that could be it. I think I need to take a break from them though because I feel like in "retaliation" they are doing the same back. I never burdened them with much of anything before the divorce so thought they could handle this one traumatic event. That's kind of a sad state of affairs that someone is an emotional vampire if ever in a 20-year timeframe they have any trauma but I luckily have other friends that are more introspective. They've been great and meet up with me every three months for coffee. I think some people just handle trauma better than others. Since I've been divorced I have met other divorcees and one of them was left by her spouse out of the blue and quickly got into a relationship with another person. He turned out to have an abusive past. I'm just not ready for another relationship even a good one, but feel these two friends will only be comfortable with me whenever I am steady with another guy so maybe we are just acquaintances going forward. |
Anonymous
I realized my man gave me status and was happy to stay with him even through the issues, but couldn't stay in an abusive marriage that was getting out of control. Have read enough House of Mirth type books. I have full custody now to give you an idea how abusive it was. We are all happier. |