Breaking up with my toxic mom group (Ashley Tisdale essay)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

Depends on the vibe of the group. Not every group is like your friend group.

I feel like people are missing that this group was "toxic." To me, that means stuff like this:

- There was a hierarchy and one or more "queen bs" who other people in the group sucked up to. There will also be people who are low in the hierarchy and might even become punching bags for the queen bs. The dynamics of this SUCK and impact who gets invited to what and how everyone feels about it. A gathering without one of the queen bs will be deemed lame by a lot of people, and it might be hard to get people to come to something unless one of those women has blessed it with her RSVP. Meanwhile, if one of the queens has told people she doesn't like one of the fringe members of the group, this person may be left off invited intentionally to please the queen (and make it more likely that she comes to things). It's just a miserable cycle.

- Gossip. When people get together, they just talk about other members of the group, group dynamics, etc. Sometimes this is actually understandable because when you have these toxic dynamics, people in the group are often just very stressed about the ongoing drama and feel a strong need to discuss it with others. But the result is to just deepen the negative dynamics, people get paranoid about how they are discussed when they aren't around, and it spirals.

In a group like this, no, you cannot just hold onto friendships with one or two of the people in the group. You will get drawn into the drama. People will accuse you of being a "wannabe queen" because if you are hanging out with a couple people and avoiding the rest, they will view this as a power play to exclude people rather than just an effort to spend time with people you are actually friends with. The people you hang out with will want to just gossip about the group because they are still in that weird cult, so these hangouts might not even be enjoyable (or if you go ahead and gossip and participate, you ARE continuing to participate in the toxicity of the group).

The only way to liberate yourself from these dynamics is a clean break from the group. No more hangouts, no more gossip. Move the eff on.

If the group isn't toxic in the first place, then sure, you can just hang out with some people and note everyone and it's no big deal, because you don't have these weird hierarchies or gossip dynamics to begin with. That's not a toxic friend group. Ashley is talking about a toxic friend group.

[Anonymous]

So she thinks it's teaching her kids to stand up for themselves by...sending a dramatic text instead of explaining how she felt and having an actual conversation about it?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What I got from that is that social media caused all the toxicity. Without Instagram she would have no idea who was hanging with who and that she wasn't invited. And basically all the anxiety I have with other women also stems from some variation of this: "there they are, all hanging out and didn't invite me. What did I do wrong?"
I hate it so much. Currently dreading logging onto Facebook to post family pictures my mother keep hounding me about because I know I'll see something like this.

That certainly makes it easier to find out. But even in the old days, it would usually get back to someone that a gathering was planned or took place without them. The social dynamics of a large group based on loose connections can be weird, and not being invited doesn't always mean you did something wrong.

In the old days it was considered the height of poor manners to talk about a party to someone who wasn't invited. If it got back to someone it was because someone screwed up. Nowadays a party isn't really a party if pictures of all the guests aren't posted for the world to peruse.

Not where I came from. You learned early that sometimes there are parties and you won’t be included. Maybe it’s small, maybe it’s family, there are many reasons.

It’s toxic to teach your children to kept secrets and walk in egg shells to control others feelings.

Teach them not everything is about them and have many and diverse friends groups.

I'm not sure why you're referring to children. The article was about adult women. And I'm not going to waver that it's rude to post every "mom's night out" to an audience that includes people who for whatever reason may feel that they warranted an invitation. No one is impressed and some people are hurt. There's literally no upside. Send the photos to the women who were present.

+1 on posting the photos. It's cringe behavior that I will admit to having done when I was younger. People do it to project a certain image of themselves, and potentially also to make people jealous. The more secure I am in myself, the less I feel the need to do this. Even now, when I feel the urge to post a photo like this, I recognize it's usually an expression of insecurity.

For you, maybe. I was at a NYE party and pictures of it were posted on social media (not by me, I have accounts but don't use them). Lots of comments from people who were friends with the people in the picture. The people who posted the pictures I know very well and aren't insecure. Also, the party wasn't exclusive, it was open to everyone who was in town that night, although not everyone chose to attend.

Some people definitely have issues and post pictures because they're insecure or need validation or want to hurt someone. Sounds like that's you. But it's not everyone. Some people aren't like that.

But we're not talking about posting photos at an event that everyone was invited to. That's different. Someone posting photos from an open even is obviously not bragging or trying to make people jealous because they just did something anyone could have done.

We're talking about gatherings that ARE exclusive, where not everyone has been invited and where in fact some people have been deliberately left off the guest list. Posting photos of a gathering like that is rude. If I go get drinks with two close friend from a group of 10, and we've gone out of our way to make sure it's just the three of us without the others, then posting photos of this get together where the other 7 women will see them is just weird -- they will obviously wonder why they weren't invited, especially if this is a group that goes out for drinks together all the time.

I think you are being ridiculous if you think doing something with 3 out of 10 people of a group means you have to keep it secret. If you invited 9 of the 10, then yeah, you're kind of being a jerk. But 3 of 10 is...allowed. The fact that you're friends with people who would be upset about that says a lot about you and your friends.

There is a difference between keeping it "secret" and documenting it for posterity and posting it on social media for others to see.

The act of posting it to social media makes it seem important, and exclusive. Often people who do this will intentionally give this impression by doing something like posting inside jokes in the captions or comments.

Of course 3 is allowed. But you don't have to make a HUGE deal out of the fact that you're hanging out with a smaller group. Go, hang out, have fun. If someone asks what you did on Friday say "oh I got drinks with Megan and Julie at that new bar in Georgetown, it was fun." You don't have to keep it a secret. If the person you are talking to feels left out, she can say "oh that sounds great, I'd love to try that place -- do you want to meet up there next week?" or whatever. That's fine too. But documenting the whole thing for social media is weird and performative and is very likely to make people feel left out for no particularly good reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I got from that is that social media caused all the toxicity. Without Instagram she would have no idea who was hanging with who and that she wasn't invited. And basically all the anxiety I have with other women also stems from some variation of this: "there they are, all hanging out and didn't invite me. What did I do wrong?"
I hate it so much. Currently dreading logging onto Facebook to post family pictures my mother keep hounding me about because I know I'll see something like this.

That certainly makes it easier to find out. But even in the old days, it would usually get back to someone that a gathering was planned or took place without them. The social dynamics of a large group based on loose connections can be weird, and not being invited doesn't always mean you did something wrong.

In the old days it was considered the height of poor manners to talk about a party to someone who wasn't invited. If it got back to someone it was because someone screwed up. Nowadays a party isn't really a party if pictures of all the guests aren't posted for the world to peruse.

Not where I came from. You learned early that sometimes there are parties and you won’t be included. Maybe it’s small, maybe it’s family, there are many reasons.

It’s toxic to teach your children to kept secrets and walk in egg shells to control others feelings.

Teach them not everything is about them and have many and diverse friends groups.

I'm not sure why you're referring to children. The article was about adult women. And I'm not going to waver that it's rude to post every "mom's night out" to an audience that includes people who for whatever reason may feel that they warranted an invitation. No one is impressed and some people are hurt. There's literally no upside. Send the photos to the women who were present.

+1 on posting the photos. It's cringe behavior that I will admit to having done when I was younger. People do it to project a certain image of themselves, and potentially also to make people jealous. The more secure I am in myself, the less I feel the need to do this. Even now, when I feel the urge to post a photo like this, I recognize it's usually an expression of insecurity.

For you, maybe. I was at a NYE party and pictures of it were posted on social media (not by me, I have accounts but don't use them). Lots of comments from people who were friends with the people in the picture. The people who posted the pictures I know very well and aren't insecure. Also, the party wasn't exclusive, it was open to everyone who was in town that night, although not everyone chose to attend.

Some people definitely have issues and post pictures because they're insecure or need validation or want to hurt someone. Sounds like that's you. But it's not everyone. Some people aren't like that.

But we're not talking about posting photos at an event that everyone was invited to. That's different. Someone posting photos from an open even is obviously not bragging or trying to make people jealous because they just did something anyone could have done.

We're talking about gatherings that ARE exclusive, where not everyone has been invited and where in fact some people have been deliberately left off the guest list. Posting photos of a gathering like that is rude. If I go get drinks with two close friend from a group of 10, and we've gone out of our way to make sure it's just the three of us without the others, then posting photos of this get together where the other 7 women will see them is just weird -- they will obviously wonder why they weren't invited, especially if this is a group that goes out for drinks together all the time.

I think you are being ridiculous if you think doing something with 3 out of 10 people of a group means you have to keep it secret. If you invited 9 of the 10, then yeah, you're kind of being a jerk. But 3 of 10 is...allowed. The fact that you're friends with people who would be upset about that says a lot about you and your friends.

Nobody said it's not allowed they are saying "see ya!" to the whole group. It's also allowed to break off and do your own thing if you have decided being part of it is toxic or bringing you down.

Of course it is. I would never say someone should be around people who are toxic or don't make you feel good. Absolutely you should leave those people behind. But you can do that without needing to demonize them or act like they're the problem. Doing so is being kind of as toxic as they are... But if you want to be the person who cuts off an entire group of friends because you think one of them is toxic, go ahead. Just don't be surprised when you keep finding yourself doing the same thing and then saying you have no friends.

I have teenage daughters and I have always told them that real friends aren't jealous of you, they make you feel good, they shine lights on you and make your light shine. I tell them that life is too short to be around people who don't love you. BUT I also teach them that life is complicated and people have layers and they make mistakes and they change. Of course you can and should protect yourself and your feelings, but somehow I've been able to do that for almost 50 years without dramatically leaving friend groups or cutting people off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

DP. I think some of us have just found ourselves in groups with these dynamics and understand how it works. I actually think you have probably been in one of these groups too because the language you are using is exactly how people talk in these groups. The person who is being iced out or excluded is always "overly sensitive" to that exclusion. Someone who points out unhealthy dynamics in the group is being "dramatic" or "the one who is actually causing the drama." This is true even if the person who is speaking up does so calmly and in a non-accusatory fashion. It's also true even when other members of the group tend to act very dramatically to any perceived slights or exclusions. Because it's about power. If you have power in the group, you are allowed to say "why didn't I get invited to that" and no one will accuse you of being over sensitive -- they will apologize and make sure to include you next time. And if you don't have power in the group, people will tell you that you are being over-sensitive and that people just forgot and it's no big deal.

In a functional friend group, someone saying they feel left out or hurt by the behavior of another group member would not be a source of drama. People would welcome having issues raised directly, apologize for any harm caused even if it really was totally intentional, and then move forward with a better understanding of one another and everyone's needs. If you are actually friends with someone, and they say "this hurt me," your natural response should usually be that you are sad they are hurt, not to be dismissive or tell them they aren't justified in feeling hurt or they are causing problems by expressing their feelings.

This was not a functional friend group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

I have seen people plan events right in front of me. I am not deaf and I doubt Ashley is either. I didn't expect to be included because I didn't know the group that well but they were literally planning it so I got up and walked away. People are so wrapped up in themselves they do things like this. Why are you cutting the friends slack but not Ashely? She has to explain how she "knew" vs just taking her at face value? Why are you finding it so hard to just take her word for it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I got from that is that social media caused all the toxicity. Without Instagram she would have no idea who was hanging with who and that she wasn't invited. And basically all the anxiety I have with other women also stems from some variation of this: "there they are, all hanging out and didn't invite me. What did I do wrong?"
I hate it so much. Currently dreading logging onto Facebook to post family pictures my mother keep hounding me about because I know I'll see something like this.

That certainly makes it easier to find out. But even in the old days, it would usually get back to someone that a gathering was planned or took place without them. The social dynamics of a large group based on loose connections can be weird, and not being invited doesn't always mean you did something wrong.

In the old days it was considered the height of poor manners to talk about a party to someone who wasn't invited. If it got back to someone it was because someone screwed up. Nowadays a party isn't really a party if pictures of all the guests aren't posted for the world to peruse.

Not where I came from. You learned early that sometimes there are parties and you won’t be included. Maybe it’s small, maybe it’s family, there are many reasons.

It’s toxic to teach your children to kept secrets and walk in egg shells to control others feelings.

Teach them not everything is about them and have many and diverse friends groups.

I'm not sure why you're referring to children. The article was about adult women. And I'm not going to waver that it's rude to post every "mom's night out" to an audience that includes people who for whatever reason may feel that they warranted an invitation. No one is impressed and some people are hurt. There's literally no upside. Send the photos to the women who were present.

+1 on posting the photos. It's cringe behavior that I will admit to having done when I was younger. People do it to project a certain image of themselves, and potentially also to make people jealous. The more secure I am in myself, the less I feel the need to do this. Even now, when I feel the urge to post a photo like this, I recognize it's usually an expression of insecurity.

For you, maybe. I was at a NYE party and pictures of it were posted on social media (not by me, I have accounts but don't use them). Lots of comments from people who were friends with the people in the picture. The people who posted the pictures I know very well and aren't insecure. Also, the party wasn't exclusive, it was open to everyone who was in town that night, although not everyone chose to attend.

Some people definitely have issues and post pictures because they're insecure or need validation or want to hurt someone. Sounds like that's you. But it's not everyone. Some people aren't like that.

But we're not talking about posting photos at an event that everyone was invited to. That's different. Someone posting photos from an open even is obviously not bragging or trying to make people jealous because they just did something anyone could have done.

We're talking about gatherings that ARE exclusive, where not everyone has been invited and where in fact some people have been deliberately left off the guest list. Posting photos of a gathering like that is rude. If I go get drinks with two close friend from a group of 10, and we've gone out of our way to make sure it's just the three of us without the others, then posting photos of this get together where the other 7 women will see them is just weird -- they will obviously wonder why they weren't invited, especially if this is a group that goes out for drinks together all the time.

I think you are being ridiculous if you think doing something with 3 out of 10 people of a group means you have to keep it secret. If you invited 9 of the 10, then yeah, you're kind of being a jerk. But 3 of 10 is...allowed. The fact that you're friends with people who would be upset about that says a lot about you and your friends.

Nobody said it's not allowed they are saying "see ya!" to the whole group. It's also allowed to break off and do your own thing if you have decided being part of it is toxic or bringing you down.

Of course it is. I would never say someone should be around people who are toxic or don't make you feel good. Absolutely you should leave those people behind. But you can do that without needing to demonize them or act like they're the problem. Doing so is being kind of as toxic as they are... But if you want to be the person who cuts off an entire group of friends because you think one of them is toxic, go ahead. Just don't be surprised when you keep finding yourself doing the same thing and then saying you have no friends.

I have teenage daughters and I have always told them that real friends aren't jealous of you, they make you feel good, they shine lights on you and make your light shine. I tell them that life is too short to be around people who don't love you. BUT I also teach them that life is complicated and people have layers and they make mistakes and they change. Of course you can and should protect yourself and your feelings, but somehow I've been able to do that for almost 50 years without dramatically leaving friend groups or cutting people off.

DP, I have been in exactly one friend group with these dynamics. I ultimately did leave the group completely and even turned down invitations from the non-toxic members of the group in order to make a clean break, specifically because I recognized the group was just bad news for me. And yes, the dynamics were being caused by a small number of women at the center of the group who were being manipulative, controlling, and toxic.

I've never had that problem again. In fact, leaving that group created the space I needed in my life to invest in healthy relationships. Some of my friendships pre-date that group and I was so happy to be able to be more present in them after leaving the group. I've also made other friends since and those relationships are better for having learned the lessons I learned in that group, about avoiding gossip and being inclusive.

That group continues their toxic behavior and I've had multiple people reach out to me since, after they have also left the group. The women at the center of the group are still at the center of the group, but they've replaced a lot of the people around them with new people, many of whom are younger, which I find interesting (fresh meat). The fact that they've struggled to hold onto original group members says a lot about what is actually happening there.

Leaving a toxic friend group does not mean you'll never have friends again or that every friend group you're part of will end in that way. Sometimes it just means you recognize what is negative about that group and will make better choices of friends moving forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

I have seen people plan events right in front of me. I am not deaf and I doubt Ashley is either. I didn't expect to be included because I didn't know the group that well but they were literally planning it so I got up and walked away. People are so wrapped up in themselves they do things like this. Why are you cutting the friends slack but not Ashely? She has to explain how she "knew" vs just taking her at face value? Why are you finding it so hard to just take her word for it?

+1 The anecdote about the women planning a get together without her while attending her party reminded me of this old memory from when I was in a group like this. I had a housewarming party and my husband and I invited everyone -- it was just a huge sprawling party and I included everyone from this group of friends even if I wasn't close to them because that's the kind of party it was.

There were these two women from that group who came even though we'd never spent much time together. I thought "how nice, maybe we'll get to know each other better." They spent the entire party glued to each other (even though they knew many people at the party) and taking themselves on a "tour" of the house -- I'd go to get something out of a back closet for the party and find them coming out of like the master bathroom together, giggling. At one point they approached me and demanded to know how much we'd paid for the house, which I thought was a weird thing to do but it's public info so I just answered truthfully (and it wasn't some super expensive home -- it was a small townhouse near the bottom of the price range for where we lived at the time). They ran off giggling after that.

I wrote off their behavior as weird and maybe the result of being socially awkward or drinking too much. Then weeks later I was going out with a few other friends from the group and we were going to a restaurant like a block from my house so I told them that if anyone wanted to come over early and leave their car parked at my house, if driving, they were welcome to. Two of the people in this group hadn't been to my house before and were close friends with the two giggling women. They said to me beforehand "oh yes, we HAVE to see this house we've heard so much about." Again, I thought this was weird because I had not personally talked about the house much at all and also it's a pretty basic house. When they came they looked around interested and said things like "oh it's not what I expected" or "oh, actually it's *nice*."

Did I witness the giggling women talking a bunch of $hit about my house and how much I paid for it? Nope. Do I know basically what was going on in this situation and that I was the subject of some nasty gossip about my home and maybe my finances, by people who don't know me well at all? Yes, because I'm not stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

I have seen people plan events right in front of me. I am not deaf and I doubt Ashley is either. I didn't expect to be included because I didn't know the group that well but they were literally planning it so I got up and walked away. People are so wrapped up in themselves they do things like this. Why are you cutting the friends slack but not Ashely? She has to explain how she "knew" vs just taking her at face value? Why are you finding it so hard to just take her word for it?

It’s because PP is one of those Queen bees and this is striking a nerve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So she thinks it's teaching her kids to stand up for themselves by...sending a dramatic text instead of explaining how she felt and having an actual conversation about it?

And then write about it on the Internet.

I can be empathetic to how it feels to be left out, btdt, but it would be so much easier to be empathetic if she described trying to talk about what was going on in person.

Also I'm wondering if she reached out to the person she realized was being excluded before her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she thinks it's teaching her kids to stand up for themselves by...sending a dramatic text instead of explaining how she felt and having an actual conversation about it?

And then write about it on the Internet.

I can be empathetic to how it feels to be left out, btdt, but it would be so much easier to be empathetic if she described trying to talk about what was going on in person.

Also I'm wondering if she reached out to the person she realized was being excluded before her.

Why is the onus on the person wronged to tiptoe around the person who did the slighting? If you recognize yourself, don't shoot the messenger. But if only she went about it a different way is BS. She's allowed to express her feelings on social media, isn't that the point of the defenders of the toxic group? They are allowed to share anything and everything on social media, feelings be damned.

[Anonymous]

I have a different perspective

I felt like I was included in a friend/mom group for a long time because people felt like they had to because of my husband and his family

Even though I sort of didn't like most of them overall and I don't actually think they liked me.

I stayed off social media for a long time when I made the break (divorce did it, everyone went with my ex-husband).

But when I went back and started to look on sites like instagram and started to see all those former friends and their adult kids having bible quotes and american flags on their posts I realized I'm good

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she thinks it's teaching her kids to stand up for themselves by...sending a dramatic text instead of explaining how she felt and having an actual conversation about it?

And then write about it on the Internet.

I can be empathetic to how it feels to be left out, btdt, but it would be so much easier to be empathetic if she described trying to talk about what was going on in person.

Also I'm wondering if she reached out to the person she realized was being excluded before her.

Why is the onus on the person wronged to tiptoe around the person who did the slighting? If you recognize yourself, don't shoot the messenger. But if only she went about it a different way is BS. She's allowed to express her feelings on social media, isn't that the point of the defenders of the toxic group? They are allowed to share anything and everything on social media, feelings be damned.

I'm on Ashley's side here, as someone who has also left a toxic friend group and identifies with what she writes in the essay.

However, I actually do agree that her choosing to write about this in a public way, especially given that the members of this group were famous and a lot of people know or will speculate who she's talking about, is part of the toxic dynamic. I bet Ashley is watching reaction to her essay quite closely, maybe even looking at the social media of people in this group to see if there's any hint that they are aware of it. She probably wont' admit she's doing that, but having been there, I bet she is.

Having been through this, I think it probably would have been healthier *for her* not to publicize it in this way. Or perhaps to write this essay anonymously, or to write it and wait many years to publish it. When I left my toxic friend group, it took me years to truly detach from that dysfunctional feedback loop of still wanting their approval. And for me it's been many years, and still when I read Ashley's essay, I fell down a rabbit hole of looking at social media from people in that old group because her essay made me think about them, and thinking about them made me curious, and of course many of them still have public social media accounts where they document their comings and goings. I was also happy to discover that most of them are no longer friends, or not appearing in each other's photos or liking each other's posts, and that the one I wound up disliking the most uses her Insta account to shill for what appears to be a failing personal styling brand. So even though its' been years, I can still get pulled into these toxic emotional dynamics (I don't love that I still feel this petty about these people, I wish I was truly just above it all by now).

I'm still kind of glad Ashley wrote the essay, because she's right that these dynamics don't get talked about or acknowledged much. But if I'm really honest, this was also probably petty on her part and an effort to "win" the friend breakup or save face. I have empathy for her position as I know it well, but also know the way to really put this crap behind you is done out of the public eye, in therapy or in your healthy relationships with people who actually like and respect you, not online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this.

Yeah. I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group. She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith.

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then.

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful.

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic.

DP. I think some of us have just found ourselves in groups with these dynamics and understand how it works. I actually think you have probably been in one of these groups too because the language you are using is exactly how people talk in these groups. The person who is being iced out or excluded is always "overly sensitive" to that exclusion. Someone who points out unhealthy dynamics in the group is being "dramatic" or "the one who is actually causing the drama." This is true even if the person who is speaking up does so calmly and in a non-accusatory fashion. It's also true even when other members of the group tend to act very dramatically to any perceived slights or exclusions. Because it's about power. If you have power in the group, you are allowed to say "why didn't I get invited to that" and no one will accuse you of being over sensitive -- they will apologize and make sure to include you next time. And if you don't have power in the group, people will tell you that you are being over-sensitive and that people just forgot and it's no big deal.

In a functional friend group, someone saying they feel left out or hurt by the behavior of another group member would not be a source of drama. People would welcome having issues raised directly, apologize for any harm caused even if it really was totally intentional, and then move forward with a better understanding of one another and everyone's needs. If you are actually friends with someone, and they say "this hurt me," your natural response should usually be that you are sad they are hurt, not to be dismissive or tell them they aren't justified in feeling hurt or they are causing problems by expressing their feelings.

This was not a functional friend group.

I haven't been in one of those groups because my friend groups (and I have many of them) have always been functional. Everyone is allowed to say how they feel, we can disagree, we can even get upset with each other, but we're adults and we can talk it out. So I will note what you said since you have actual experience with this and I don't. To me, the behavior of certain people seems overly sensitive or dramatic, but that's not because I'm dismissing their feelings, it's because it seems like people are making assumptions in order to further their narrative. Perhaps that isn't the case, but it's hard to tell.