Reply to S/O Why can’t moms just chill and be nice?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I kept my distance from other moms in NOVA when my kids were growing up. Groups of women low-key unnerve me because I was the family scapegoat bullied relentlessly and excluded by the women in my family to the point I've had to go no contact with the entire family. They poisoned the well against me and made it okay to emotionally and physically abuse me (yes, I got hit). So I've experienced how cruel women can be in groups and I don't want any part of their "mom dinners".[/quote]

I'm in DC and wish we knew each other because this is me, too. My mom and sister were the same and while I can now do 1:1 relationships with women that are functional, I find groups highly triggering. My biggest issue is when people refuse to just communicate directly with whoever they have a conflict with. Like if you are upset with Jenny because she never texted to check on you after your surgery, just go talk to Jenny about it. Tell her why you are upset and how it makes you feel, and ideally Jenny will listen and be similarly honest and emotionally mature, and you guys can work it out.

What a lot (maybe most) people in a friend group will do instead is go tell Claire how they feel, refuse to speak to Jenny directly, and then just live with weird vibes and passive aggression forever. I simply cannot. I went to therapy for over a decade in order to unlearn all that toxic, manipulative, passive aggressive BS I was raised with, and I don't want to recreate it in my adult friendships. So unless someone is mature enough to discuss issues with me directly, own their feelings, both apologize and forgive when appropriate, I just can't do it. And I have found that in female friend groups, there is often at least one woman who can't do this stuff and it brings everyone down. So other than one small group of women I've known for 20 years (which is part of a larger friend group of men and women so we actually only occasionally hang out just as the women on our own, which changes the dynamic), I stick to 1:1 friendships where I find it much easier to ensure good communication and mature conflict resolution. At this point I find I don't really have conflicts in my relationships, we're just kind and supportive of each other. But it took a long time, and a lot of culling of my friendships, to get to this point.[/quote]

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