Should I resume the friendship with my best friend of so many years?

If you didn’t need/want the help with the interior design, would you be thinking about calling her up and trying to resume the friendship? If not, then I’d say it’s not really the friendship you are mostly focused on right now and it seems like you only want to do it because of that. If so, then go ahead and give her a call, but hold of on the interior design stuff for a while.

I’m a little confused. At first you said her daughter didn’t like you and because of that, you weren’t invited to the wedding in the first place. How come your friend (the bride’s mother) said she had an invitation to the wedding if you weren’t invited? Any reason you can tell us why the daughter didn’t like you?

I had a situation very similar happen to me. One of my close (or so I thought) friends of many years started to get crazy when her long time boyfriend cheated on her and then dumped her. This friend of mine was a beauty, kind of looked like Brooke Shields, her boyfriend cheated on her with a mousy, dumpy looking girl. She went into a depression and had anxiety about her looks that devloped into obsession (even though she was still gorgeous) But then she would go on and on about how fat she was, even though I’m a pretty plain looking gal and clearly much pudgier (but no one would describe me as fat). I pointed out to her that when she called herself fat, and I am clearly pudgier than she is, that it made me feel pretty awful. She started using this line on me, “I don’t expect you to understand.” So now she was suggesting that I was stupid and fat (I am neither) And she was completely obsessed with finding a husband. She would break engagements with me all the time, because some guy would turn up. She dated about 20 or 30 men over a 5 year period and ended up marrying a douchey kind of guy.

She had once been fun and friendly and kind, but after her boyfriend dumped her, she became another person and there wasn’t any room in that new anxiety riddled life of hers for me. Plus the douchey husband and all of his friends came from money and influence. I learned that because I didn’t have those things, I’m just a normal middle class person, that she didn’t see me as fitting in with her new lifestyle.

Your friend, after having gone through her divorce may have had a similar, painful transition, where you and other things that were important to her, aren’t working for her any more. Maybe the little bit of angst between you and her daughter, just set this whole thing in motion.

If I were you, I would just walk away (that’s what I did in my case).

I have a feeling your friend feels really bad about the way you were treated and she does not know how to rectify the situation. You have to understand that her family comes first before friendship and her children may have influenced her in the way she acted. If you still want her as a friend, call her, just to say hello. Don’t ask about any interior designing until you know where your relationship with her stands.

@Seaofclouds It’s kind of tangled up. I could really do with some help with the ID, but also think I can’t afford to lose a good friend.
@Kardamom There were 2 weddings. Her son got married in June and her dauther in September. The one I’m referring to is hers son’s wedding. I think her daughter doesn’t like me because her father and I didn’t get along very well and I think she was a little jealous of the close friendship I had with her mom. My friend’s divorce was a happy ending to a long time struggle with that marriage and I was with her through all the rough moments.
@AmWiser I don’t think her children influenced her because her son likes me very much and it was my friend who had the last word anyway since she was paying for the whole thing.

@Porifera Contact her and try to repair the friendship, but find someone else to help with the ID for now.

@Porifera I too was with my “friend” through all of her rough times. But when her circumstances changed, I was no longer useful to her. Do you think maybe that’s what happened here? Especially since her husband was kind of a douche and probably turned the daughter against you (or the daughter was jealous for some reason).

@Kardamom I don’t think the daughter had anything to do with this at all because it was not her wedding I wanted to go to. That said, I wish I really knew why my friend didn’t share the happy moments with me since I was always there for her throught the rough patches. What makes the whole thing so confusing is that we are talking about a 40 year friendship and we never had a problem before.

@Porifera Do you have any other friends in common who might be able to throw some light onto this question, so that you can feel it out before you try to contact her? If not, you could try to write her a letter, but be super-super careful about how you word the letter. Even if you were friends with her through thick and thin and you stood by her side through the rough patches, if you point that out to her, she may take it as you “acting like a martyr” or “trying to rub it in her face” even though that is not what you would intend at all.

Something must have happened. Someone must have said something. She must have gotten the wrong idea about something. But since you don’t know what that something is, don’t “apologize” to her for anything, unless you are completely clear on what you may have done. People get really mad when you say, “I’m sorry for whatever I may have done.” Because it sounds like you don’t think you did anything wrong, when in reality, you have no idea whether or not you accidentally did something wrong.

If you write to her or call her, you could say something like, “Hi Jean, It’s been almost a year since I’ve heard from you. The last time I spoke to you, you said that you had a wedding invitation for me to pick up. I tried to arrange to pick it up on multiple times, but it seems like you were always busy when I tried to come and get it. Then I never heard back from you at all. I wanted to talk to you, but I felt very upset and a little embarrassed to think that you must not want to see me or talk to me, since you never got back to me. Did I do something wrong to upset you? Why did you stop talking to me not try to get the invitation to me until it was too late for me to make arrangements? We’ve been friends for 40 years, but this just doesn’t make any sense to me. I thought I should give you some time to yourself, but then you never came back. Please tell me what went wrong”

She may or may not respond to you, but at least you are putting the ball in her court without you saying that you think she was wrong or bad, just that you are completely in the dark about the whole situation and would like to try to rectify it.

There is this thing called a stamp. You peel it off, stick it on a wedding invitation, drop it in the mail 4 weeks before the wedding. Your guest gets it, sends back a response card, and either comes or doesn’t come to the wedding.

You do not call someone up and tell them that there is an invitation for them at your house, and that the friend can stop by and pick it up. This is wrong on so many fronts. Why is it okay to treat you like less than a person?

Don’t put up with people doing stuff like this just because you want free interior decorating help. If you miss the relationship, and want to see the person, by all means resume contact. But discuss how it all made you feel.

As the daughter and ex-husband may have also been in attendance maybe she intended to invite you but changed her mind (or had it changed for her.) Try contacting her if you value the friendship, but do the ask about the interior decorating as she may feel you just want to use her. If she does not seem to want to re-kindle the friendship, move on. You opened the door, but she has to decide whether to walk through it or not. Her life has probably changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. You may no longer fit into her life or she may have felt really bad about what happened with the whole wedding situation. The problem I have with the whole thing was her lack of willingness to be honest with you. Do you really want and need a friend like that?

Everybody, thanks for the great advice and insight. Each of you has pointed out aspects I didn’t really consider before. I now have more elements to decide on what course of action I should take. I was right in posting my concerns here :)

A couple of things though, to clarify a few of your points:

@Kardamom We do have friends in common but I am very private and do not like to voice my concerns to third parties. If anything I will call her directly. I know she will take my calls if I decide to call her.
@BarnacleBill You do not call someone up and tell them that there is an invitation… We have always done that. The mail service where we live is not reliable. I live in the suburbs and she lives in the city, I have to go to the city for work so it has always worked out well.
@optimisticpessimist This was not her daughter’s wedding and I’m sure they didn’t even discuss my attending her brother’s wedding. As for the ex-husband, my firend is not on speaking terms with him. This is a very interesting point Her life has probably changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. You may no longer fit into her life…, and Do you really want and need a friend like that? Still working on that one…

@Porifera I understood it was not the daughter’s wedding, but assumed the daughter would be in attendance and may have encouraged her mother to rescind the invitation to the the son (her brother’s wedding) because she does not like you. I thought perhaps the father was invited even if the mother and him were not on speaking terms as he is the father.

@optimisticpessimist The father was invited but had no saying on the organization of the wedding since he didn’t contribute to pay for the event. As for the daughter, I doubt she had a saying here…but who knows…you might be right…I was invited to the wedding though, it was a gathering before the wedding that I wasn’t invited to…

When I asked my friend why I wasn’t invited to that gathering, she said because she was paying for the whole thing and to keep the costs down, she decided to invite only family and that if she invited me then she would have to invite other friends too.

But I mean, if I am actually paying for something, don’t I have the right to invite whomever I want? What do you think?

@Porifera I re-read your description. I misunderstood about the invitation. You never received a written invitation but she called a couple days before. I got it now. That does change some things for me. She was probably hectically busy before the wedding, but she did take the time to call. (Yes, a stamp on the invitation would have been easier, better and entailed less questions.) She may feel a little slighted that you decided not to attend the wedding.

Although she could invite whomever she wanted as she was paying for it, I do understand her response about the preceding gathering. She may have some friends who would not take it well to find out you had been invited and they had not. This can cause mass amounts of complications to something which is supposed to just be a happy event.

I still say you should contact her if you are interested in pursuing the friendship, leave off the interior decorating, and just try to reconnect as this seems like a situation of misunderstandings rather than intentional hurt.

Ok… so you can’t understand why before a wedding the mother of the groom would be busy? Busy enough that when its convenient for you, and not for her, that you couldn’t just come by any time? And you can’t understand why she might want to save money by keeping a get together as small as possible? You can’t understand why, when she was concerned with dealing with God knows what with the wedding, she didn’t come to a full stop and make sure you were included? You can’t understand how, with your behavior at a time of stress in her life, she might not be so eager to keep going with a friendship where she gets no support, only more demands? You can’t understand how, with everything going on in her life, she didn’t take the time to cater to you and your ideas of what she should be doing for you so you refused to participate at all.

And now, after behaving badly you want to get back together with her… just so you can use her?

How incredibly selfish are you?

@klutzaroo I am a bit appalled at the tone of your reply as that is not the way I interact with people. I find it rather strong and do not like to speak or be spoken to on those terms :(

However, you might be right on your approach and I will take each and every point you have mentioned into consideration. I didn’t realize I was being selfish, and I as said before, I am getting great advice and insight that is helping me to understand this situation in a clearer way.

So you’re telling me every single person that was invited to that wedding had to stop by her house and pick up their invitation??!!??

You should go ahead and make the first move to patch up the friendship. Even if you don’t get her to help you with the house renovations it would be a shame to let such a long standing friendship end over the wedding. It is understandable that she was so busy right before the wedding. it is also understandabie that you weren’t able to go because of not having a dress or a gift for the couple. But you should both put all of that behind you and work on keeping your friendship alive.

@BarnacleBill I suppose they delivered the invitations by hand to most people. As I said, I live in the suburbs but work in the city, and had agreed with her that I would pick up my invitation from her apartment. As for how they delivered the rest I don’t really know for sure. But I do know that we don’t usually send stuff like that by mail, unles they are overseas or in another state.