Awkward situation with a friend

geoffky

If someone punches me i punch them back and then walk away..
I do not then go out and buy them a brand new car or put a deposit down for a house for them......
I have a feeling you are going to be parting with a lot of money due to your own insecurities.. Please do not do this...

KiKi

I wouldn't lend her the money. But I disagree with most posters on here with regards to friendship. Friends screw up, sometimes. They screw up BIG time. Sometimes that's without even the sort of stress that infertility and other medical issues can bring. I know the whole "but a real friend wouldn't..." argument - but real people *do* make real monumental mistakes. I'm thinking of at least two I've made. I wasn't a bad friend, but I did make misjudgements and screwed up big time. It's sometimes easier to do when it's someone who's such a good friend for such a long time.

I'm not suggesting her behaviour was okay at all, but I am trying to imagine her perspective. She is desperate - absolutely desperate - for a child, and by the OP's accounts would be a great mum. She sees you day in, day out, week on week, hears her best friend making light of difficult pregnancies, and has no idea it's a coping mechanism. She sees her other friends around her getting pregnant, and is perhaps falling into a terrible depression. She doesn't have the money she needs to try and explore her fertility problems further and gets to breaking point - where she lets loose at her best friend because she's at the end of her tether and the world is a very dark place. I can imagine her posting here and getting a lot of sympathy for her predicament.

Was it right to stop contact for two years? No, of course not. But maybe her world was so dark and awful, and she was so embarrassed, that she just didn't know where to start. And then the longer she left it, the harder it was. I've done that myself before - not for two years, but just didn't know where to start.

Again, not right to contact someone after two years for money, and I can see why the immediately overwhelming response would be 'tell her to f*** off' (it was mine!). But I also think it's possible that this was the only way of reaching out that she knew of. Or was so desperate that she texted without thinking.

I also don't think it's emotional blackmail; I think she made some very bad decisions because she was in a very bad place, and she knows she screwed up and still doesn't know what to do or how to fix it.

OP, I wouldn't lend her the money; but given what you've said about how you feel, I would use it to re-establish a friendship. It's easy to say 'a friend wouldn't behave like that', but friends do make big mistakes, and get things so wrong, and if she has had a horrific two years of awful medical stuff and health problems, maybe she just hasn't been a position to get to a point of making contact. I think the way she went about it is absolutely wrong (and why I wouldn't lend her the money!) but I think you're absolutely right to go back to the friendship, revisit it and see if it's something worth exploring.

It's easy on an internet site to say 'ignore', but you're the one who's been in that friendship; you know her, and you know what she's like. And if you feel that you should see if that friendship can be repaired and you can be a support to her, then I think you should. I also think it's entirely possible that she texted you on the pretext of money because she didn't know how to get in touch and apologise and restart the friendship, and hoped you'd respond in the way you have.

I know most people won't agree with me - not that I have to justify the way I think, of course! - but that's just my perspective.

KiKi

koalamummy

I really don't want to be the bitter person using old grudges as a means of preventing somebody else from being truly happy. I was brought up to believe that you do whatever you can to help others out as you never know the day when you will need that help back.

auntiesue

OP why don't you just hold fire on lending money to see if it is possible to build the friendship back up. I think it will be hard to get it back to how it was before but who knows.
From the sound of what you are saying you have already decided to give this woman the money. Just wait a while though to see how things go.
I wish I had a friend as decent and considerate as you.

balletshoes

koalamummy wrote: »

I really don't want to be the bitter person using old grudges as a means of preventing somebody else from being truly happy. I was brought up to believe that you do whatever you can to help others out as you never know the day when you will need that help back.

you don't sound bitter at all - but you do sound like you take the blame for a lot of things in this relationship with your old friend, including things which you are blameless for.

To be honest, I'm a bit concerned about this aspect of your relationship with this friend - you will bend over backwards for her, but would she do the same for you, and would you ask her to? Friendship is a 2-way thing.

mountainofdebt

koalamummy wrote: »

I really don't want to be the bitter person using old grudges as a means of preventing somebody else from being truly happy. I was brought up to believe that you do whatever you can to help others out as you never know the day when you will need that help back.

Ok go to this lunch and use it as a means of rebuilding the friendship.

But just be on your guard and don't promise anything.

I get what you mean about helping others if you can but always keep this question in the back of your mind "would you be apologising to me if you didn't know I had the means to lend you money"

purple.sarah

koalamummy wrote: »

I really don't want to be the bitter person using old grudges as a means of preventing somebody else from being truly happy. I was brought up to believe that you do whatever you can to help others out as you never know the day when you will need that help back.

You don't seem bitter at all but I'm worried you feel so responsible for your friend's happiness. It is not your fault she has had a hard life, it is not up to you to pay for her fertility treatment.

koalamummy

balletshoes wrote: »

you don't sound bitter at all - but you do sound like you take the blame for a lot of things in this relationship with your old friend, including things which you are blameless for.

To be honest, I'm a bit concerned about this aspect of your relationship with this friend - you will bend over backwards for her, but would she do the same for you, and would you ask her to? Friendship is a 2-way thing.

There was a time when she had the same perspective on life. Many years ago my oldest child was delivered at 27 weeks several hundred miles from home while I was attending a cousins wedding. Whereas this lady was not there with me she was always at the end of a phone. At one point, on the morning of my 23rd birthday to be exact I was told that there was a strong probability that my boy would not make it through the next 24 hours and to do whatever I felt appropriate. I was a complete wreck as I was completely on my own with my husband barely contactable several thousand miles away. I called this lady who managed to calm me down and contact the relevant person of our faith to perform the appropriate baptism and last rites. He survived and is very well today. However I will never be certain that I too survived without her input.

Saturnalia

It's possible that she has seen the light and changed, and it's up to you if you want to meet her and see if the friendship could be rekindled. Perhaps it can and none of us can say.

But until you've got to know her again and worked out what her motives are, keep your hand on your wallet, ok? A request for money out of the blue after two years of silence and a parting on bad terms... I'm beyond suspicious here.

purple.sarah

koalamummy wrote: »

There was a time when she had the same perspective on life. Many years ago my oldest child was delivered at 27 weeks several hundred miles from home while I was attending a cousins wedding. Whereas this lady was not there with me she was always at the end of a phone. At one point, on the morning of my 23rd birthday to be exact I was told that there was a strong probability that my boy would not make it through the next 24 hours and to do whatever I felt appropriate. I was a complete wreck as I was completely on my own with my husband barely contactable several thousand miles away. I called this lady who managed to calm me down and contact the relevant person of our faith to perform the appropriate baptism and last rites. He survived and is very well today. However I will never be certain that I too survived without her input.

It was good of her to do that but I don't understand how she can see you go through that and still think your family are like the Waltons or you have it easy compared to her!