Home truths that will never be spoken

Dear Emma*

Names have been changed to protect the innocent. This may not be the most coherent blog post ever, I'm still steaming...

Earlier this year my husband received an email from yours asking if you'd done something to upset us as you'd not received a birthday present from us this year. Well yes, you had as it happens and I'd actually been trying to gently distance myself from you for quite some time - I say gently because our husbands are friends and I didn't want to damage their 'bromance'. I would have cut and run a long time before that if it was possible.



Put on the spot and being typical Brits we squirmed uncomfortably, made lame excuses, apologised and you swiftly received a Birthday present in the post. End of story. You were happy again.  

After that I resolved to give our 'friendship' another chance for the sake of theirs. I know you're going through a lot at the moment with your fertility treatment and troubles with your boss at work, so I've tried to be compassionate, understanding even when I don't agree with you, I've tried to be nice.

But the last few days I've been reminded of why I felt I had to walk away previously, in fact you've made me so angry I can't think straight and I can't sleep at night. But my hands are tied; my husband has asked that I don't do anything drastic because he doesn't want to lose his friend, so what can I do? Obviously you're never going to see this, but this is what I want to say to you and can't...

You may wonder over the coming months why I'm always busy, never in when you call, etc. etc. The truth is I've had it with you and I want nothing more to do with you. As that is currently impossible, I want as little to do with you as is possible. Please take the hint and respectfully fade out of my life.

Late last year you told me you'd had a miscarriage. I was full of sympathy, I'd been there myself after all and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Immediately I felt upset for you. But then quickly alarm bells went off in my head. I'd seen you only a month before and it had been 'the time of the month' for both of us. I was due on again now - so timing wise there'd barely been enough time to know you were pregnant let alone suffer a miscarriage. You must have tested early, I realised, still feeling sad for you because you've been trying for a baby for ages and that must be crushing. But then you went onto to admit you hadn't actually done a pregnancy test, you'd just been a bit late and had sore boobs, then when you came on it was really painful and you "passed" something. 

I was confused. You have endometriosis and all your periods are agonising and heavy. The miscarriage diagnosis was sounding less and less clear by the minute.

My sympathy was replaced by suspicion now, and I surprised myself by carefully asking what you'd seen. When you indicated the size of whatever you passed well I'm sorry but it's just not possible - there wouldn't be anything to see at that stage and the size of the fetus you indicated was at least 12 weeks - I do know a little bit about that kind of thing. Since you're currently undergoing fertility treatment, wouldn't they have noticed you were three months pregnant? I tried to reassure you that it really might not have been the baby and you ought to mention it to your doctor, but you clammed up and we left it there. 

It got my back up that night. That said, I knew you've been down and I tried to put myself in your shoes, be sympathetic. But I felt that you were embellishing the truth again, you may or may not have had an early miscarriage, but you really don't know for certain - and to be using the word 'miscarriage' as adamantly as you were, well it felt like you were using the term to elicit sympathy from me and I wasn't happy about that. That was the point I tried to back off and create some space between us.

And now, obviously, I've just miscarried again at 11-12 weeks.  And literally the day after the worst of my ordeal was over, you were complaining to me how your unsympathetic your boss had been following your fertility treatment and miscarriage... What a minute, what was that? Miscarriage? The one that you may or may not have even had?  

Okay... So that text the day before really had meant what I thought it meant: "I know how hard it is." You really seem to believe we've gone through the same thing? 

I almost hung up on you. I barely said anything after that and quickly brought the phone call to an end. I could only see red at that point and I'm still stupidly upset now.

The fact you are bandying around the word "miscarriage" to gain sympathy from people offends me. I know you were telling a mutual friend the weekend before about your 'miscarriage' too. But that you then have the nerve to maintain the lie in front of me, even sending me a text that says "I know how hard it is" - that is the point you crossed the line. Yes what happened to you is crushingly disappointing, but to think a late period (that you can't be certain was a miscarriage) means you understand how it feels to almost make it through the first trimester believing your pregnant, feeling ill for weeks on end, then to suffer the horror of passing a blood clot, then be told there's no heartbeat, then to bleed so much and have to have the "pregnancy" tissue scraped out of you while conscious... 

Yes they're totally the same thing aren't they? Quite frankly how dare you! I would never presume to know what someone who'd suffered a still birth felt... just how dare you!

I know you've been depressed, and I've battled with myself over this, am I being mean here? I've questioned my recollection of events, thought there must be something I don't know, something I'm missing. But if this event was in isolation then perhaps I'd calm down in time. But it isn't. The miscarriage is like the rape and the kidnapping - all things you told me that turned out to be massively embellished, if not out right lies to get attention. Ironically when I met you you even lied about not being able to have a baby, but even though it has since turned out to be true, at the time you didn't know that - something which became apparent when a few weeks after I'd had a miscarriage you gleefully announced that you and your hubby had decided it was time to have children. 

And okay, you're having a hard time at work at the moment, I appreciate that, but I remember you saying the exact same things when you left your last job. Do you ever ask yourself why all your jobs seem to end this way?

I've known you for years now and it's just been one thing after another and I've simply had enough. I met you when our other halves were just our boyfriends and had recently got back in contact with each other. You'd made a wedding dress for one of your friends and I liked it, so when I got engaged I thought it would be lovely to have you make my dress. I knew it would please my now-husband if I made the effort to get to know you.

I bought all the materials and paid you on top of that, so it didn't work out to be the cheap option but that was fair enough. But I had no idea at that point how clingy and needy you could be, you had friends but you acted like someone who was lonely. I expected to spend loads of time with you on the dress, but what I didn't expect is that you wouldn't even work on the dress unless I was there. I felt held to ransom over that, finding myself suddenly called upon to spend all weekend, every weekend, for months, stopping over at your house. It wasn't as though I could do very much, and half the time you'd spend the Saturday getting drunk, then put in a little work on the Sunday morning, then spend hours making Sunday dinner - which I felt I couldn't refuse - then have another drink so you couldn't run me to the railway station in time for my last train (which I sometimes missed) I was almost kidnapped by a weird kind of kindness.  My other friendships suffered because I'd been totally hijacked by you. It was suffocating, but you'd got me over a barrel.

The amount of attention you constantly demanded was exhausting, I've never met anyone so needy. At first I thought you were lonely and I thought I could help, but the more I give, the more you need and the more you demand. I introduced you to my friends and at first I was happy when they took you under their wings, I thought it would help you, make you happier, give you a boost. But no, no amount of attention is ever enough.

The number of weekends we've gone away with friends and every time you have done everything in your power to make yourself the centre of attention - whether that's through mad behaviour or getting emotional about whatever the latest drama in your life is. On my husbands 30th birthday you spent half the night crying on his shoulder, keeping him apart from his friends, stopping him having a good time. You are selfish to the core. It always has to be about you. When you contribute something to a party you spend the entire evening harping on about it, seeking praise and attention, while showing a total disrespect for the efforts other people have put in. Every. Single. Time. I could give more examples, but there are just too many.

I dread you asking me face to face what it is about you that offends me, because I wouldn't know where to start! I'm not particularly keen on your racist, bigoted opinions either.

I could go on and on and on... but right now it is actually making me feel ill. I have to let go of all of this and I absolutely have to walk away. Right now I'm spending so much time dwelling on my grievances with you it feels like its poisoning me. I don't want to find myself bitching about you, or obsessing over you. It's unhealthy.

So there it is, I genuinely mean it when I say I don't wish you any harm. I sincerely hope your dream comes true and you have the baby you so wish for, and I honestly hope you never find out what a miscarriage really feels like. I wish you every happiness in the future. Just as far away from me as possible.

I'm letting go now.

Breathe out...