Dinner with an old foe

I am a firm believer in surrounding yourself with the right people, and gently removing people from your life who don’t support you, cause you pain, drain you, turn you into a raving lunatic who wants to explode at the mere mention of their name… I believe in forgiveness, but I also believe you have to let those people go for the sake of your health.

But how do you do that when said person is the wife of one of your husband’s closest friends, and who has ingratiated herself into your circle of friends? That’s the part I’m struggling with.

I had a rant about the person in question here.

I wish her no harm, in fact I wish her well. Genuinely. But I don’t want her in my life. There have been too many lies. Too many times she has driven me half insane with her behaviour. And believe me, I have tried for years to make things work; to find common ground, to focus on the good, to understand her and put myself in her shoes. Literally years. But I can’t do anymore. When I see her on a regular basis it turns me into someone I don’t like, I dwell on things she does, I moan about her, I bitch behind her back. It eats me up. It poisons me.



I’ve tried tackling things front on, nicely, but it makes no difference, and who am I anyway to try and change who she is? It all boils down to being fundamentally opposite people and my wish is to let nature take its course and allow us to drift apart. But it seems that is not allowed to happen.

I have managed to avoid seeing her quite successfully throughout most of last year when the final straw broke this camel’s back – but birthday season is now upon us, and sharing the same group of friends I’m inevitably going to find myself in the same room as her.

First up was last weekend. It was my husband’s birthday, we were going out for a meal and drinks with friends. I was looking forward to a rare evening out, adult conversation. But I was dreading coming face to face with that one particular person, I hoped to keep my distance.

But as soon as she arrived she homed in on me and attempted to hive me off from everyone else. I ended up sitting directly across from her during the meal - I didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to sit at the opposite end of the room to my husband.

But I could barely even look at her, let alone speak to her. Whenever she spoke to me I answered her as briefly as I could and then turned away. Maybe life would be easier if I could be two faced and make pleasant chit chat with her, but I just didn’t have it in me. I was quite awful and practically ignored her the whole time.

I’m not proud of my behaviour, I couldn’t control the way I felt which I’m really not happy about. I’ve never known myself behave that way or feel so opposed to someone before. And time doesn’t seem to be lessening that feeling.

And there are now two other birthdays on the horizon and I may well find myself in the same situation again very soon. Hopefully she’ll leave me well alone this time though. But I hate the bad atmosphere. I’ve thought about turning down all group events, but since most of those are the birthdays of people I care about, I feel like I’m at risk of losing my friends. The other option is making them choose between us, but I don’t want to try and turn people against her, I’m not mean spirited, I am not a bully. And gambling like that with friendships is dangerous, what if they chose her?

I really don’t know what to do or how to handle this.

I’ve even thought about walking away from my group of friends, finding new friends elsewhere – but I love them all too much and get all teary at the thought of that.

It feels like whatever I do I end up being the bad guy now. I’m the one who destroys the circle of friends, I’m the one who makes things awkward. I don’t have the social skills to deal with this kind of situation.

Saturday night left me utterly drained. I left straight after the meal which I felt absolutely crap about. This was my husband’s birthday, I shouldn’t have let anything drive me away. My decision might have left me in tears feeling like the crappest wife ever but my husband was fine about it. It meant he could get drunk and talk crap with his mates without worrying about protecting me from her. He could relax. But that is just so wrong on so many levels. I go home alone in a taxi. She has a night out with my husband.

It’s a situation I just can’t win.