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should I go to my friends wedding?

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  • #105410
    caroline
    Participant

    Hi

    I am needing some advice. I don’t know what I should do. I am really struggling with my life right now and now I have added stress as my friends wedding is coming up. I know what people are probably thinking. Of course I should go, that’s what friends do, be there and support each other. I have felt that my friend hasn’t been a great friend to me for a while now. We were really close years ago but as the years have passed it has been harder to connect and we barely see each other. She hasn’t been supportive when I have needed her and many times it has felt one-sided, me doing all the chasing, I am always the one offering to look after her child so my child and her can play together (I have an only child so I try to encourage this) I am always texting to ask to meet up and she is either too busy, doesn’t reply or my gut feeling tells me she has saw me when it is convenient or she feels guilty. I have felt a lot of rejection from her for a while now and it has felt worse as I have changed so much, we used to go out drinking together but now I hardly ever drink and it seems we don’t have much in common anymore as I seem to have become more spiritually minded, I am unemployed (still cant find work) socially awkward and do not have any other real friends apart from her which is sad to admit. We have had good times together and were extremely close but she lives a more conventional life and it seems we are very different now, it feels quite awkward when we meet. My two year relationship with my ex has recently ended and being at such a big social event feels too much of a big challenge to get through. If I can muster the strength to go it means I can bring my young daughter as she will take my exs place and I know she would like this but I would be anxious the whole time as there will be other people there I know do not like me and my friends sister is not happy with me as I am not going to the hen weekend before the wedding. I wish I was stronger but there is too much change in my life at the moment and my confidence has been smashed, but I cant expect my life to improve if I don’t take opportunities that arrive to help me grow.

    Thanks for reading

    #105416
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear unworthy:

    I think it is okay if you don’t attend the wedding. Instead of attending the wedding, you can send her a card, if you want, congratulating her on her wedding and wishing her well. A card may be appropriate because your relationship is not close. There is no reason for you to go if you are going to feel uncomfortable.

    anita

    #105467
    caroline
    Participant

    Thanks Anita for responding. Do you think I should just give her the real reason as to why I wont be going as I always try to be as honest as I can but I don’t want to upset her. She text me a few days ago out of the blue asking if I would be going and I felt pressure to answer her so I told her I would be. I have made it even more difficult for myself now as usual. It also means by not going it will confirm that I have no friends and my life feels so empty. I feel like I have lost so many people in my life. Although these people were not a positive influence and I have days where I do know I am on the right path, I feel so alone, lost and scared. It is hard to walk away when my fear is that is what they will do to me, abandon me.

    #105485
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear unworthy:

    If I was you, I would call her back and tell her you are not going to attend the wedding. Maybe she called everyone she invited so to confirm how many people will be attending, and therefore how much food to prepare and how many chairs and places at the tables. So the responsible thing would be to call and tell her you won’t be attending.

    If you attend the wedding, it is not likely to change the relationship with her. It is not going to benefit you, only inconvenient you if you attend. And it’s probably going to make no difference to her (as long as you let her know soon so that she will calculate her numbers more accurately).

    The fact that you “have no friends and (your) life feels so empty” is not going to change if you attend the wedding.

    I am so sorry you feel so alone, lost and scared. In the previous thread you wrote that you are sinking, I recall. It goes back to you being an unloved and mistreated child. You still carry this pain. Healing from such pain takes a long time of psychotherapy with a competent therapist and/ or heavy duty love and acceptance by another. You obviously got none. Of course your daughter loves you desperately, but the child-in-you needs an adult to comfort her.

    I don’t know the status of your couple therapy with the guy, if he is still in your life. I would say, a way higher priority is that you get good psychotherapy, individual, so to jump start your healing from your significant childhood abuse.

    I am assuming you are going to feel very uncomfortable about calling the woman to cancel your wedding attendance. It will take courage on your part. I think calling to cancel would be you taking care of you, and that is positive. What reason to give her? Whatever reason you want as long as you won’t be inviting her to talk you out of your reason. Make it a reason that will not invite a persuasion to abandon (the reason). Make it an unarguable reason.

    anita

    #105514
    Eris
    Participant

    Can you go to the ceremony but not stay for the reception. The ceremony is the important part for you to be there as a friend who wants to see a friend happy and brilliant part is you don’t have to be sociable with people (talking during it is normally frowned upon lol!)

    Then you can give your friend your congratulations and if you are feeling unsociable or stressed out leave. Your friend will remember you were there for her on her big day but will be busy with photos and all the other people for the rest of it.

    Obviously some weddings are easier to do this for than others but hopefully this is one where you can be there for the important bit, and feel proud of yourself for going, but not have to do the more stressful bit 🙂

    #105921
    caroline
    Participant

    Well its done now, I told my friend I wouldn’t be going, that I was really sorry if I had caused any inconvenience and wished her to have a fantastic day, I didn’t really give a reason why I wasn’t going. Well her response was not a good one. she acknowledged she doesn’t see her friends often but when her friends need her, she is there for them (in the physical sense) she intended to make me feel guilty and said it was hurtful and thinks I am not being a supportive friend. she finished it by saying I have finally admitted that I don’t want to be her friend. I know she has got all her other friends so she will be ok without me. She doesn’t show that she cares very much before this. I feel good for standing up for myself but it conflicts with my beliefs about myself. That I am a bad person, not good enough.
    I am having trouble typing so I will write more tomorrow.

    #105926
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear unworthy:

    You wrote that you feel good for standing up for yourself- I feel good that you did! Congratulations for doing the right thing for yourself! I am very pleased that you chose your self interest, your well being and you did it assertively and respectfully. I like it that you didn’t give her a reason. When a person is not used to being assertive, it feels good at first but soon after it feels uncomfortable. This is why changing- for the better- is so difficult. It is uncomfortable. And often people don’t change or change but go back to the way there were- this discomfort.

    But if you persist, and assert yourself again and again, the discomfort will diminish and you will enjoy the benefit of better mental health.

    I am thinking of your name here: “unworthy”. When you refused to go to her wedding, you treated yourself as WORTHY. I am so proud of you!

    Please post anytime. Any time you feel like regressing away from the assertion you so well practiced, I am here to encourage you to keep going. This, what you are doing, is your way to better mental health. Keep walking this way.

    anita

    #106109
    caroline
    Participant

    Thankyou Anita for your support, it is really nice to hear your kind words said to me as I wouldn’t hear that from anyone else in my life, they would either judge me, doubt me or criticise, so it was very difficult for me to be assertive with her but I still believe I made the right choice as I kept remembering what you said about how if me going to the wedding wont actually change the friendship between us so I figured I have been dissatisfied enough in the friendship for years anyway so why put myself through more? I’m done with it. I am still friends with her on FB and I think at some point I will just hit delete. I can assert myself when I need and I actually come across as quite confident to some people but then people take me the wrong way as I am friendly and cheerful when I am getting to know someone and I then start to reveal other parts of me and people must not like it, peoples perception can vary from one person to the next.

    I should have replied yesterday as I was in a better frame of mind, so much has happened again since I last wrote, story of my life. I get a brief moment or a couple of days if I am lucky feeling positive and strong and then a whole whirlwind of stress and worry comes. It involves my ex (daughters dad) and his partner, it means now stopping contact and I guess inside I feel so fed up with the lack of support and demands of being a parent and now I wont get any quality time to myself now, I need energy to put into finding work, starting my business, building friendships, having time to feel calm and to allow myself to just be. Life just seems so unfair, I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself but its like the universe is teasing and testing me all the time. I have been working really hard lately to have better health and it feels all my work is for nothing.

    I saw my ex who I recently broke up with in his car today, I waved but he did not wave back, he is probably getting even with me as the last couple of times a similar situation has happened and he has waved and I ignored him because I was too hurt to wave back. I ended it with him as I thought he was being really insensitive about the other girl, he gave no reassurance that it was me he wanted, he hasn’t shown he is sorry, so after I told him it was over, we went quiet with no contact and then a few weeks later I realised that we still had a counselling session booked in so I asked him if he still wanted to go, thinking maybe we could make sense of where our relationship was heading, I was secretly hoping he would be really sorry for hurting me, realise he had made a mistake, acknowledged how distant he has been and promise to make it up to me but it was nothing like this at all. ( I have told him that this is what I need to be able to forgive him) He just seemed as confused as I was, we both admitted we felt relieved from the tension and he seemed a lot better in himself although when we spoke briefly I could tell he wasn’t as he started to cry. I couldn’t show empathy towards him as felt let down again during our counselling session. I feel used as he only ever just wanted to feel better about himself so all my nurture has made this happen. He didn’t fight for our relationship this time, I asked him if he was with anyone else, he said no but didn’t look me in the eye, I asked him if he had seen the girl he had a crush on, he said he tried to contact her as he was struggling to sleep again which I know is bull shit, he just wanted to see her, as soon as I said that when he should have been working on making up for his mistake he was putting his efforts into making a connection with her, he got defensive and said it was ok as I said it was over. He text me a couple of days later saying he was sorry, that we have both caused each other a lot of pain and he is still hanging on but doesn’t know what he needs to do. He admitted he promised me too much at the beginning and has let me down. He is very good at avoiding questions put to him, he twists it, turns it around or brings up another issue to throw me off. that was about a week ago and I am getting used to life without him but I still hope for his return, I miss him usually on days like today, when I feel strong I feel I don’t need anybody. I could write so much about it but it would be too draining for the one reading it.

    I really do appreciate being able to come on here and write about it all, I find it really difficult to write, self expression is hard for me anyway though unless it is anger of course which is destructive but once it is all done I feel so much better.

    #106118
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear unworthy:

    I am glad you are posting here and welcome each and every one of your posts. I am glad you asserted yourself with the woman who is getting married. Like you wrote, you attending the wedding would not imporve the relationship which really is in the past, so why bother? When you invest time, energy and/ or money in a project or a person, there should be a Return on Investment expected or aimed at. If there is none for you, why bother?

    And you have so many parts of your life that need to be attended to. Your ex boyfriend, if his habit is to ” …avoiding questions put to him, he twists it, turns it around or brings up another issue to throw me off.”- this is another headache that you don’t need. If he makes communicating difficult like that, he is making your life unnecessarily difficult.

    I think that simplifying your life makes best sense. Why don’t you make a list of the people you interact with (from time to time at least) who provide you with a positive return on investment (list the returns), a list of people you interact with who provide you with a negative retrun on investment (list those returns); then mark by each person if you HAVE to be in contact with him/ her and why.

    You can do it, if you so choose, by yourself, or here in some form. I will read, if you do, and give you my feedback.

    This is in effort to simplify your life…

    (Or else post about anything at all, your choice).

    anita

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