Dear Iris:

I am sorry that you are feeling badly and “going round and round over-analysing this situation“- maybe an objective perspective will help make things clearer,  and with clarity, you may feel better!

You shared that you are in your mid-30s, “permanently single, don’t have a great job and have a health condition that prevents me from having kids even thought I would have loved to“. You’ve been friends with A since you were 8. At 16, you moved to a different school, met friends B, C and D, and introduced them to A. When A married and became a mother, she and B, also a married and a mother, got closer to each other, something that you encouraged. But in the last year, they got even closer and you feel excluded.

“When I told friend A that I felt hurt by the situation, she said she was going to be friends with whoever she wanted and if I had a problem with that I should talk to my therapist because it wasn’t her problem“- if A responded this way to the first or second time that you told her that you were hurt by her closeness with B, then my goodness, how rude! Her response sounds fitting a situation where you repeatedly complained to her about her closeness with B, A tried to explain the situation to you, to comfort you and include you, but you kept complaining..  so exacerbated, A said what she said.

Is the case the former or the latter?

anita