# Friendships after divorce, have yours changed too?



## m.t.t (Oct 5, 2016)

Hey everyone,

I was expecting that I might loose some friendships when I divorced. More to do with married couples feeling uncomfortable rather than taking sides etc. what I didn’t expect so much was this ....

I was well supported by friends during the 3 years that it was all happening. The initial cheating discovery, him refusing to leave and then the divorce proceedings where I was at a very good risk of loosing my home due to a high pay out figure... 

I was a mess when it first happened and then after he left I was fine but a few close friends kept talking about how worried they were about me, how I seemed in denial as I was calmish and had the attitude that it will be what it will be. I needed to be prepared that I may have to sell my house, that things could be very tough. So I decided to be calm about it. A couple of them were shaking their heads a little and telling me horror stories of friends etc saying I don’t think you realised you could loose everything !!

So that all passed and surprisingly it really did go in my favour and I got to keep my home and had a small payout figure luckily, the bank lent me money. This was not on the cards due to my situation. So after all the worry about paying him out I was fine. My bank came through for me. 

So there are a couple of close friends when told the outcome I noticed their faces showed disappointment. One was surprised and pointed out the irony and unfairness that the child support from my ex husband should be considered income to go towards a home loan. She said after all it’s his income not yours. 

These two friends who don’t know one another, I’ve noticed will now hav little jabs at me.. teasing me... subtle put downs... 

Has anyone else has something similar happen? I don’t really understand their behaviour... but it reads to me like they wanted me to be cut down? They were very invested in what was going on and totally against what happened with my ex so why the turn around? It feels a bit like high school. I just want my old friends to be how they were before I got a divorce. Any insights ?


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## FalCod (Dec 6, 2017)

Sounds like they weren't very good friends.


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## TJW (Mar 20, 2012)

m.t.t said:


> One was surprised and pointed out the irony and unfairness that the child support from my ex husband should be considered income to go towards a home loan. She said after all it’s his income not yours.


This statement alone exposes this person as completely self-centered. There is absolutely no irony nor unfairness about this. It is not his income any longer, it is yours, by every applicable standard of society. The income belongs to the person who controls the spending of it.

This "friend" is one who wants revenge "by proxy".

It's really unfortunate that those in the periphery of a divorce do not recognize that it is a crushing experience, which, by the grace of God, I have never endured (and pray I never will) - you seem to have come through it well. though - you go, girl.....


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## notmyjamie (Feb 5, 2019)

I'd agree...it sounds like they aren't very good friends. They have some kind of issue, who knows what it is, and who cares? The important thing is that it is THEIR issue, not yours. You have 2 choices...decide you aren't friends anymore and stop contact, or confront them...the next time they say something call them out on it. "It sounds like you're disappointed things have turned out okay for me, why is that? My husband cheated on me, I lost my marriage...you really wanted me to lose my home and everything else as well?" As for child support, you are providing a home for your children I assume...next time they make a crack about it, say "Child support is not his money...it's his contribution towards the amount of money it takes to raise our kids. I have chosen to put it into the house so my kids don't have to move and they can at least have the stability of not having their home taken from them. If you don't like that, I don't really care." 

If they have no good answers for their behavior, walk away and don't look back...they aren't really your friends anyway.

My friendships have changed in that pretty much our entire mutual friend group chose him, and that includes my brother and his wife. My STBX still gets invited over all the time for cookouts, firepit nights, etc. And I get invited to only the big parties they are having ie. 4th of July party. They are all big drinkers and like to party and I'm not. It makes sense they'd choose him as he drinks a lot and parties too. I try not to let it bother me. I did have 2 neighbors come up to me a couple weeks ago though and say "just so you know, we choose you!" :smile2:


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## m.t.t (Oct 5, 2016)

Thank you for the support... 

One of the friends I’ve know my whole adult life. She is a single parent by her own choice, chose to go it alone and try for a child. She is and always has been great but I think the fact that she doesn’t have a house, is still needing to share house and share a room with her daughter and is finding it hard to make friends now that we are in our 40s hard. 

I see her often, drive to her to make it easier on her, her daughter is only 2.5... when we were in our 20s she had lots of friends and I did not. Most of the time she will question how I got the life that she should of had. Or she will say you used to not have any friends and I did. How did you cope with it? Why do you seem to have friends now and I don’t ? She is going through a tough time, she calls me lucky but honesty I work really hard and had my children early. One day she tore strips off my and said I don’t take proper turns in conversation. That I miss social cues of when I should end a conversation. That I don’t ask enough about her life. She was berating me... I was really shocked and hurt. She told me she still wanted to be friends but I talk too much. That I don’t allow enough quiet silences, that I don’t know how to properly hold a conversation. 

This is when I pulled back a bit. I did tell her she could have just said a simple shut up a min lol. But I think everything was building up for her. We have the type of friendship that we both talk non stop and laugh and laugh...but then this changed after the divorce and I was ok again.

The child support friend we get on or rather we used to be like each other’s can’t believe I found someone so like myself. We just clicked... she was always a bit critical and a bit *****y but I ignored it... she has been married for 18 years hates her sister because the sister was unfortunately married to a child predictor no one knew until he was arrested ( went to jail for online grooming) horrible but instead of supporting her she feels it’s the sisters fault somehow. I read it as a bit of sibling stuff as there is the complaints that her parents do too much to support her. ...she just doesn’t like this sister at all. 

I knew things had changed between us when she told me I reminded her of her sister. I asked in what way and she said oh you know the fact that you still try and be nice to your ex husband, you are a bit of a door mat. 

These are my two closest friends. The school friends mostly married stopped inviting me things. I have other friends scattered around and they are fine but these two are what you would call close friends.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*Bi-polar Wife No. 1 had no friends to speak of, only notches on her gun from the company officer that she laid to facilitate a hefty, but short-term corporate promotion!

RSXW conversely had a sheer plethora of friends who adopted me after our marriage, only to kick me in the nads once the separation and divorce process was started and well underway. Undoubtedly, because of listening to her side of the of the story, which I greatly figure involved a probable dissemination of a story that I was the bad guy who slept around on her! Thank God I didn't really know the out-of-town guy friends whom she had been sleeping with!

Seems like I ended up being summarily dropped like a hot rock by those same "mutual friends!" ~ Not that I really lost anything in the process! *


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

These are bitter people. Bitter at how their lives turned out. Have you ever heard the saying “misery loves company”, this is what’s happening here.


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## snerg (Apr 10, 2013)

m.t.t said:


> Thank you for the support...
> 
> One of the friends I’ve know my whole adult life. She is a single parent by her own choice, chose to go it alone and try for a child. She is and always has been great but I think the fact that she doesn’t have a house, is still needing to share house and share a room with her daughter and is finding it hard to make friends now that we are in our 40s hard.
> 
> ...



Wow.

These are friends?

With friends like these, who needs enemies.


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## m.t.t (Oct 5, 2016)

snerg said:


> Wow.
> 
> These are friends?
> 
> With friends like these, who needs enemies.


I'm open to the fact that maybe its me that is the issue?


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## notmyjamie (Feb 5, 2019)

m.t.t said:


> I'm open to the fact that maybe its me that is the issue?


I really don't think it's you unless you've left large portions of your story out. A woman who blames the wife of a pedophile, who happens to be her sister, is not well. And she's not worthy of your friendship.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Simple. They're jealous. They wanted you to fail so they could act all sympathetic while secretely gloating about it. High school all over again. If you want to keep them in your life (I wouldn't) you need to limit your time with them because they'll continue trying to drag you down.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

m.t.t said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> I was expecting that I might loose some friendships when I divorced. More to do with married couples feeling uncomfortable rather than taking sides etc. what I didn’t expect so much was this ....
> 
> ...


As someone who did had to eventually sell my home after my divorce I want to say good on you. A good friend would surely be delighted for you. 

My husband did loose some couple friends after his divorce due to the fact that they didn't know the full story that she had met another man etc, and had been told lots of lies and half truths by her, (he wasn't about to tell them as he isn't like that), but he really didn't seem too worried and not long after we got serious and married so he had me and my family.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

m.t.t said:


> Thank you for the support...
> 
> One of the friends I’ve know my whole adult life. She is a single parent by her own choice, chose to go it alone and try for a child. She is and always has been great but I think the fact that she doesn’t have a house, is still needing to share house and share a room with her daughter and is finding it hard to make friends now that we are in our 40s hard.
> 
> ...


The first lady sounds very unhappy and disappointed with her life. The second one sounds just awful. Blaming a wife for not knowing what her husband was doing on line?? How was she supposed to know?


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## Reeney (Aug 17, 2019)

Openminded said:


> Simple. They're jealous. They wanted you to fail so they could act all sympathetic while secretely gloating about it. High school all over again. If you want to keep them in your life (I wouldn't) you need to limit your time with them because they'll continue trying to drag you down.


So sad. I have some amazing friends this time around. Friends that have supported me in every step of the way. Friends who have picked me up when I’m down and giving me hope. Never bashing me ever except for some Toughlove when I was being stupid and in denial. I really hope you can find some new supportive friends. It is so important.


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## EmeryB (Aug 15, 2019)

m.t.t. I'm sorry you have such awful friends. BTW, the words "awful" and "friends" don't ever belong beside each other in a sentence describing your friends! I wouldn't waste another minute on either of them - even if I didn't have other friends. These women are jealous and only care about themselves. Always remember, not everyone who asks how you're doing and inquires about your problems actually cares about you. Some just like to hear all the juicy details and hope your life turns out as miserable as theirs. 

There are so many ways to meet new people - - ways that are actually good for you. Join a gym. Even if all you do is get on a treadmill, just go there and do it. Many gyms also offer classes that can be fun. Join community clubs or volunteer for things. Go for walks. Join a support group for people who have been through divorce or infidelity. Take an interesting college course. Just get out among people. At some point, there will come a day when you have interacted with other people and found new friends.

Luckily for me, two women I had been friends with in the past found out what happened after my husband and I separated (and was in the process of divorcing), and we started hanging out more and more until we all became inseparable. They were both married at the time. We had all been busy raising our kids over the years and only managed to get together every once in a while. We all decided that no matter what, we will never drift apart again. Since then, one of my friends has ended up divorced from her deadbeat husband, and the other one's husband had been having a serious long-term affair (just like my husband did). We all helped each other through it all. 

(FYI - the friend whose husband had been having an affair decided to try to work things out and not divorce. It has been a few years and they are still together, but it has been a very rough road for her.)


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## m.t.t (Oct 5, 2016)

Thank you for all of your comments, they really helped. I'm wondering if I can get your opinions on how to handle this situation, with one of the friends.

I have decided to step back a little, the child support comment friend (lets all her Sally ) as I've said is kind of a work friend, even though we are all self-employed we go to business events together, always stay together last few years and often bounce work ideas around in-between times. There are catch-ups between her and this other close friend lets call her Alice. We have a 3 way Instagram messages every few days (though sometimes they are negagitve and gossipy so I read and ignore, or if called for gently defend) We organize where we are going to stay when we go out of town and we stay together to split costs etc. But it's usually Sally and I that stay together and Alice and her assistant but we do all stay at the one place the 4 of us as well.

This close work friend Sally and I had organized to go to an event and she wanted to get an air BnB and knew my daughter was coming as well. It's all booked for early Nov and that's all fine. She hates staying on her own and is very money conscious. Not one to shout a coffee etc. But money isn't tight for her. So come last weekend... There is another event coming up later in Nov and I told both Sally and Alice about it as they have never been to this event before so I felt like it was up to me to organize accommodation etc., Sally already had said let's go together. But Sally said we should offer Alice and her assistant to stay with us as well. So all good. I did research and suggested places etc but said that there would be 5 as my daughter is coming (due to her dad being flaky) all seemed fine. 

But they went a bit quiet and so I reached out to Sally to as what the vibe was and if everyone was fine with my daughter coming. She got back to me and said it would probably work out better to all get separate room in the same hotel for 2 people and said that I can share with my daughter, Alice with her assistant and Sally was going to share a room with another woman who isn't usually part of our group. I was a bit shocked and hurt to be honest. I replied with, I thought you and I were sharing and my daughter would just have a fold-out like we are doing a few weeks earlier in the air bnb? I said we would split the room 3 ways even though a child is only an extra 20 a night. She didn't reply to my message. But Alice did. So it's obvious that they were having a discussion that I wasn't part of. I think that was obvious from the beginning.

The next day I heard from Alice on the 3-way chat that they have booked a hotel (there would normally be a 3 way what do you think of this place discussion) and she said they were extra rooms still available and hopefully I can stay in the same hotel? She sent the link to the booking. It was for 3 people. So the story of the other person sharing with sally I'm guessing was an excuse. Sally saw the message from Alice but made no comment and has been very quiet through most of this. 

So basically I get that they may not of wanted my daughter to share with us. But Sal was more than fine with it in the first accommodation booked earlier in the month. These stays are happening next month. I decided to book a hotel separate to where they are staying. I was insulted with he hopefully you can find a room at the same hotel. It was very hurtful. Sally I guess chose the better offer with no regard to me taking on the whole cost of a hotel room myself $700

The question is I've decided to also book separate accommodation with my daughter 12, instead of staying with Sally in the air BnB for the fist trip as well. I just feel that it would be awkward now. I decided that I would pay her for my half of the air BnB 200 and the hotel will be another 400. I don't really have the money to be paying for hotel rooms since the divorce. I feel like I've done the right thing choosing to stay seperate on both occasions. Sally doesnt know that i wont be staying with her at the air bnb. I thought I would just pay her my half when it's due soon and coming up to the date i would just tell her that my daghter and i decided to get a room together. She will not be out of pocket just without my company. Am I being petty to remove myself from the intial accomodation as well? 

On reflection I used to do my own thing at these events and mix with a wider circle of people, but stay on my own or with my ex husband. But since my ex has left, these work frimds have been there for me and we all started staying toether. To be honest I'm the type of person that prefers no to get caught up in these things and just do my own thing. The stress on doing the right thing here has left me unable to sleep. Sally likes to point out that I'm way to nice to people. I did think these people were my friends but I'm reaizing that maybe we have a different idea of friendship. Maybe my weakness in my marrige is playing out again in my choice of friends?


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

They don't feel the same way about you as you do about them. Yes, stay on your own with your daughter.


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## m.t.t (Oct 5, 2016)

Openminded said:


> They don't feel the same way about you as you do about them. Yes, stay on your own with your daughter.


Thank you Openminded... both of your responses sing true to me. This does feel very high school and has brought up some past issues and my need to be overly responsible for other people and their stuff. I often fall for fast and intense relationships and friendships. Something I'm working on.

I feel very good about letting this go and putting these friendships back into work acquaintances.


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