Need Help Dealing With A Friend

[Poofycat]

I have a conflict with one of my best friends, R, that i need some help gaining perspective with. I've been friends with R for a couple of years now. She has PTSD, severe anxiety, and ADHD, so she's not the easiest person to be friends with but i mostly find my issues allow me to not take shit personally when she goes off the deep end, and we're ALWAYS there for one another when one person needs anything.

R recently got engaged and had started planning her wedding. She was planning a small destination wedding in Portugal the first weekend of July because that is where and when she got engaged. My dad died unexpectedly three weeks ago and two days later me, my husband, R, and my husbands closest cousin were all in my kitchen. My husband cousin mentioned that she was getting married in our hometown the first weekend of July. There was silence in the kitchen.

Maybe two days later R asked about the date and we made it clear that we could not miss the cousins wedding and that she had already booked a venue. If R wanted us to attend her wedding then she would have to move her date. She has not booked a venue.

A couple days later the husband and i are in our hometown with my mom trying to plan a memorial service and dealing with the huge shock of my dad's sudden passing when R freaks out on my husband. She's mad at us because we didn't tell her we had to be at cousins wedding the weekend she wanted her wedding. She sent messages to him for hours. He dealt with it and didn't tell me most of the interaction, but it wasn't good.

It's now two weeks later and i just realized how f*ckING MAD i am at her. Her problem just seems so insignificant, and we've made our priorities clear so it really had nothing to do with us. I'm really shocked at how selfish and insensitive she was. Right now i don't care if we remain friends or not, but i also know I'm not capable of making great decisions right now.

So how do i approach this issue. Am i overreacting? Is this worth ending a previously valuable friendship? How do i tell her i just now realized how mad i am? I generally don't do anger by the way which is probably why my go-to response is to end the friendship.

 

[Nilrath]

Hi poofy!

In my opinion, no, you're not overreacting. I don't think your friend is right to get mad at you guys for going to your cousins wedding, when she hasn't even booked a venue yet. If someone hasn't booked a venue for an event of any sort, it's a bit weird to say that the date that the event happens MUST be on that day/weekend.

If this were me realizing how mad it made me a couple weeks later, no matter how angry I was, I would probably approach the person as calmly as possible, and potentially think of ways to bring the subject up that wouldn't cause an immediate argument. It's probably not worth losing a friend over, but I think it's important that you tell her that what she did made you feel upset.

Nice to meet you!

 

[Deleted member 33052]

I will come at this from another perspective, since I'm often the one freaking out and leaving people to shake their heads in confusion.

I think your friend may have been triggered by what may have felt like rejection. We all know that logic rarely enters the picture when someone gets triggered. So, she finds out that you have other plans. A non-triggered person would look for a solution. Perhaps if your friend had been feeling secure, it may not have bothered her at all. But if she has unmet needs, possibly regarding trust or security, this may have bypassed her brain and driven straight into her unmet need, causing her to react like, well, someone who's been triggered.

Or maybe she's just behaving like a spoiled child. Regardless, I hope that you can work it out.

 

[shimmerz]

I would let the cards fall where they may. I wouldn't bother talking to her about how angry you are unless you are ready for another attack. If she can't figure out that this is something that someone would get angry about that is on her.

Triggered or not, it is unacceptable behaviour - and a trigger only lasts so long before someone comes to their senses and figures out that they need to apologize. Bridezillas drive me crazy.

 

[Deleted member 33052]

@shimmerz. Bridezillas. That's awesome!

 

[Poofycat]

Thank you all for your comments. I think we managed to work through this conflict in a respectful and civilized manner.

@Nilrath I'm with you on this one. I still don't understand why moving her date is a huge issue.

@Mal Content I think you hit the nail on the head with this being a trigger for her. Her family was extremely abusive and she has huge abandonment issue. Realizing this has made me take this less personally and I think it helped me word my email to her.

@shimmerz I think it was a trigger, but you are absolutely right that being triggered is not an excuse for unacceptable behavior. It's so weird. Before she got engaged she didn't even want a wedding. But once that ring was on her finger she totally became a bridezilla! Really surprised me!

Here's the email I sent her in case you're curious:

Hi R,

I just need you to know that I am really mad at you for flipping out on (my husband) about your wedding stuff a week after my dad died. Or I was really mad, but not so much anymore, but I just need you to know how hurt I felt. I don't really know. Still having trouble processing everything that has happened the past month.

I don't plan to dwell on it. I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I'm guessing you were triggered and didn't think through your actions, which I understand. But it was still completely out of line and insensitive.

I'm taking things one day at a time so I have no idea what I'm going this weekend, but it would be good to get together soon and chat.

I still love you,

Poofycat

It turns out a lot of the confusion came from her thinking any plans I had made for the future were still valid, and that I was capable of planning things immediately after the death of my dad. I had to explain that I probably wouldn't be able to go to Portugal next summer for a multitude of reasons now, the main one being I just burned through all my bereavement, sick, and vacation time at work and it's going to take a while to build up again. She explained that she saw it as me choosing Lauren over her, very black and white, and that was definitely triggering.

Relationships are hard!

 

[EveHarrington]

Maybe she was triggered but IMHO it's crappy to throw a hissy fit when you're dealing with the death of your dad. (More than normal crappy, this is selfish clod crappy!)

 

[Poofycat]

Well, according to her she didn't flip out. She asked a question then let my husband know she felt hurt by the answer because we didn't consider her feelings, or something like that. I simply explained that I wasn't in a place where I could consider her feelings. I don't think she quite understands that. I've added this note to her friend file in my brain for future reference.

I'm still happy to be friends with her, but this has left a dark mark on our friendship for sure.

 

[Deleted member 33052]

@Poofycat. I think you handled this beautifully. I expect that once she's feeling safe again, she'll apologize for her outburst. :hug: