Not sure what to do, hoping you wise and wonderful people can help me.
I've known Annabeth for nearly 26 years, she and I have had the odd downer, but very rarely, considering that she and I have been friends for so long. She is certainly one of my best friends… or so I thought.
There are two points/future events that are significant…
1. We are both 39, and decided next year (the big 4-0!) that we would have a joint 40th party, the weekend that was exactly the middle between our two birthdays. This was decided well over 18 months ago, in fact, may have even been over 2 years ago. We have talked about it a lot.
2. We have been saving money in a separate joint bank account for about 3 years now, with the express purpose of taking a trip together to an island resort to spend a week chilling out together and celebrating our friendship. This vacation was to take place the week after our joint 40th, leaving on the Monday after.
Then it happened… she left her husband, who she had not really had a marriage with for years and was really unhappy with, and moved in with a new man. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled for her, I am really happy that she has found someone who she can share her life with and be happy with… I just didn't think it would come at the expense of our friendship.
The first thing was a couple of months back, when she told me she and her new man were going to try for a baby, so she may well be pregnant in April when we were going to go away. That’s ok… well, it’s not, but it is so not up to me in the slightest when she gets pregnant, totally none of my business. So I told her it was ok, we wouldn't book in September as we had planned, we’d hold off booking until February next year, by which point she would either stop trying for a couple of months etc etc. Yes, I know, we still could have gone if she was pregnant, but it wasn't the holiday we had planned, and it certainly wasn't the holiday I had saved my precious pennies for. So, all squared away, no news on the baby front, thought we were ticking along…
Then came the email a couple of weeks ago asking me if the boys could come too, on our holiday. I rolled my eyes, thought about it for a while, discussed it with my husband and decided, after much deliberation, that the boys could come. Partly because I have wanted to take my hubby on an island holiday for years, and this would save us having to pay for me a second time (kill two birds with one stone, so to speak), but mostly because she was my best friend, and I am happy that she is happy…
Then we can’t go on the dates that we had agreed to go… once again, something in her life has taken over. Ok, I gritted my teeth and said that it’s ok, I’m disappointed, but it’s ok, and we can arrange to go at another, as yet unspecified, time.
Now the kicker… Last weekend I got a text… yes, a text… telling me that, effectively, the sport her man plays (don’t want to give too much detail), has a big game on the night of our party, and that she has to be there with him, as she has a role to play (sorry for being so vague). Her text did not offer any other suggestion, leading me to have to compromise, once again.
So, there you have it. She has not contacted me since, and I haven’t contacted her, mostly because I just don’t know what to say. My first reaction was to just cancel the whole thing and take back my share of our savings.
I love her to bits, but I think this might be the end of the friendship. I’m just sick of being the one who has to make all the compromises. Am I over reacting? Should prior commitments come before a new man? Or should her new partner be the most important thing in her life, at all times, irrespective of prior commitments to friends, best friends?
Hope you guys can help with some suggestions of how I should deal with this…