Friend rant- Can I say I'm too pregnant to deal with her?

[MeaganMackenz]

My husband and I are hermits, we only have a few friends.
The closest friends we have are with couple we know. I knew him from highschool and now he's got 3 kids who are amazing friends with our kids. Their 2 youngest are only a couple months apart from our kids. We've been friends since 2011 when I randomly reconnected with him but with some difficulty at times. We had a huge falling out between his wife and myself in Oct 2012. They reached out to reconnect in Nov 2013 and we've been OK ever since.

Anywho, the issue right now is his wife. She can be difficult to be friends with at times. She's a very dominating, I'm always right I know everything my way or the highway person. It caused a lot of disconnect with us in the past until I learned to just let most of it go because she's not always like that, but has her moments.

Since I got pregnant I've found that her moments are harder to just let go. The most irritating things I'm having a hard time with, that have happened quite recently :
-her St Bernard knocked her TV controller off the table in excitement that we had just shown up and it stopped or paused or fast forwarded the show she was watching to which she blamed my kids for. I said no it was your dog I'm sitting right where the controller is I saw it, she said no its your kids I said no its your gigantic dog and she yelled "omg stop arguing with me" like I was one of her kids.
-we were visiting and we got there before she came home, she didnt like what were watching on the TV so she picked the show apart, complained about every second of it (loudly) and basically did this until I turned it off or we change it and then she got all giddy to watch what she wants.
- we went for supper recently and after a few hours of being there supper was being served and I asked if anyone minded we put the Oscars on for the last hour we were there. My husband and hers didn't care so I put it on and paused it while everyone got their supper and sat down. When I got asked why it was still paused after the men had sat down I said I was waiting for her to which she exclaimed I don't want to watch it. She then went into her room shut the door and stayed there until after we left.

This kind of stuff happens every other visit almost. Usually I ignored it cuz it's easier to do that then try to bother with it but now I feel like I'm too pregnant and moody myself to deal with crap like this. Is that unreasonable?
Her hubby knows she's being like this and tries to apologize for her, but she never does. It's like she has no clue, which isn't surprising her dad and sister don't have any sort of social awareness to how they're acting. She's always pointing it out like she's different but now I think she's clueless too. Is it unreasonable to dial interactions with her down until I can manage them less emotionally? :/

 

[Inoue]

God heck! You've put up with them mood swings since 2011?!! .

She sounds like a right madam. I had a friend like that once but it was when we were teenagers, luckily she grew out of it; doubt your friend will though . Quite tricky when your kids gets on well together and you also get on well with her hubby. Can you just not visit till baby here and your more comfortable? Hormones dont make us very tolerable (not that you need to be with her!). We don't have many friends, literally its just me & hubby but it works well for us. Heck, even the time gap with you not visiting 'might' make her realise what an ass she's being.

Good luck! Xx

 

[MeaganMackenz]

We had a huge falling out in September ish of 2012 and didn't talk again until they reached out in Nov 2013. That's an even better story to show her mood swings.

She had a home daycare (which is how we connected in the first place) so she intermittently watched my girls from 2011 to the falling out in 2012. On this particular day she was suppose to have my kids I ended up not needing her. I told her that first thing in the morning to give as much notice as possible. She got massively cranky at me in text. She had had her wisdom teeth out and her nanny help didn't show apparently. Not a huge deal I guess she was just miserable from her wisdom teeth but she was so cranky to me we didn't speak after that. The REAL blow up came when I cancelled the cheque I had wrote her for the daycare services day and a couple coupkn books from her kids school. She went to cash it and got the cancelled cheque notice as well as bank fees on her end for it. No, I shouldn't have cancelled it without telling her, but the cheque was a good $40 more then it should have been and I anticipated writing her a new one when she calmed down, which she never did. So she wrote me a HUGE email bitching me out and threatened to sue me. She claimed to have a contract that states I'm to pay whether the child shows or not, which she probably did for my older one from when she watched her initially. But I wasn't paying for her to watch my older one, she was charging me for my youngest and said "Don't worry about paying for the older one she'll keep my 5 yr old entertained". So I reminded her she had no contract for my youngest and therefore I didn't have to pay whether she showed or not. I offered to pay the bank fees because I didn't tell her I cancelled the cheque but wouldn't pay the cheque and fees as she provided no services or coupon books. She took it and we didn't speak for over a year. I'll also point out money is not an issue for them, they live very comfortably. My $40 ish is probably her Starbucks budget for the week..

I will give her some credit, she did dial her moodiness down when we reconnected but it's creeping back up. I can't not speak to her now because my kids are so attached to hers they're best friends I couldn't imagine telling them they wouldn't see their friends for a couple months.
I can personally opt out of going over there as often as we do and send hubby and kids. But sooner or later I feel I'd have to explain why :/ I don't want to ruin things for the rest of my family but fudge is she hard to handle at times!!

 

[BabyCleo]

Jeez. Im honestly surprised you have held on that long. Id totally be backing off for a while, blame it on the pregnancy if you have too.

Im shocked her husband hasn't tried to talk to her or something.

 

[MeaganMackenz]

There is no talking to her. I'm sure he's tried. The time she bitched about what I was watching he started bitching back saying "we were all happy with what was on you didn't have to bitch about it" but she ignores him. I told him that her running into her room was a downer and we left right away after she did that. He just shrugged and said sorry.

I hold on for my hubby and kids. Her hubby is honestly a great get along with everyone guy. He's a great friend for my husband, who needs more family orientated friends. And their kids and my kids are tight lol.

 

[MeaganMackenz]

Sorry for the long posts guys, some of this has been festering as I'm sure you can tell lol

 

[Christina86]

I would have probably gone insane dealing with all of that for so long. Thumbs up to you for doing so I would totally use pregnancy to just back away for a little while.

 

[MeaganMackenz]

I think I will dial it back, I can't stay totally away but skip every other visit maybe.. I know I can explain to her hubby why I'm distancing a bit and he'd get it. She'd probably just think I was being over sensitive. Sigh lol.

 

[Perplexed]

Gosh I wouldn't be able to deal with a person like that, pregnant or not. I think dialing it down would be good!

 

[mummytobe_93]

She sounds like a selfish cow that I wouldn't want to be friends with! I would completely blow up and argue with her she's riduculous.

Honestly i would ignore her from now on so you don't have to deal with her drama. It will probably get worse when the baby's here because the spotlight isn't on her. I feel sorry for her husband x

 

[MeaganMackenz]

He's use to it, and honestly she's not always like that. But when she has her moments it's like omfg I'm going home. And I do go home.

 

[Dolly84]

You deserve a medal for putting up with a person like that, I'm so outspoken usually that I wouldn't be able to have the self restraint to not argue back with her! I would Defo give up on meeting with her until after the baby's born at least. Let hubby and kids go but you don't need this negativity whilst pregnant. X

 

[2have4kids]

I'd take a break from her drama for sure. The best motivation you can give her to keep up the bad behaviour is to keep seeing her. When she is weird I'd be asking if she's ok or feeling well. It's bizarre stuff that you don't need to tolerate and when she has her fits, just tell hubbie your not feeling well and get the heck out of there.

The daycare stuff seems a bit too casual. Treat business like business. Pay her despite her tantrums. If you don't give 24 hours notice, pay her, it's industry standard. Especially if she's not charging you for caring for your eldest. The last thing you want to do is use a friendship to wield more leniencies or break rules that other daycares would normally enforce. Here, if a child is normally in care, part time and you don't give 24 hours notice, you pay the lady for that day. In full time care you pay the same rate regardless of weather your kids go or not.

I'd personally suss out alternate care, give her standard notice that all other places require (if your kids are with her currently) and move them to a neutral third party. This may also help you have a normal friendship with her one day.

 

[MeaganMackenz]

2have- she no longer has her daycare. She hasn't formally watched them since that incident. Any child minding since then has been a friend helping a friend. For the once and awhile evening outs, apts etc. She actually paid me last summer to watch her kids, they prefer me to their other options lol.

So the daycare stuff isn't an issue anymore, it was what caused the epic meltdown in 2012.

I don't know if they're busy or she's found some reason to be angry at me but I haven't heard from them in a week. I did text him on Friday, but he sounded busy and not interested. I feel bad for my kids, they ask to go there lots and have been hearing no daily. But what can you do?

And when she has fits I do leave right away. When she disappeared to her room, or picked apart what she didn't want to watch, or when she yelled at me for correcting her I just left. Either I go and run errands or I pack the family in early. She is a good friend most of the time regardless of how I'm making her sound. I just wish she didn't have these moments

 

[BabyCleo]

That really sucks I'd want to just completely back off.

 

[MeaganMackenz]

We're pretty intertwined right now. I think I'm watching her kids for spring break, they're our only options for watching my kids when the baby comes and they were my minders for the biweekly ob apts. Her kids also want to come here for the summer, which I haven't agreed to yet. It'll depend on how the baby is.

So yeah, it wouldn't be great for things to fall apart. At the same time I don't know how much more I can handle if these things keep happening ya know?

 

[2have4kids]

I feel for you, it sucks that you guys depend on each other. Especially when they're so unstable, giving you the cold shoulder for a week hurts everyone and shadows your future friendship with doubt. It'd be great if you could deal more with him than her. My sister is very on again off again and blows tantrums at the drop of a hat. If I don't completely roll over and play into her absurdities she's outraged. We're going to counselling right now to sort it out. You can pick your friends but not your family and sometimesI guess it's hard to find good friends too!

 

[MeaganMackenz]

I'm very lucky to have the friendship with him that I do. We were friends in highschool but he's 4 years older then me. Had he not been behind a bit we probably wouldn't have met. He's a great friend to hubby and I and loves my kids like his. He was the first to volunteer to babysit the baby in June so I can see the new Jurassic World movie . He knows I'm a Jurassic movie junkie xo.

Did I also mention they're my kids God parents? Just to deepen the intertwined portion of things. At the end of the day, there's no one that's not family I would rather have my kids should hubby and I die then them. They're relationship is solid, they're financially and job solid and take great care of their kids. I'd be really sad to see things fall apart again considering we were on such a great streak of no issues we didn't resolve since Nov 2013.

I'm hoping I'm just too pregnant that this is bothering me as much as it does lol.

 

[glitterfly]

She sounds like a spoilt brat and one that I'd be doing my utmost to avoid Avoid AVOID!

xxxx