[AfterMyNap]

"You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship."
—Mary McCarthy

For any woman who has ever lived through the sudden, unexplained loss of a friendship, Liz Pryor's book, What Did I Do Wrong? When Women Don't Tell Each Other The Friendship is Over, is a must read. Liz Pryor writes the autobiography for us all, using stark detail and witty prose.

The book has recieved the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Books For A Better Life award. I recommend it to any woman who has struggled with the end of a treasured friendship.

http://www.lizpryor.com/index-2.html

[DM]

Thanks for sharing that Cin!

I wonder if it would be a good read for other types of losses, not just that of a great friendship. What do you think?

[tovaxin_lab_rat]

Thanks for this Cindy. I think everyone who has a good close friend should read this book. What you learn is how to be a friend and how to be honest with each other.

She also has a great website.

Thanks for the reminder about this wonderful book!

[Chris]

Originally Posted by AfterMyNap

"You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship."
—Mary McCarthy

For any woman who has ever lived through the sudden, unexplained loss of a friendship, Liz Pryor's book, What Did I Do Wrong? When Women Don't Tell Each Other The Friendship is Over, is a must read. Liz Pryor writes the autobiography for us all, using stark detail and witty prose.

The book has recieved the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Books For A Better Life award. I recommend it to any woman who has struggled with the end of a treasured friendship.

http://www.lizpryor.com/index-2.html

Thank you for this post. I looked at the website and opened the book, and the first paragraph was about two women who had lost their friendship. One of the women's names was MAGGIE!!!

[FlyFishin Momma]

Done.............

[tovaxin_lab_rat]

Originally Posted by AfterMyNap

"You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship."
—Mary McCarthy

For any woman who has ever lived through the sudden, unexplained loss of a friendship, Liz Pryor's book, What Did I Do Wrong? When Women Don't Tell Each Other The Friendship is Over, is a must read. Liz Pryor writes the autobiography for us all, using stark detail and witty prose.

The book has recieved the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Books For A Better Life award. I recommend it to any woman who has struggled with the end of a treasured friendship.

http://www.lizpryor.com/index-2.html

I found my copy of this book yesterday cleaning out my library! I am going to read it again!

[Alffe]

Cindy I hope you don't mind that I copied this thread on the SOS forum..

[MelodyL]

I wonder if this book would be good for me.

I had a friend for 46 years. Her whole family was my family. I was Aunti-Mel to their whole family, god mother to her son. I went there every Thursday to help her with the grandchilden. And I helped her clean her house to prepare for Thanksgiving. Spent many times there since we were both 13. We are now 60. Never had a fight. No reason to.

She owns 2 homes. Her other home had an empty basement. I asked her if my husband and I could move there. I asked her to check with her two sisters, (3 of them owned the second house). I knew the whole family for 46 years, went to all the weddings. And they came to my home too. But generally everybody congregated at my friends home because she had all the children and grandchildren.

I remember sitting in her living room when she told me "Melody, the apartment is yours, it needs a stove so we'll go to PC Richards and you can pick out any stove you want. I said "great". I also told her I would give her $100 more than she was asking for the rent because it came with free gas and electric. She said "that's great, and because my mom lives upstairs on the first floor, you can keep an eye on her". I said 'great, because I knew this woman since I'm 13 years old.

She also said "I'll give you a key to the front door because you are family and I don't want you going into the back yard to access the basement apartment".

Now doesn't this sound like she agreed to give me and my husband the apartment. Done deal.

Well, we were on the phone one day and her whole family was sitting around the table and I said "did you tell them that Uncle Alan and I are moving into the basement apartment under their grandmother". and she said "oh, no, not yet!!!" I said well, turn around and tell them now. This was Palm Sunday of 2006.

She tells them and I hear one of her daughter's say "Our brother wants the apartment". She said "what? what? and I said "what's going on?" and she said "my daughter says her brother wants the apartment and I said "what are you talking about, he already has a beautiful apartment, a nice job and a girlfriend, why does he want the apartment?"

She acted completely dumbfounded on the phone..

THEN I HEARD HER DAUGHTER SHOUT 'HANG UP ON HER".

That's when I said "Barbara, I'll speak to you later, get this straight'.

Well, I went there on Thursday as usual to help her with her grandchildren and she said "I can't look you in the face". and I said 'what the heck happened?" and she said 'it seems that my son broke up with his girlfriend (he did not live with her, she lived with her parents).

And because he doesn't want to pass her neighborhood, he wants to move into the basement apartment (where he knows she won't charge him any rent).

I just looked at her and said nothing. She then said 'but it's not official, if his furniture doesn't fit in, then he won't be able to move in"

I just looked at her. I had nothing more to say. It had all been said.

I spent the day just playing with the baby. When the acess-a-ride came to pick me up, I just shouted bye and ran into the bus.

I was so appalled that my husband and I could be so easily discounted (we are on Social Security and have no family and our son (her godson) is lost to us. She knows this. How the heck could she give me her word and boom, it's all gone??

A week goes by, she calls me and says "i haven't heard from you". I was just speechless but I said "do you have any idea what you did to me and Alan, and she said "yes I do". OH, MY HUSBAND HAD JUST LOST HIS JOB AS A SECURITY GUARD BY THE WAY, so she knew what we were going through. AND HER 30 YEAR OLD ALREADY HAD AN APARTMENT, A JOB, and he did not need any apartment. He also has a job off the books so he has never paid into Social Security.

So I just said over the phone "you can't say no to your children, can you??" and she blurted out 'NO I CAN'T".

She then said 'come over on Thursday, and we'll talk about this".
(Don't know what there was to talk about, but I went over there on Thursday). She did not mention her son, the apartment, NOTHING. We just took care of the kids.

I left. The next day she called me up and said "we were so busy chatting yesterday (?????????), that I forgot to invite you and Alan to a luncheon on Tuesday. I just looked at the phone in my hand saying "is she nuts??"

I politely declined saying Alan had a lot of appointments, said I had to go, and quietly hung up the phone. Not slamming it, not banging it, just said "I have to go, bye", and quietly hung up the phone.

I have not heard from her since. Not her, not her family, no one bothered to phone me to get this settled. No one showed up at my front door saying "listen Aunti Mel, my mom can't say no to her kids, but you and her have had a friendship for 46 years", blah blah blah.

No one did this. Not only did I lose a friend, I lost 70 people after that.

I have no family. I gave her kid my son's bedroom, I arranged for her 88 year mother to get a dentist to come to her house and pull a tooth. They called me to come and speak to the medicare hmo person on behalf of a developmentally distubed family member who is 52 and can't read or write. I went there and arranged the whole thing, and when that person left, my friend turned to me and said "oh my god, I didn't know what that person was talking about, thank you Melody". Two weeks later is when I was told her son was moving in the basement.

And not a word, NOTHING, after that day.

I have gone over and over in my mind how anyone can so callously promise me and my husband a basement apartment, a new stove and keys to the apartment, and in 5 minutes flat, when she is told that her son wants it (not needs it, mind you) but wants it, then we are out of the picture.

And you know something, I could have probably gotten over this (losing the apartment), if someone had knocked on my door the next day with a bunch of flowers and she would walk in saying "listen, we've been friends for 46 years, I know I gave you my word, but I can't say no to my son, but we'll do our darndest to find you and Alan an apartment". But this DID NOT HAPPEN.

What the heck would have happened if I told my landlord i was moving out. Thank god I didn't. I would have been out in the street.

Do people today care so little for friendships, that they have maintained since the age of 13. Do mothers have to enable grown men and dump a couple on social security who she just gave her word to.

Oh, and if, after you read this, you might be thinking "well, her girlfriend is enabling her children, she should have told them "hey, I told Auntie Mel that the apartment was hers, it's a done dea'". well, I went on a friendship message board once, just to get my mind straight. I posted this whole story on that board.

Want to know the answers I got???

Absolutely every one of them told me she did the right thing. That blood is thicker than water, (or friendship). I was raked over the coals for trying to come between a mother and her 30 year old grown son, who already had a job. Yeah, he worked off the books, but he made a grand a week and had a nice apartment. By the way, he now has a new girlfriend.

The only member of that family who has maintained a friendship with me is the developmentally delayed 52 year old who loves me and Alan and calls me all the time. I just listen. I don't ask any questions. I don't want him to get in any trouble with them.

Oh, one more important piece of this puzzle. When it was all over and she never called me, I emailed the sisters and the daughter (I wrote a well written, unemotional accounting of what I was promised and that I didn't understand what happened) The sisters never responded.
The daughter responded with a nasty letter indicating "my mother could have never said you could have the apartment, she owns it with her two sisters, and besides, if your son wanted an apartment, you know darn well, you'd give it to him".

I responded (most politely), that I absolutely ran it by the mother and the two sisters, and no, if I had given my word to a friend and it was a done deal, and my 30 year old son who already had an apartment, told me he wanted to live rent free in the basement, then NO, I WOULD NOT HAVE GONE BACK ON MY WORD.

Never heard after that. Nada, nothing. After 46 years of a friendship with family members, extended family members, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas dinners, going there mininum once a week to help with the grandchildren, block parties, A WHOLE RELATIONSHIP OF 46 YEARS completely gone. Not a word from her.

I always wanted to know what the consensus of intelligent people would be, if they heard the actual facts and wanted to give me their opinion.

So now you know the entire story. I know that many mothers can't say no to children. But sometimes you have to learn HOW TO!!

And in this case, she made a very big mistake. She lost a friend.

So this is not a case of two people growing apart. This was a case of betrayal. At least this is how I look at it.

Any comments would be most welcome.

Melody

[braingonebad]

Melody -

I have a 24 yr o son, divorced with a baby.

I also have a life-long best friend.

If I had told the best friend I had an apartment or even a room - or even an afternoon to spend with her - and then the son *wanted it*, I would have told him, "I'm sorry, it's taken. I told so-and-so she could have it. If you need it, the three of us can sit down and talk it over, but I can't give away something I already gave away, now can I?"

We have that sometimes, I'll make plans to go shopping with my sis or friends and DS wants me to watch the baby. Sorry, but if I have plans already, I cannot.

If I had planned to watch the baby, my friends, shopping, or lunch will have to wait.

If I make a promise, I'm a grown up and I stick with it.



I feel in your words though that your friend feels as big a void in losing you as you feel. And I'd bet she wishes she could do somethiing to fix this mess. She handled the situation poorly, but she'd do it all differently if she had it to do all over again, what do you bet.

In time you might find it in you to write her a letter why this hurt you - easier than talking about it, IMHO - and see if the two of you can put this behind you. Maybe you can resume the friendship, maybe not, but at least bury the hurt.




You had every right to be hurt.

[SallyC]

Originally Posted by MelodyL

So now you know the entire story. I know that many mothers can't say no to children. But sometimes you have to learn HOW TO!!

And in this case, she made a very big mistake. She lost a friend.

So this is not a case of two people growing apart. This was a case of betrayal. At least this is how I look at it.

Any comments would be most welcome.

Melody

I read your letter, Melody, and, first of all, I want to say that, I completely understand your hurt.....but, betrayal?? How can that be? I think you are way over the boundries of Friendship, here.

I have a friend exactly like that. We are 68 and have been dear friends since the fourth grade and the same with my being a part of her family, even down to her Children calling me Aunt Sally( and still do).

If your scenerio had happened to me, yes, I would be hurt and yes I would be angry, but not with my friend, but with the grown, self sufficient, selvish, user, freeloading Son. How could I be angry with my friend, who was only doing what a Mother has to do. He's the one who needs a good spanking.

I also understand her Children's anger with you, because of the hurt your misunderstanding has caused their Mother.

I'm sorry for your loss of an apartment, but the loss of a dear friend is much more tragic. If It were me ( and it wouldn't be), I would go, on bended knee and ask her forgiveness for being so selvish and thoughtless.

I do wish for you, that your friendship can be salvaged..