Fairweather Friends

So as you know my stork party is coming up this weekned and I'm anxious and excited about it all at the same time. You know how silly pregnancy can make one - sleepless nights wondering if anyone will pitch up etc.

Well I am sure I have mentioned somewhere in earlier posts that my hubby and I have these friends - a couple that we spent a large part of our time with pre-pregnancy - and I mean every weekend kind of scenario. This to the point that I would not spend enough quality time with other friends - who, I might add are all 100% there for me, excited for me and most supportive even though I sometimes feel like I don't deserve it.
Well this couple are both in their early 40's with teenage kids and their daughter and my daughter became very good friends which was ideal because we always went on holiday's together etc and everybody well.... basically just got along swimmingly.

I appear to have committed the biggest sin it seems, by falling pregnant because it just didn't fit in with our constant partying, drinking and having fun. Right from day one of her finding out about the pregnancy she has been everything but supportive. When hubby and I were going through all our shit she never came to the rescue but instead sat at the pub getting pissed with my hubby and hers having a big laugh at my expense because of how I used to fight with him about this. Granted, it took him a while to adjust to me being pregnant and although I do not excuse his earlier behaviour I have come to understand where it came from. The pressure was still on him by those people to go out and carry on every weekend as if this pregnancy was nothing more than a minor irritation - he found it very difficult to say no to friends but very easy to say no to family (big mistake). I stopped wanting to go sit in a pub watching other people get trashed, skinder shamelessly and become, in my opinion, an embarrassment to be around. Yes I know I was right up there with them but nobody seemed to understand that with this pregnancy came a big wake up call for me and opened up so many questions about my life and how I was living it. I realised that this was exactly what I needed and wanted to change the way we were living our lives and that perhaps subconciously I had started a mourning process over not falling pregnant all these years and believing that I would never get the joy of that experience again.
I have had many a moment during this pregnancy where I have cried like a little baby on the phone to her about my hubby going out drinking all the time (hoping and praying that her and her husband would stop encouraging it so much) and although she seemed in full agreement with me I have since found out that she got great pleasure in me laying my cards on the table and would go and share my marrital woes with other people that I would never have told myself - possibly as a means to make her marriage seem solid? Isn't that why people do this?

I took the girls away for Easter weekend and as you know I left hubby at home because I was so over all his shit I actually had plans to have him move out the house on my return. Well the weekend after that he was invited to the Mighty Men Conference and I just cannot believe the positive changes I have seen in him. It just seemed to give him the push he needed and he has realised that his family come first and that this baby is a very important part of our lives. He cannot believe how he was pulled into that web and cant do enough for me now. He has also seen through those friends of ours and finally admits to me that I was right about them all along.

As for her? Well I really thought she would be organising my stork party since we had been thick as theives but when time started running out and other friends were asking me who is organising it I realised that I had wasted so much precious time on a person that was possibly THE most self-centred person I had come across. The cherry on the top of all of this?.... My other very good friend who is organising the stork party got a call from her the other day to say that she will not be able to make it because... wait for it - her son is in town and her husband is taking him out biking for the day and she wants to go with. WTF???????? Let me just expalin that he goes to boarding school 3 hours away but comes home almost every second weekend .... what happens when he's home? He does his own thing while mom sits in the pub all day getting trashed.... is that spending time with him? Now suddenly on the day of my fucking stork party she wants to go biking when she doesn't even ride??????????
That was it - the last nail in the coffin of our friendship. Confront her with this you may be saying but no I cannot do that because she will take what I say to other people and make me to sound like a petty needy person which I am not. Quite frankly the last thing I want is for her to think I give a damn. My hubby was also shocked that she couldn't be bothered to pitch up to what I consider to be one of the most important days of my life especially considering that she was well aware of the heartache I went through for 5 years trying for this pregnancy.

Conclusion? Well I decided that since everybody in this small town knows how close we were and those that are coming to the stork party would wonder why the hell she had absolutely nothing to do with organising such a special day. I think its her guilt and I can only say that I am so happy that she is now a part of my history ... I have learnt a very hard lesson about friendships through this pregnancy and those I thought least likely to come through for me have come through in so many more ways than I could have ever asked for.

Normally I am outspoken to the point of being blunt but in this instance my best line of defense?
Smile and wave Irene .... just smile and wave