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Dealing with Angry Friend
Is there a graceful way to bow out of a friendship gone sour?
My husband and I are friends with another couple, and although we've witnessed and heard about some unstable and disproportionate behavior by our friend's wife (I will call her Anna for simplicity) we have in the past either ignored it or cut her some slack because we're all friends, but it has been something I've felt concerned about and found stressful.
One example is that Anna's husband has been friends for years with another guy, and the two of them tend to be pretty crass with their talks and jokes when they hang out. Instead of ever expressing that she didn't like that kind of talk, or opening up any kind of dialogue about it, Anna bottled up her feelings for ages and then exploded suddenly and forbade her husband from hanging out with that friend.
Anyway, what happened between us is that Anna recently blew up at me in a way that I found very upsetting, and after our initial round of messages, we have not communicated since.
Basically, I canceled plans with this friend due to illness and then chose to work while ill on the night we'd had plans (um, hello, I need the money, and if I'm going to feel crappy I might as well be working). Anna was apparently very upset that I canceled our plans and then worked, and let it simmer for a few weeks before sending me some really nasty messages saying that because I'd worked while sick I clearly had been lying about my illness and was a horrible person. Her tone was very accusatory and harsh.
I felt quite upset, angry, and hurt by this attack, most of all because I do not lie about being sick and having someone I thought was my friend attack me like that felt horrible. If the situation had been reversed, I would have spoken with my friend directly, and said something like "Hey, I felt hurt that you told me you were sick and then worked, what happened?" And then I would listen to my friend and believe them, because I like and trust my friends and treat them with respect.
Instead, Anna attacked me in an aggressive and hostile way, and I feel like I am not interested in maintaining a friendship with someone who would just automatically assume I'm lying and lash out at me (especially in light of the fact that this is a typical behavior pattern for Anna).
I could just let things die a natural death, but there's an upcoming trip we had both planned to attend that I need to bow out of. I would feel upset and uncomfortable spending a vacation weekend in close quarters with someone with whom I am at odds. I absolutely have to let the trip organizer know I can't make it, and I feel like if I am going to do that, I also need to send a brief message to Anna.
I was thinking of just telling the trip organizer that I'm having a personal conflict with one of the other attendees, and am sad to miss the trip, but go ahead and give my spot to someone else, and ask them please try to remain uninvolved so the conflict can stay between me and the other attendee.
And then I thought I'd send Anna a message saying something like: "Dear Anna, I am writing to say that I am very sorry you were hurt by something that I did. I apologize sincerely for hurting your feelings, and acknowledge that I could have handled canceling our plans better. However, I still feel very upset about the way you approached the issue, and I have been unable to reconcile myself to being falsely accused of lying. I am hopeful that we may be able to get past this at some point in the future when we have both calmed down. In the meantime, I have backed out of the upcoming trip to [place]. I will do my best to keep this issue between us and avoid spreading it around or involving others."
Am I missing a better course of action? Although I am somewhat recovered from feeling hurt and angry, I am probably still too close to this to see clearly. I would really appreciate any advice you have for me. If it helps, we are all in our 30s, and my husband and I are stable people with good jobs and lots of other friends who don't randomly snap at us.
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There are several different ways to answer this question.
From my reading of your question there are several different issues. On one hand you say she changed because of a friendship her husband had. She blew up at you because you canceled plans because of illness and then went to work even though you were sick.
There is a lack of understanding going on here on both of your parts. You seem to understand that she was bottling things up. You could have expected that at some point she would turn into a raw nerve and explode although not expecting it to be at you. Was there anything you could have done to help her though this period maybe suggest to her to get some professional advice for her problem.
I think she went off on you as she did because as a friend she came to be dependent on you. Dependant as the one constant in her life and then in a manner of speaking you let her down. Telling her you were sick and going to work in her mind was a lie. If you are to sick to go out and have fun then you to sick to go to work. I actually understand how you came by your decision to go to work, but then I am not in the depression she was or is feeling.
When you are depressed, be it something we all suffer short term from time to time or a long term condition requiring medical attention, we perceive thing very wrong. I would say that if in the light of day she was still holding a grudge she may be clinically depressed needing medical attention.
Now what to do about all this. Your thoughts about cancelling the trip is a good idea. With the two of you conflicted as you are if unresolved before the trip you two could ruin the vacation for the others.
There is no need to tell the coordinator that you have a conflict with another attendee. This leaves open too many questions that don't need to be asked. Just tell the coordinator that a family obligation has arisen that conflicts with the trip and you must cancel. You hope that sufficient time is available to allow someone else to take your place and enjoy the trip.
If you truly feel you must give a reason to your friend other than the one you give to the coordinator. Then I suggest it be something like this. Anna, It breaks my heart that our friendship is crumbling. I feel that at the moment our friendship is at the point that if we were both to attend the up coming trip we could ruin it for the others. I feel you may need the opportunity to get away and relax more than I do so I have informed the trip coordinator that a family obligation has come up that will not allow me to attend. I would hope that when you return we can talk things out calmly and hopefully restore our friendship to the point it once was. Please call me when you return so we can set a date to meet and talk.
My approach tells her the truth of the matter and leaves it up to her if she wants to repair the friendship. If she does not call you or contact you when she returns then you know the friendship is over and you do not have to worry about how to end it. It already is ended.
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Keep in mind that I don't necessarily know all the details of the argument (exactly what was said, history, etc). I'm making my suggestions based on the fact that it sounds like there was one time that this happened to you, and that Anna's a good friend otherwise.
It doesn't sound like Anna randomly snapped at you. It sounds like she was upset, let it stew for a while, then let you know what she was thinking. Not a crime, in my books.
Take a step back and look at this objectively for a minute. You call and cancel plans, saying that you're too sick to leave the house. Then you go to work, which is probably more strenuous and less fun than going out. Is it not going to look like you lied about being ill so that you could skip out on plans and go to work instead? I'm not saying that's what you did, but you have to see why Anna could believe that. If it happened to me, I'd be furious with my friend for lying to me.
Keep in mind that everyone deals with anger differently. I blow up immediately... one might even call me "unstable". My husband, on the other hand, simmers with resentment and refuses to speak for hours or days. Just because Anna chooses to deal with her anger a little differently doesn't mean that she's crazy, just that she's different from you. Ideally we'd all sit down and discuss our differences calmly and objectively like adults, but that's just not the reality. People are flawed, and that's that.
Anna was licking some wounds of her own, feeling hurt and betrayed by you (again, not necessarily what you did, but it is clearly how she feels, and that's what matters in all of this). She took some time, then fired off a note to let you know why she's so upset. Now your response is to be mad at her for being mad at you. See where that doesn't really make sense?
Just because we don't like the tone with which someone accuses us of something we've done, it doesn't mean that we get out of apologizing until they've apologized for being "mean" first. We're all harsh when we're angry, and just because you and I save our e-mails in the draft folder and re-read them the next day before sending them doesn't mean that Anna does. We've got two separate issues here: you ditching a friend, and Anna being a little harsh in her accusations. If you wait for her to apologize first, you're going to lose a friend forever over a petty argument.
Your proposed response boils down to "I'll apologize to you if you apologize to me first. I'm giving you the silent treatment until you do." I know I'm being harsh here, but it's not altogether mature. This isn't a time for petty dissection of tones and word usage, it's a time for manning up and taking responsibility for how your friend is feeling right now because of your actions. Apologize, no strings attached.
"Anna, I'm so sorry that I have hurt you. I promise that I didn't skip out on our plans so that I could work: I just figured that if my evening was already shot, I might as well make some money while I was suffering. I didn't consider how that would look, and it was really insensitive of me."
The end. No "BUT you shouldn't have been so harsh, I'm not your friend any more." Wait until after the main issue has been resolved to confront Anna about the tone of her e-mail. And when you do, make sure it's "I understand that you were upset with me, but that e-mail was really surprising and hurtful" not "You're always snapping at people and you're unstable."
Backing out of the trip would be incredibly awkward. Even if you ask the organizer to stay uninvolved, they're likely to make themselves involved out of curiousity/concern. Then everyone's going to see your dirty laundry and everyone's going to have an opinion. Awkward. There's no reason why you have to back out at all.
This trip is an ideal time to remember why you're friends with Anna. Maybe she's hilarious, maybe she mixes a mean broken-down golf cart or maybe she's always the first person to come up with something fun to do. Either way, there was a reason why you became friends with her in the first place. Things might be awkward at first, but if you have apologized there's no reason why you won't have fun. Nothing mends rifts like time spent together.
Case in point: my younger sister has a habit of stewing for months or years, then lashing out like a viper when she's mad at you. She's the master of internal resentment. She had been kind of nasty at my bachelorette party, and she was supposed to be my only bridesmaid. I e-mailed her a month or so before the wedding to ask if there was going to be a repeat of the party behaviour, and she blew up. She sent a rant saying nasty things about my character, claiming that a chronic illness that I have was just a ploy for attention, things like that. Extremely hurtful, extremely harsh. I said that I was willing to let things go if she would apologize for being harsh. She wouldn't. Because of that stalemate, I nearly walked down the aisle with only one person standing up for me. In the end, I had to just suck up my hurt so that I didn't ruin a good thing. I'm glad I did, too, because I could have lost my only sister forever because I couldn't deal with the fact that she was harsh in a series of e-mails. Don't let that happen to your friendship.
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