Eowyn_Vala

Not sure where else to put this....




This might get long. It's been a while since I've visited TFP and right now I couldn't think of anywhere else to go or that I'd rather be asking advice for. I'm getting married October 1st. Things are moving along fairly well. The money end is kind of tight so we have to be really careful but things are working out. I have two bridesmaids and a maid of honor. Right now I really want to ask one of my bridesmaids to step down. Lets call her B1 and the other my fiance's sister is B2. I really like B2, she's nice, no problems there. The maid of honor is my twin sister, no problems there, she's been a huge help.

B1 has a lot of issues, but in the time I've known her things are slowly getting worse. Due to money constraints my fiance and I asked the wedding party to pay for their own clothes. When it came to buying her dress she asked me several times to pay for hers. I explained that I couldn't. Eventually she paid for her own. I wanted her to be in the wedding but if she didn't want to pay for the dress she didn't have to be in it. Shortly after this she found out she was pregnant from a one night stand. She moves home (the town where I live) to live with her parents. Okay so she is diabetic and doesn't watch her blood sugar like she should. Once pregnant she got better about that. But all I hear about now is how she goes low all the time, how the baby might be mentally handicapped, how much child care will cost, ect. She wasn't sure in the beginning if she was going to keep it. She had an offer from an Aunt and Uncle who can't have more kids, to adopt. Pretty much everyone else feels like she should let someone adopt it since she has run up huge credit card debt in the last year, can't take care of herself, and was on Anti-Depressants. I asked her the other day if she is keeping it and she said she was unless something out of the blue happened to convince her the baby would be better off adopted by someone.

Whenever we talk I do listen to her, I don't offer a lot of advice since I disagree with her plus I don't have much to say. I try to stear the conversation to other topics like the wedding, or just stuff that's happening like the recent rodeo or whatever. It always goes back to baby this and how she is. Then last week she wrecked her car by cutting across the parking lanes in the WalMart parking lot. She claims to not have even seen the other car until she heard a crunch. Her car is totalled, the other car had only about $1000 of damage. So she's looking for a new car, talking about money and needed some for a new car (I feel like she keeps hinting here that my fiance and I could help her when we can't). Her parents are coming home from vacation today. So to get to the point, she recently started working where I do, we carpool, she'd meet me at my house since it's in a small town 20 mintues away from my side of town. She lives across town. Since her accident she is having me drive over to get her. So I have to get up and extra 30 mintues early. I told her it's inconvient for me and asked to see if she could work something out with her brother. She said that she knows it is for me, but it's convient for her. this is where I get irritated and want to ask her to stop thinking only of herself. She hasn't offered anything in gas money, and I found out yesterday that her brother who's home for the summer was working the same small town. So he could have given her a ride, or dropped her off at my place.


Most of this I discovered yesterday. Now my fiance and I only have one car so sometimes I drop him off and pick him up, other times he does this for me. Like yesterday he dropped me off since he had the day off and needed the car. He picked me up. On the way home he wanted me to drop him off somewhere and B1 the friend starts asking if we can take her home first even though we weren't going out of our way to drop off my fiance, in fact it was on the way to her house. Okay I'm rambling but it all sort of ties in. I want to ask her to step down but she's already paid for the dress and we do have three groomsmen lined up. Although I pretty sure one of them wouldn't mind not having to pay for a tux rental. She is a friend and I do try to listen but I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Should I talk to her and explain how I feel and leave the wedding out of it, or should I ask her to step down? I don't like confrontation, but I'm really afraid that is what it's going to come to since I can't get her to listen or really care. I figured I would try to just explain how I feel, ask her to split gas, and force the issue of her finding a ride to my house since it's costing me almost two extra hours of sleep and gas just to go get her and take her home.


Any advice of how to say any of this, what not to say, things I should mention or not mention would be greatly appreciated. I don't like confrontation, but when it happens I tend to go all out talk and talk to get everything in the open and my point might get lost. Kind of like it might have gotten lost along the way of me typing it.

Thanks I feel better after venting!

__________________
Cain: I know what you're doing. I've lead troops into battle before.
DG: And, how am I doing?
Cain: Well, there's less *hugging* when I do it

sillygirl

Is she still being a big problem with the wedding? Or are these feelings you're having making you just not want to be around her?

Explain your feelings to her and give her a chance to rectify, I think. If she still thinks she's not doing anything wrong, then by all means, it's your wedding! You shouldn't have to stand there with someone you don't want to be around.

__________________

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly-Rose Franken
....absence makes me miss him more...

JustJess

One - please pretty please put spaces into your post. It's very hard to read.

Two - It's your wedding. If you'd like her to step down, then ask her to. If she can't return the dress, however, it would be polite of you to pay for it. She does sound like a car wreck waiting to happen. Buuuttt.... you live in the same small town. You work at the same place. It could get ugly and fast. The other option is to tell her what you want her to do in terms of carpooling etc. Clearly, asking isn't working, so explain in a gentle manner that you need to rearrange the schedule a bit. A small white lie here would be useful - a reason you need to change things. Logic isn't working, and to keep things non-confrontational, perhaps it would help. I don't normally advocate such things... but we sometimes need those kinds of tools to smooth situations like these.

__________________
My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

ShaniFaye

I agree with JJ.....just keep in mind she's preggie...I know when I was preggie I felt insane...I couldnt have a cohearant thought if you'd paid me too...things had to be spelled out for me

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Eowyn_Vala

ok, sorry about not having spaces, usually I do. Thanks for the advice. I think I will just talk to her and try to explain, no more asking. then if things don't get better, I'll offer to pay her back for her dress and to step down. I don't want to lose a friend, but she isn't acting much like one. And it probably doesn't help that last week I was PMSing and this week I'm on my period. I mean most of this was before a week ago, but it's been irritating and my hormones might not be helping. Although my fiance grew up with her since 3rd grade, (I met her 2 years ago) and he barely speaks to her now, because he knows she won't want to hear what he has to say, since it will be the same thing her dad is saying.

__________________
Cain: I know what you're doing. I've lead troops into battle before.
DG: And, how am I doing?
Cain: Well, there's less *hugging* when I do it

JustJess

That sounds perfectly reasonable. And as far as what Shani said... yeah, my sister was a complete bitchy nutjob when she was pregnant. *shudders at the memory*

__________________
My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

lurkette

Ask her to step down, but make it seem like it's for her convenience, not yours. Play it like "you have so much to worry about with the baby and your car, I just won't hear of you inconveniencing yourself to be in the wedding." Period. Pay for the dress and count yourself lucky. And keep the 3 groomsmen - people should be in your wedding party because they are special to you, not to balance out the wedding photos. We had 2 bridesmaids and 1 groomsman at our wedding. We didn't do the walk down the aisle, but if you choose to, the party can walk down individually instead of a bridesmaid escorted by a groomsman.

As for the rest of this girl's fucked up life, she does sound annoying but you are playing along. Someone needs to tell her NO! If it's inconvenient for you to drive 30 minutes out of your way with your one car to give her a lift to work, don't do it! And why do you censor yourself instead of telling her what you really think? Go ahead and tell her to start thinking of someone besides herself! Sounds like she needs to grow up, and continuing to put up with her behavior is not doing either of you any favors. People are a lot like dogs: you will get from them precisely the behavior that you tolerate. So quit tolerating it or deal with the consequences.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Eowyn_Vala

thanks lurkette

I was thinking most of that but sort of needed to hear it from someone else because I thought it was too bitchy. I don't know how things will turn out but I guess we'll see.

__________________
Cain: I know what you're doing. I've lead troops into battle before.
DG: And, how am I doing?
Cain: Well, there's less *hugging* when I do it

Sage

It really sounds like she's taking advantage of you. I know that people definitely DO act in ways that they know you'll tolerate, so if you don't want her to act like a whiny child, don't let her! Tell her how you feel, and if you want to send her a little white lie, so be it, just make sure you won't get caught in it later. If she tries to pull crap, don't put up with it- period! It sounds like you're not the only person around who knows she's totally irresponsible. Oh, and about the carpool thing- gas, grass, or ass, no one rides for free!

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Eowyn_Vala

I don't want to tell a white lie, mainly because I can't lie and most people can tell when I try to. I talked to her last night about inconviencing me in the mornings and she said she'd try to find something that works better, unfortunately we had reached her drop off point and she pretty much jumped out and said bye. So I didn't get to the part about gas money. I was talking to my fiance later about it and he was saying that I shoud write her a letter or email (I don't like that idea) since I don't like confrontation and when I do talk to her I'm either going to be too nice, since I don't want to hurt her feelings, or I'll be really really bitchy because I'm so irritated. So I figured that today we'll talk in the car or I'll follow her inside if she decides to run for it. Unless I have my lunch the same time she does, then I might do it then since we won't be in a moving vehicle.

I guess the only thing left that I've been debating about is whether I should tell her how I feel about her keeping the baby with no financial support at all and lots of debt, using her parents, and bumming things from everyone, or if I should just stick to the using me and trying to bum from me part.

__________________
Cain: I know what you're doing. I've lead troops into battle before.
DG: And, how am I doing?
Cain: Well, there's less *hugging* when I do it

Sage

Don't lecture her on how to live her life. Just say your piece about how her actions are affecting you, and let that (perhaps) affect her relations with those around her. If one of your (you thought) close friends came to you and started telling you this and that and the other about how you were living your life, you would probably not like it very much. So, bite your tounge, say your 2 cents, and hopefully you'll be able to sever this relationship cleanly and save yourself the stress and the money.

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genuinegirly

Hold on...

How long have you had this friend? And why do you want to back out on her just because she's hitting hard times? Maybe if you share your financial hardships with her she'll understand that you can't just pop in and meet all of her expenses. Friends lean on one another during hard times. She may be overstepping her bounds, but it's up to you to be firm and state "I can't" when you can't.

Please reconsider taking her out of your wedding party. If you want to remain friends in the future, there will be many hard feelings. If you really truly do consider her a nuisance and want her out of your life entirely, asking her to step out of your wedding party will be tactless, but effective, method of doing so.

You don't ask someone to be in your wedding, plan on it for months, and then renig. It's bad social grace, and horrible friendship.

Think back on your friendship with this woman. Is it something you value? Is she someone you value? I find the mentality of "it's your wedding do what you want" immature. I have seen too many friends frazzled over a wedding because they changed their minds about stupid things (like bridesmaids).

If you made the decision to have her in your party, and she cared enough about it to pay for the dress, stick with it. She obviously values your friendship, she seems to confide a lot in you.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Eowyn_Vala

We've been friends for not quite 2 years, and I don't see it as backing out on her. I feel under-appreciated and used. She's prefectly happy with her life, and doesn't seem to care how her actions are affecting others like me, her parents, or even her unborn childs life. She wasn't like this when we first became friends. Taking her out of my wedding party would be a last effort, and yes I know it would severe a friendship, but there isn't much of one left. She "confides" in me a lot because almost everyone else has pretty much made it clear they don't want to hear about it.

I know she needs to talk to someone so I listen, but it's not just the talking. She only calls when she needs something for herself, and we never hang out anymore, anytime I try to work something out, like watching movies, she's too busy. And I always told her from the beginning she'd have to pay for wedding stuff, so her asking is only because she wants to use her money for something else. I know that part of all this is my fault, but I didn't want to push her away or make thing worse for her.

I do consider her a friend, Yes she's hit hard times, but this isn't the first of them, it's been a long succession and she's not doing much to stop that. I've listened, I've tried talking to her to help, I've done pretty much everything I can without flat out telling her what I think she's doing wrong. I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me, but if I was were she is, then I think eventually I'd appreciate it. Although it won't be me telling her, more than likely it will be my fiance or her father. Not that she listens to either of them anyway. She didn't used to be this way. All I wanted was some advice. And I did get that. I thank everyone for that whether I agree with it or not. I needed a few views from people who weren't close to the situation. So thank you and I'm sorry if this post is a bit defensive, but I do feel like she's definately pushed the bounds of friendship and hasn't really cared about social graces herself.

__________________
Cain: I know what you're doing. I've lead troops into battle before.
DG: And, how am I doing?
Cain: Well, there's less *hugging* when I do it

abaya

I've been in that position, except I was the bridesmaid and the bride was driving me insane (she sounded a lot like your friend, actually). I regret that I didn't just kick the whole wedding to the curb and save my sanity for the summer. Do it as kindly as you can, preserve your mental health, and let her handle the consequences, I say.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

lillala

I think at the end of the day. It's your wedding. If you feel unappreciated and used then I would say do what makes you feel most comfortable. This woman needs a lot more help than you are going to be able to give her so I think if you put it in the mindset that it would be less for her to deal with, and offer to pay for her dress so that way she can put that money towards her debt or the baby, who knows she may like that idea better. You never know but what you do know is what you want and this day is very important for you to not feel 100% comfortable and happy with who is in your wedding.

genuinegirly

Ahhh. 2 years. You see... when I think about friendship worth keeping, I'm thinking 7-10 years or more. I didn't realize that your friendship was so new and untried.
Save your sanity.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy