Have you ever had that feeling that someone wanted you to fail & in the moment, you're feeling brave & strong? Then the next day, you wake up feeling horrible. It's like those awful break ups where you feel like you got it and then the next morning, it hits you. Anyway, before my FH, I was actually friends with his cousin Donna for years. When I look back, we weren't really "friends". I was a submissive, doormat and she used me, constantly. When were first started dating, I was in the end stages of not wanting to be part of the friendship. She was manipulative, only nice when she wanted something, secretly competed against me and when jealous, would smear my name to my own friends and plant the seed in people's heads. We didn't have the friendship I thought we had. She didn't want to know about my business because she cared - she only wanted something to gossip and use against me to hurt me. I couldn't tolerate it anymore. She had her baby before she got married & she would constantly tell me that I would be next & do the same thing. She didn't know how to be cordial so I stopped talking to her altogether.
Unfortunately, the other cousins & his sister were not very cordial to me either. They pretended to care when they wanted information about our relationship but lost interest if it wasn't "drama-filled". This was a few years ago & I remember feeling so down and hurt that people he loved were just not respectful. It was a lot of passive-agressive bullying. Like they say, God's rejection is his protection. I re-built myself - I did things I wanted to do (like finally taking classpass, even if the studios were 20+ minutes away from the house), I created a whole new network of women who were more "me" - positive, encouraging, silly, non-competitive, etc... I was able to go back to school and I recently just graduated with a Master's degree and on my way to a new career, new life as wife. I've grown & I'm thankful to say I'm not the same person. The minute I dropped people like that & when I committed to bettering myself/worked hard, great things happened. Within the past few years, she still continued to do weird attention-seeking stuff, tried to hang out with my best friends without me, bugged my mom & asked her what was going on in my life (they work at the same job) & my mom thought it was strange considering days before we were all celebrating Christmas even with my FH & his whole family. Anyhoo, I wish her well but I don't want to live my life & be around someone like her who was disrespectful/rude/toxic to me. I don't dislike many people but I stayed in that "friendship" longer than I should have & that's my fault. Once you're in that zone, I can't go back & reconcile. (it's like an abusive relationship - friends discourage their friends from dating an abusive ex but why do friends encourage other friends to reconcile with an abusive friendship?). Also - weird fact: Donna's husband went to my best friend's house to "bring beer to her FH" & when she showed up, he proposed a plan of getting Donna & I back together as friends.
Recently, I had my bridal shower & the right thing to do was invite Donna. In mY FH's family, they're "my big fat Greek wedding": you invite one, you gotta invite them all. I was cordial with Donna & that was it. In fact, she spent half of my shower with two other girl cousins doing their own thing & not participating with other guests or being present. I let it go. Now recently on social media (I don't even go on my fb anymore) she apparently posted pictures of my shower with "cryptic" messages & hashtags with "wishingthemmoreluckthanme" "family is everything & no one else. People think things are handed easily to me so F them #againstallodds". Of course, mutual friends & family members are texting me, asking me what's going on. I really have no clue. And as cliché as this sounds, I'm in a completely different space. Obviously, she hasn't changed if she still does those passive-agressive posts on social media. Thankfully, FH understands from my POV & has not pushed our former friendship. He said, "I think she may be jealous & still wishes you were friends." I said, "well, if she wasn't so jealous, then she wouldn't have to treat me with disrespect...and maybe we'd still be friends to this day. And real friends build each other up, not plot your downfalls."
I seem to be in good spirits but I just don't want to wake up FEELIN it, you know? I refuse to let this distract me from the wonderful marriage I will have with my soon to be husband. There's other things to celebrate than speculate.
