Content Warning: Pregnancy Complications, Child Loss
Sometimes, it hurts more to lose a long-term friendship than it does to lose a romantic partner, largely because of all of the things you’ve been through together.
Because of this, often we’ll make excuses for our friends, until we realize that the friendship can’t go on anymore, sympathized the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor No_Share_1499 understood that it would be harder to stay in touch with her best friend when her bestie had to move for her husband’s job, but she was confident that their friendship would endure.
But when her best friend called her for help, the Original Poster (OP) was shocked and hurt to find out that she called her to help her grieve the child she was losing in a pregnancy she never knew she was experiencing.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for wanting nothing to do with my friend after she lost her baby?”
The OP had a close, lifelong friendship she was sure would stand the test of time.
“My friend and I have been close friends since we were kids, more like family, actually. We’ve always shared everything with each other, and we are always the first ones to reach out to whenever there is something new in our lives.”
“When I was pregnant, she was the first one (after my mom) to know. We cried together, we laughed together.”
“Anyway, she got married a long time ago, and I was also her Maid of Honor. We remained super close. She did move away because her husband lives in a city that’s a two-hour drive away, but we still chatted on a daily basis.”
But then the OP was hurt, realizing her friend had kept something huge from her.
“So out of nowhere, she calls me, crying, to come to the hospital where she is. I go there and find out she lost her baby.”
“In the moment, I was absolutely devastated for her. I didn’t know that she was pregnant, but there were no questions asked. It was not about me. She suffered a big loss, and all I could do is help.”
“So I have done what I should do (as family). I stayed with her. I took care of her. I slept with her in the same bed for a while to comfort her and be there for her as much as was needed. I even bathed her and fed her like she was a little baby.”
“It really broke her very severely, and it was heartbreaking to see this happen.”
In the aftermath, the OP began to question their friendship.
“She is fine now. Of course, you never really get over such a loss, but it seems like she is starting to accept and heal.”
“I, on the other hand, want to slowly take a distance from her. Reason being: she was seven months pregnant… Seven months, and we were talking to each other on a daily basis and not even once has she mentioned it.”
“I could have honestly excused it if she hadn’t told anyone, because, yes, people have a right to their privacy, and if she and her husband want to keep it a ‘secret,’ then okay, sure.”
“Yes, it would hurt, because I shared my news immediately with her, but everyone has their own personality and the way they deal with things. So fair enough. No hard feelings.”
“The issue is everyone knew…. Everyone. Except for me. A mutual friend even told me that she was requested not to tell me, cause she just rather me not know. It was the plan to only inform me when the ‘baby shower’ would happen.”
“And then it also clicked to me why she was avoiding seeing me. Yes, a two-hour drive is not nothing, and we are both extremely busy, but it never reached the point of not seeing each other for months and months. But every time I’d come up with an idea, she had a ‘reason’ why it couldn’t happen. I didn’t even ever think something like this was possible, and I still don’t get it.”
The OP felt left out of her friend’s life and thought it might be time to reciprocate.
“I have always been her biggest supporter and always have been so happy for her when good things happen. This just made me realise that she doesn’t see me the way I see her and that’s fine.”
“She needed my help, and I would never kick someone who is already down, especially when I care about that person. But now that she is ‘okay,’ I just don’t want to have anything to do with her.”
“I am just really turned off from this friendship. She purposely wants to hide things and even warns people (she isn’t even that close to) not to tell me, as if I’m some kind of enemy.”
“And on top of that, lying to me every day. The number of times she claimed to have ‘gotten her period.'”
The OP’s family tried to be supportive and encouraged her to make an informed decision.
“My family says I should be the first to have a deep conversation about it before cutting her off, because we didn’t talk about it.”
“I personally don’t even feel like I want to discuss it. Like, whatever the reason might be, I don’t think it would be good enough for me.”
“I didn’t ask any questions or make comments when I was with her, because my main focus was her well-being.”
“Am I wrong for feeling this way? Because according to my other friend, I am being a b***h for wanting to cause her ‘another loss.'”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some theorized why the OP’s friend might have tried to keep the baby a surprise.
“The least you can do is ask. Maybe she was planning a surprise for you or something. For how things sound, she does see you as her closest friend.”
“She called you to help her when she was going through the worst time in her life, I don’t think this is something you should leave unsolved.” – NatNatTh3CatMom
“From what you’ve said, it sounds like she wanted to surprise you at her baby shower. For all you know, she had some whole ‘auntie’ announcement or something sweet that obviously got messed up.” – Comntnmama
“Any chance she was playing the long game on surprising you? My sister did that, she kept it quiet for almost seven months because she was flying in to see me and wanted A Moment. It still sucked for me that I hadn’t been in on it for all that time but the intentions were good from her.” – AnxiousCanOfSoup
“Is she really into social media? I ask because I am sure you have seen the videos where like the daughter surprises her mom with twins when she thought she was having one baby, stuff like that. When I see stuff like that, I think, you had to lie to your own mom for 9 months to get that stupid video. Surprising my best friend with a baby to ask her to be godmother sounds like a stupid but plausible thing for someone to do these days.” – looking_within21
“Now, of course, I don’t know anything being an outsider, but I hope I can help ease your anger/fears a bit with some possible reasons.”
“I do wonder if there was something really special they’d both agreed on, and now it’s super painful to tell you. Things off the top of my head could be incorporating your name as a middle/first name for the baby, making you a godparent, things along that line that mentioning now might stir up grief.”
“Since everyone else knew, she may have told them to simply not mention the pregnancy at all to avoid slip-ups (e.g. if they were planning to name the kid after you or something, and someone starts talking about it with you not knowing/forgetting its a surprise. May be easier to just bar anyone from saying anything).”
“For example, my sister and BIL agreed with their second baby that if they had another girl, because of how active I am as an auntie, that they were going to have my name as a middle name and didn’t tell me until they found out the baby was a boy.”
“With this context, if the baby hadn’t passed, is this something you think they may have thought you’d like? Because of this possibility, I reeeeeally recommend you go in with an open mind and try to be as gentle/kind as you can.”
“I imagine most folks outside of already complicated pregnancies don’t foresee this kind of loss happening, and they may have been blindsided by this loss. What was supposed to be something exciting and wonderful for you two to bond over has instead turned into an awful loss. I imagine on top of that, sharing what could have been/was planned may be extra painful, hence why they haven’t told you why there was secrecy yet.”
“Again, I don’t know them or your relationship well enough. BUT I can see a world where it does make sense why the secrecy and lack of details afterwards may make sense without it being something they kept from you for a negative reason.”
“Take care of yourself! I’m sure it’s going to be a tough conversation for you too.” – fANTastic_ANTics
Others wondered if the friend concealed her pregnancy news for health reasons.
“My initial thought was that since OP said that the BFF wanted to tell her at the baby shower, maybe she just wanted it to be a surprise, like in a good way. I think that’s a stupid idea, but maybe it was more just not well thought out than malicious. Who knows what her reasoning was, but I’m curious as h**l to know too.” – Front_Machine7475
“Maybe she knew the baby had major health risks, and it would be harder to pretend that wasn’t the case with the bestie. I think the first is the most likely not hurtful reason.” – 3ghads
“If she is as close as OP says, if she knew the baby had issues and could pretend with everyone else… maybe it was hard to accept for herself that the baby had issues and all that would have bubbled to the surface when she told OP.”
“Also, at seven months, people usually have their baby shower at like six months or seven months…I am really leaning toward thinking that she knew something was wrong and was waiting for any celebration or anything until she knew the baby could make it.”
“If everyone lived close by who knew, she couldn’t hide her growing belly. Again, easier to pretend everything was okay with them.”
“If OP sees this, remember, she wanted you at the hospital, not her mom or anyone else. She wanted you there when the thing she feared most happened.” – TheTossUpBetween
“Icelandic, Greek, Tudor England, parts of India, you didn’t name or celebrate a baby until you knew it was likely to live. Some people don’t share with their most important people getting a new job until it feels real, as they don’t want to jinx it. Find out and then make your call.” – jcocab
“My bff did this to me. Thankfully, she had a healthy baby, but didn’t tell me until she was almost ready to pop. We’ve been best friends since we were 3 years old, call each other platonic soulmates lol, even live in the same city but don’t get together in person often enough, talk on the phone almost every day for hours sometimes.”
“I knew way before she finally told me (gut feeling, intuition, micro-changes in her behavior, I don’t know how, I just KNEW). She didn’t do this with her first few pregnancies. I finally got the story years later… I hate her husband. She was about to leave him and then got pregnant and decided to stay.”
“She didn’t tell me because she knew I’d be disappointed. I was. But I love her unconditionally (and all of her children). She’s still with him, and they still go through their ups and downs. I still hate him. It did hurt my feelings that she didn’t tell me right away but I just continued to be the best friend that I can for her because I can’t imagine my life without her in it.”
“I am also nosey and would love to know! Definitely ask her. Good friends can be hard to come by. Take some time away if you have to then decide if you want to talk about it and work through it or not.” – Fruitslave
After receiving feedback, the OP shared a brief update, stating that she planned to talk over her concerns with her friend.
“Thank you so much for all the advice and a lot of kind words. I really appreciate it.”
“I have decided that I will have the talk with her this weekend. I would rather do it face-to-face than through the phone. So I will update you guys Friday or Saturday.”
“Reading all the comments, I realized I owe it to myself and also to our 20-year of friendship to at least try to understand it. I’m not going to lie, I am scared for ending up getting hurt more, but I have to do it.”
Following the conversation, the OP shared a heartfelt and unfortunate update.
“So I just spoke to her. We were supposed to meet face-to-face over the weekend, but both my kid and I got quite sick… so I had to postpone seeing her. She, on the other hand, didn’t really want to wait and wanted to know what I wanted to talk about.”
“I really tried not to talk about it over the phone, but she didn’t really want to let go.”
“I have to admit that I came off a bit stronger than I was planning to. I guess it was just all of that built-up anger and sadness.”
“She did not take it well. She said that her whole life, she always felt like I was always trying to outshine her and try to make things about myself (as what I am doing now, according to her).”
The OP’s friend belittled her for her work as a Maid of Honor.
“I asked her to name some examples where I was trying to do that. I was confused and thought maybe I do? Without realizing?!”
“She couldn’t name any situation that was convincing. She came with the example that at her own wedding, I was so extremely present that she felt like it was more about me than her.”
“I asked her to explain how that happened, because, honestly, we chose my dress together, and I wasn’t even wowed by it, but she liked it a lot, so I wore what she preferred.”
“I did not interfere with the wedding planning at all unless she explicitly asked, and even when she asked, my usual answer was: you should discuss this with your husband and decide together.”
“The whole wedding, her whole family kept coming to me for questions or getting things done as if I was some paid wedding planner.. I did not choose this! Nor did I want to do that, but if I’m needed to help with things, then I will help.”
“By the way, this point even made me so annoyed because I really just wanted to enjoy the wedding, but instead, I was running here and there, trying to get things done that should have already been done by other people. Yes, I had a funny video prepared the day before the wedding, which her family loved. But she did that for me, too!!”
“So basically, she was annoyed that her family (most who flew overseas) kept praising me. She didn’t say this specifically, but that’s what I could understand from what she was saying.”
“I asked her for any other example where I’m making things about me, and I told her that I was not mad… I genuinely wanted to know and better myself, because if that’s something I’m doing, I’m definitely not doing it on purpose, but I’ll at least be aware of it! She could not come up with any other example except for repeating ‘that I’m doing it right now,’ her words, ‘I lost a child and you still find a way to make it about you.'”
Then the OP’s friend accused her of using her grief against her.
“I told her I’m not making it about me, but I’m just trying to understand why I wasn’t aware of the baby existing for a full seven months and her hiding it while we were talking on a daily basis.”
“Her reply basically was, ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you. The world doesn’t revolve around you.'”
“(I am legit shaking while writing this.) She was just screaming most of the time, so honestly, I couldn’t even hear most of what she was saying.”
“I said something like, ‘If I was always making it about me, I wouldn’t be taking care of you for weeks without even asking a question.’”
“Her response was, ‘How disgusting you are to help me and then later on use that against me. Nobody forced you to do that, and I wish you hadn’t, honestly, because of throwing it in my face.'”
The conversation continued to escalate.
“A lot more was said, well, actually, screamed.”
“I won’t make myself look like a saint. I will admit that I really lost my s**t when I heard talk to me in such a belittling and aggressive way… so I definitely also called her nasty names.”
“I really hoped that it could have been a healthy and calm conversation.”
“It’s still not clear to me why she had to hide it from me, because her reasoning was just not clear.”
“I’m sorry for not really coming up with an answer. I still don’t understand why, but I do know that our friendship is over. I’m so heartbroken, and I never knew losing a friend is actually more painful than losing a lover.”
While the subreddit had thought the best of the OP’s friend’s intentions, what the OP’s friend said in their resulting phone call was anything but kind.
Maybe she initially had a good reason for concealing the news from the OP, and maybe this was only the raw grief talking, but if that was true, it would take time for the truth to come out and for the friendship to possibly heal.