Should I apologize for something I was told I had the choice of doing?

[TickTockMan]

Yesterday was an event that I have waited seventeen years for. The person I was suppose to go with texted me to tell me she was in labor and she wouldn’t be able to make it. Having the mental issues I do I started freaking out.

My friend then texted while I was freaking out and told me I could either go with someone else if I could find someone to go with, or I could see if I could trade our tickets for Sunday’s, but that there was only single seats left. We would have to sit apart. While freaking out I chose the first option because I was worried something would happen on Sunday and then I would miss out completely because it will be the last day.

After calming down and finding someone that could drive me it donned on me I think I pissed her off. I asked her what she named the new baby and also a couple of other questions, but she never bothered to write me back. That is not like her.


Over the last couple of years our friendship has been dying away. We use to hangout and do stuff in general. Now we only talk when we have tickets for something. I have been asking her for awhile if she wants to renew our tickets, but she has not told me one way or the other yet, so I am guessing that means she is done altogether. I am thinking last night may have been the end to things since she never wrote me back. We still have tickets for two more events, but I am not even sure if she will talk to me again.


Should I apologize for something I was told I had the choice of doing?

 

[KaraBulut]

It's not clear how close of a friend this and whether she's a single mom, but if you know anything about having a newborn, it's a period of being very busy while being very exhausted.

Stop thinking about yourself and instead, think about what your friend- a new mom- needs. Does she have the things that she needs for the baby? Does she have people bringing her groceries and helping her around the house?

 

[MrRochesterNY]

We still have tickets for two more events, but I am not even sure if she will talk to me again.

Talk? It doesn't sound like you have been talking much with her for quite some time. Isn't it more accurate to say that you have been emailing or texting with her mostly?

And I think that KaraBulut is right. Giving birth isn't something you do and then snap out of it and go on what you had planned.

 

[HunterM]

When my friends have babies, they couldn't hang out with me for 3 to 4 years. Their priority became taking care/nursing their bablies. It's time consuming...not enough sleep due to baby crying for hrs in the middle of the night. It's exhausting! They couldn't go out to dinner/concert/movies/sports with me because they would have to find/pay baby sitters. Most baby sitters are teenagers. Would you trust a teenager to take care of your own baby of 0 to 2 years old? I certainly wouldn't! Life became a lot more inconvenient for them when starting a family.

After 4 to 5 years, my friends and I started to hang out more often again. Their kids are in grade school and be able to take care of themselves a lot better than when they were helpless babies. This is a cycle of life.

It's important to remember your friend did not purposely go into labor to "ruin" your plan for the evening. Life happens for her! From what you wrote, it seemed like you were freaking out and only think about yourself as if she had done you wrong. It's not like she had control over when she should go into labor. "Hmmm...I have an event planned for the evening. So let me postpone my labor for another 10 hours later." It's easy to see why she was mad at you. I would be too if I were in her shoes.

It's up to you if you want to repair your relationship with her. If you do, you should go visit her. Make life a little bit convenient for her. Instead of going out to lunch/dinner, bring food to her knowing that she wouldn't be able to leave her baby alone for long.

 

[maxpowr9]

When my friends have babies, they couldn't hang out with me for 3 to 4 years. Their priority became taking care/nursing their bablies. It's time consuming...not enough sleep due to baby crying for hrs in the middle of the night. It's exhausting! They couldn't go out to dinner/concert/movies/sports with me because they would have to find/pay baby sitters. Most baby sitters are teenagers. Would you trust a teenager to take care of your own baby of 0 to 2 years old? I certainly wouldn't! Life became a lot more inconvenient for them when starting a family.

It's up to you if you want to repair your relationship with her. If you do, you should go visit her. Make life a little bit convenient for her. Instead of going out to lunch/dinner, bring food to her knowing that she wouldn't be able to leave her baby alone for long.

After 4 to 5 years, my friends and I started to hang out more often again. Their kids are in grade school and be able to take care of themselves a lot better than when they were helpless babies. This is a cycle of life.

This is exactly what happened to my friend and me. His wife and him had their first child last year and they shunned pretty much all their friends to focus on the child. I hope once the child starts school that the burden will be lifted and they can do most social things.

Another fact: Couples, especially married ones tend to hate single people. I learned that fact when my BF and me had our separation and my "couple" friends started to ignore me. Once we got back together, we started to hang out more. I'm sure there is subconscious reason to why that is but it is the reality.

 

[HunterM]

^ They do envy single people because their lives have been inconvenient temporarily.

Instead of asking them to go out to happy hour with me, I bring food and drinks to their home for happy hours . The goal is to keep in touch and hang out with them.

 

[hylas]

wow this is so not about you. she probably just went through the single most intense experience of her life.

if shes angry with you - and thats an "if" - then its probably not because you went without her, but because you seem to care more about this event and your anxieties than about her giving birth. maybe shes thinking, why should i care about someone who so clearly doesnt care about me?

or, more likely, shes not thinking about you at all, since, you know, she just gave birth. give her some space, and get some perspective.

 

[racer2438]

^^^^^

what everyone said above is pretty right on.. And priorities change for people once a baby comes in the pictures as it should be.

And it does seem like you don't phyiscally talke to her other than by text/email. Your maybe not as close as you thought..

But at least ask her if there is anything you bring her/do for her..

 

[shainski]

Wow,

to expect that a woman in labor has even anything on her mind but that baby is amazing to me.

I have four children. I will tell you - nothing - nothing prepared me for how exhausting those first eight weeks after birth were (and i'm a man...a woman also has to deal with her body recovering, feedings and things the man doesn't).

If either my wife or i neglected anyone - friends, family - i'm sorry. Even when my second was born, i remembered how hard the first eight weeks were, but i really didn't remember what that felt like. (It would like pulling all-nighters studying in college every night!)

And as far as pulling away from friends - it is not a conscience decision. All of a sudden there are demands on your time that you have no choice but to deal with.

It often seems that they days fly by and nothing gets done. And because you've had no sleep, nothing gets into long term memory, so you don't remember it.

So don't be giving her a guilt trip because she is avoiding or ignoring you. Unless your desire is to drive her away. If you really want to ingratiate yourself to her - ask her how and when you could help her. Could you watch her child for an hour so she could take a walk or take a shower. I'm serious - with a newborn, just the basics of life get put on the back burner for a while.

 

[TX-Beau]

As your friends start having families and raising kids you'll find that they can slip away.

Their priorities change, their focus changes and you turn around and find that they've all moved to suburbia and you only hear from them at Christmas.

Their friends change, their socializing changes, and instead of hanging out with you, they're planning birthday parties and going to soccer practice.

This is all quite natural, and inevitable. I don't know about you but I get tired of forever discussing the children of other people.

If you've been waiting for something for what, fifteen years you should go do that. If she didn't mean you should and is pissed because you took her at her word, that's her own damn fault. If she wanted you to be with her, she should have said that.

But I suspect you weren't really a part of her decision making process in the first place.

 

[TickTockMan]

To clarify she is married and this is not her first kid. She also has the help of her parents and her sister, who is a nurse at our birthing center.

Everything this time is out of the ordinary considering what she has did in the past. With her last kid, who was born almost a month early, we went out a few days (within a week of being born) after the baby got out of the hospital. The baby was still under a special light of some kind at her parents, but the baby was fine in every other way. I was fine with canceling she was the one who wanted to go. That wasn’t even something we were looking really forward to seeing.

She is also the one that brought up renewing our tickets, last year in December. Now that it is time to renew I can’t get an answer out of her if she still wants too or not. Also it is not like she was leaving the baby for me anyways. She wanted to go almost as much as I did. So did her oldest child that I was talking with us. She is still going to see it in a few days anyways. The only difference is she won’t be seeing it with me and she will have to buy her tickets. The contingency plan was always for her to see it, whether I was with her or not. After Portland it is going to Eugene and she was planning on going there if she had too.


As for those that brought up the baby, I didn’t post everything we said back and forth. I did ask how she and the baby was doing. She ignored all of my questions besides telling me it was another girl. That is very unlike her. She started to ignore me only after I told her I chose the first option and had found someone to take her place. It just didn’t don on me that I may have pissed her off.

I am now thinking it may have been more along the lines of her saying yes, while shaking her head no, but over a text.

 

[Seasoned]

Go visit her with a baby gift and her favorite meal or treat.

 

[HunterM]

Well...cut her some slack for being pregnant, giving birth and going through hormonal and bodily changes.

Go visit her face to face. If you value her as a friend, be a bigger man and bury this incident for good.

 

[bankside]

I gather from your post that if you waited 17 years for this event then it was significantly important to you. Even if your friend found it equally important, it would not have exceeded 10% of the importance she would have placed that day on having a successful delivery.

I would say that my ratio is an exaggeration; if forced to compare the two events competing for her attention that day, this event would score somewhere around a zero, with several decimal places of nothing but zeroes.

Anyway the point is her reaction or the timeliness of it is tied for a similarly narrow slice of her attention span at the moment, and you should not attribute too much significance to it. Chances are, she is counting on your capacity to understand her priorities at the moment, and though she would be sincerely concerned if her lack of response upset you, it would similarly be filed under "of trivial importance right now."

It is also probable that if she were sincerely annoyed with your decision, over the long term she would prefer you to overlook her annoyance and carry on.

From what you know so far, I don't think an apology is warranted. Take the time to acknowledge her happy news about the baby, and let her know you missed having her there at the event.

 

[TickTockMan]

We use to be close. Not since she had her second child.

Since she moved to town she has never invited me into her home. Her parents and her sisters a few times, but for some reason not her own. She has been in my place many times though. Even if she did invite me though I couldn’t. My car is still broke down and I have no way to get there. I also spent my extra money on the ticket her son was suppose to use last night. I have nothing else for a gift.

 

[TickTockMan]

Bankside check your comments page.

 

[KaraBulut]

If you want to do something nice, send a gift for the other child. The baby will be getting plenty of gifts and the other child will feel left out.

Amazon delivers and they will put a gift message of your choice in the box.

 

[bankside]

Got it. I stand by what I said; I don't think you owe an apology.

Just try to carry on as best you can with her if it still appeals to you. But if you're growing apart anyway, or if she seems to be making a point of growing apart, sometimes it works out better just to let people do that...

 

[TickTockMan]

Got it. I stand by what I said; I don't think you owe an apology.

Just try to carry on as best you can with her if it still appeals to you. But if you're growing apart anyway, or if she seems to be making a point of growing apart, sometimes it works out better just to let people do that...

It turns out I was right. She is mad at me.

Instead of asking me to switch days and being honest with me she did this.

 

[bankside]

Okay now more than ever you don't owe her an apology for making the choice you did.

She is responsible for deciding that the best way to communicate with you was to tell you the opposite of what she felt and hope you'd get some kind of magic hint about her true feelings. Because of her friendship with you, she should know better than most people how unhelpful it is to speak with you that way, especially when you are flustered by a change of plans for the reasons you mentioned earlier.

So she created her own discomfort in the situation. You can still give her compassion for her mistake, you can still be cheerful and try to get past it with her.

You can even offer her a limited apology if you like, which I would call "the apology of empathy" instead of the full "apology of responsibility." A usual apology is owed because of something you're responsible for, but a limited apology is given in empathy to help smooth things over without being owed to the person.

It doesn't focus on the decision you made, but on understanding her convoluted communication. "I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were getting at - Based on what you said I really thought you didn't mind either way."

Whatever you decide, she needs to get past this. If she uses this incident as an excuse to distance herself from you any further, it's nothing you've done and she's just deciding to withdraw into her own world. It's one thing if she needs her space; that would be acceptable. It's another thing if she pushes you away and tries to make you feel responsible for it.