My cousin and I have become really good friends over the last few years. She was diagnosed with cancer over a year ago, and moved to my town (in with my mom, actually) for treatment. Before she moved to town, we hung out pretty regularly. Even after the diagnosis (actually, especially so), I would make time to go spend a couple of days with her and do whatever she wanted to do. She didn't usually return the favor, but she had 3 little girls running around (2 step-daughters and her daughter, my 'niece') and stayed pretty busy. It wasn't an issue, as her hometown was only an hour or so away and I went there somewhat frequently anyway for concerts and events. She would sometimes make plans to come see me, but something would always pop up at the last minute (this becomes relevant later).
Her ex did not move to my hometown with her, and I was told that she had ended the relationship before moving. Shortly after she moved, she met an acquaintance of mine and they began dating. She stays with him more often than not, and over the course of the last few months I have barely seen her at all.
Big deal, right? People normally see their friends less when they start a new relationship. Of course they do! BUT -- her "ex" kept posting things on Facebook about missing his "wife", and she was still regularly spending the night with him and the kids. She told me at our family Christmas that they married in October of 2015. She later told me in Spring of 2016 that they planned to but never did. A few weeks after that, I see a signed marriage certificate on the refrigerator of the house she shared with her ex-husband? boyfriend? Maybe not ex?. I asked about and she says they never actually filed it, they just signed it. Hm, okay?
So that's fishy. That sets the tone for the rest of it. She starts making sure to tell me every little thing he did to victimize her for the next few months, but it's nothing that can be proved. Just general absentee, irresponsible bullshit. But his actions and reactions don't really match up with what she's telling me.
Then, she starts staying with this acquaintance of mine that she met. She starts disappearing for days at a time. She doesn't return phone calls ever. She takes days to return texts. She doesn't go to her house in town, but her ex thinks that's where she always is. She pretty much calls when she feels obligated to (she hasn't responded for weeks and feels bad), or when her new beau has pissed her off in one way or another. She says she's feeling rough (I'm sure she does, stage 4 cancer sucks.) and sleeping all the time, but she is overtly and clearly making plans with people on Facebook and posting pictures of herself out and about. I never mentioned it really, other than to remind her that I worry if she didn't respond for a week or so.
Cut to a couple of weeks ago. She called to bitch about her guy again. I actively listened for probably two or three hours. At the end of the conversation, she thanked me for listening to her and talking her through it. She mentioned that she knew our friendship had been one-sided lately and that she would take accountability and start reciprocating what effort she could. I understand that she's dealing with wayyyy too much at her young age, and I'm not there for her so that she'll return the favor. I tell her as much. I also said that it would be nice if she would call or text when she says she's going to. She agrees and makes plans for a day that week.
The day we made plans, she kept me up to date all day about her whereabouts since I wasn't sure when I'd be getting out of work. First, she was at the hospital with her mom getting a blood transfusion. Then, they were headed to lunch. I made a lunch recommendation, and she said they couldn't make that place's lunch hours because they decided to give her another bag of blood. Bummer. I get out of work, and she's headed to get a mani/pedi with her mom, because she promised her mom that they could do that together. "She wants to feel in the loop." Then, hours after our plans were supposed to start ("The pedicure place has an hour wait!"), she texts me to cancel because my niece hit her head at the playground. She was rushing to the ER in a different city so that her ex(?) could pick up his other two daughters while she sat with my niece.
Here's where it gets really weird. I messaged her ex to see if my niece was okay. He was pretty chill and said she was fine and wanted to know why I was asking. I explained the situation as I was told, and he said that my niece bumped her head a little but wasn't at the ER at all. They were at home. That was weird, and I said as much to her about it. She blew up, asking me to please not contact her ex under any circumstances and accused me of double-checking her story (I was genuinely concerned my niece had been brained on the monkey bars or something!). I apologized for my suspicion and explained that I had been concerned, but did admittedly find it strange when their stories didn't match up.
She gave me the silent treatment for a full week. She didn't respond to questions about my niece's well-being, or any further apologies I sent her way regarding my suspicion and it's relation to my feeling like she had been avoiding me. So I told her that the silent treatment was petty and childish, and she could either respond to me like an adult or we could exchange our shit and go our separate ways, and that it was shitty of her to refuse to respond about the safety of her child when she got angry with me for asking after her child's safety with her ex, and that I was curious about why exactly she was so concerned about the two of us talking. What was she so worried about me telling him? Angrier than necessary, I know, but I hate stonewalling. It's abusive, manipulative, and completely worthless as far as conflict resolution goes. A week is way too long to go without even a simple "I'm busy and can't respond to this right now. I'll get back to you later."
She responded with venom. She said that she hadn't been ignoring me at all, but had been way too busy lately to talk to me. She didn't have the time to give the conversation the attention it deserved so she was waiting to do so until she had the time. She didn't appreciate my "constant scrutiny" (WTF?), she was so hurt that I would think that she would lie to me, let alone about her child's safety, and she was even more hurt and angry that I would reach out to her child's father after "everything he had done". (Most of which was just being pathetic on Facebook, and driving to her new boyfriends house. The boyfriend I'm not convinced he ever knew about until the day he drove there.)
Yesterday, I found out that she lied to me all day about her whereabouts. My mom and I were just catching up while walking through her garden, and it came out that she didn't go to the doctor at all that day. She wasn't even in town until early afternoon. She begged her mom for a pedicure, and it happened hours before she told me it was happening. Now, I'm realizing that all of the things that seem fishy kind of coincide into a pretty shitty, self-serving narrative for her. If that's the case, I've been an idiot pawn in her bullshit lying game and I'm not happy about it.
How do I handle this? Should I ask the ex what his version of their story is? Should I tell her that I know she lied about everything that day? Should I just give up and let it the fuck go? I'm hesitant to give up, because stage 4 cancer. I'm hesitant to be confrontational, because stage 4 cancer. But hell, I'm mad. I hate being duped.
tl;dr: My cousin has cancer and I'm trying to be there for her. But the relationship is one sided, I'm pretty sure she's lying about almost everything, and she plays the victim when she gets caught in one or just stonewalls. Should I just give up?
Submitted May 03, 2017 at 01:09AM by NicotinePatchAdams http://ift.tt/2ptwvL9 relationships
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