Just about two years ago, my husband left my kids and myself for a woman 15 years his junior. My friend, whom I'd known for six years at that point, was the most supportive person in my life during those early months. I fell into a deep depression and none of those old friends would contact me any more. My daughter, who had been close with my friend's daughter, fell into a depression and they stopped contacting her, too. They'd occasionally invite us to gatherings but they'd wouldn't do much to make us feel included. They stopped talking to us altogether.

Two weeks ago, I got an email from her asking for some craft supplies to be returned. I wrote back saying that I would get them to her as soon as I could and that I was sorry for whatever has happened to fracture our friendship. Later that week she wrote back discribing a laundry list of things I've done to wrong her, most of which were not going to events that my family didn't know about. My biggest infraction was making the gathering I'd had last December kid-free. She said it was ridiculous since she and her husband do so much without their child that it was unfair for them to have to hire a babysitter (their daughter is 12). Her final complaint was that I live too far away from her family, even though we live in the same city.

That was on my birthday, too.