My husband and I are/were friends with this other couple. They were pretty intense, and in hindsight extremely self-centered, but we tried our best to be supportive friends, show up to their stuff, and cheer them on in every area of their life. Seemed like a good friendship.

Then one night we had a housewarming, and that's when I saw their true colors. The minute they came in, they were picking the house apart, when we'd been so proud of them when they bought their first home. After we drank a bit, one of my other friends broke down to me with some marital issues. Not a big deal, but when I tried to give her advice, the wife of the couple chimed in to not listen to me, but listen to her instead, because I wasn't "successful like her". She then made fun of my friend's marital issues in front of everyone after she left, even though we promised not to say anything. I changed the subject, and somehow we got on the topic of having children. She said they'd been having trouble conceiving, so I gave my sympathy and related that we were having trouble too. Her response? That she's always telling her husband she hopes I don't get pregnant. Then in an attempt to once again change the subject, we all played a game in which she got extremely angry every time she lost a round. Like, legitimately angry. I've never actually seen an adult do this until then.

What I realized was that our friendship only worked if it was based around their lives, and in the 5 years we'd known them, we never actually had an interaction on our terms - in our house, talking about our lives, doing what we like to do. That was the first time, and apparently they couldn't handle it.