I hope nobody minds but I just kind of need to vent here since I have nobody objective to listen to me. I've been really depressed again since July due to a lot of things happening and I know it's just the incredible amount of stress I have right now is why I'm depressed despite me being on wellbutrin. I work and I go to school full time and I'm also married and then I've got a mother that is sick with cancer again and is very demanding and she has always been very demanding but her being sick it seems to be even worse. The last straw has been I met a group of girls through my husband's co-workers that I thought were really nice and I was getting to know them better. Well I quickly started noticing weird things and I heard and saw quite a few things that I didn't agree with. I became increasingly uncomfortable going around them since whenever the men would leave the room and go out to the garage to talk or smoke, the women would talk so horribly about their own husbands and one of the girls actually confessed to us that she had cheated before on her SO due to their bad sex life since the topic of sex had come up. These women did not seem shocked and admitted other things as well. I began to see a lot of undesirable behavior and gossiping since I guess these girls were getting very comfortable with me being their friend and I guess they let their guard down. I was also repeatedly pressured to pick sides whenever there was a disagreement about something and I hate doing that and I prefer not to get involved in petty arguments and I kept my mouth shut since my hubby did not agree with me that we needed to find new friends and didn't really care that I was becoming highly uncomfortable being around these women. It was so bad I felt like at times I was in a Alice in Wonderland/Desperate Housewives episode, is how bad the gossiping was. My hubby let slip some of my opinons to a co-worker that I had confided in my hubby and told his co-worker that I was uncomfortable hanging out with them and of course his co-worker went home and told his wife. So that caused a really big blowup. Ever since July I've been repeatedly harrassed. I have done everything I can besides moving away to prevent them from contacting me.After responding to the first few emails and seeing that they would not listen to reason or leave me alone I deleted all of their personal information so that I would not be able to contact them back and to make a clean break. As of last week, one of the girls personally came to my husband's job and gave him a letter to give to me. She was extremely nice to him so he naively thought that it possibly was an apology letter but nope. It was just another abusive letter telling me what a bad person and how judgmental I am. My husband really has not supported me in this. He basically told me that if he gets invited to go along anywhere with this group of people that he will go without me and I will just have to stay home since obviously I won't be welcome. I am so stressed out. I have been approached by several mutual friends asking what happened and some of them were very confrontational and actually mad at me too. It's gotten to where I don't want to leave my house to go anywhere social. But I just can't believe the utter lack of support from my husband and I have just been moping around. It's really messing me up weight loss wise. I've not lost any weight at all, nor do I have the desire to work out or even put forth an effort since I just feel like I've got a mountain on my chest and no way or no clue of how to get it off of my chest..

Sorry this was long but I just don't think it's absurd of me to expect my husband to support me and I just feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole in Alice's Wonderland.

First of all hugs too you. Sounds like things have been really crazy for you. I think, and this is my personal opinion, that you husband should be backing you up or supporting you. To me it is like he is choosing those friends over you. If all of this has been going on since July then maybe its time to get some cousling from an objective observer. Talk to you husband and tell him how much it all bothers you and why and why he does not feel like backing you up on it all. That is the best way you can start. Hang in there and my prayers are with you.

Oh! Hon. I feel so badly for you. I know what it's like to feel
that way and it is very disheartining (sp?) when your spouse/best
friend does not stand by you. I really can't get over the childness
of these people. It sounds to me like they need to "get a life"!

Just hold your head up high! You are better than these people
so don't think about "stooping to their level". Try to really concentrate
on yourself cause YOU are the important one here NOT them.

You are definatly not being absurd here. Even if he "thinks" you
are being rediculous he SHOULD support YOU no matter what!
He should be your ROCK!

I will be thinking of YOU.

Thanks for the hugs.. That's exactly how I feel that he's choosing his friends over me by continuing to go to lunch with them and etc.

I've never encountered women being like this and being so mean to each other. When I'm not depressed/stressed I'm very laid back and for example if I get my feelings hurt by one of my girlfriends, I either forget about it since usually it wasn't their intention to hurt my feelings or if it really bothers me I tell them about it nicely and we talk. I don't go behind their back and tell another girl that I'm mad at this other girl and badmouth her. I've always chosen a few good loyal friends that I'm super close to but now that I'm married I have to compromise on everything and I just feel like he isn't doing as much compromising and it's making me really unhappy since I'm compromising on several things that are really important to me.

Barbara- Yes I have told him exactly how I feel and I did it very calmly so he couldn't claim I was being a typical female being too sensitive and dramatic about the situation since that's what he tried to pin it on at the beginning of this situation and that made me really mad.

Man, that really stincks. You are obviously smart to cut off ties with them. The fact that they are harrassing you shows how crazy they are. I hope yout husband comes around. In the meantime, be sure to take care of yourself. Make more friends or go out with old ones. You don't have to suffer because of them.

You will not be able to change your husband and force him to see things your way. I wouldn't even try as that might just cause resentment from him. No where in the marriage vows did it say you have to like or dislike the same people.

What do YOU like to do? What are YOUR hobbies? Don't know, well this is a great time to find out. Focus on yourself for now. Try not to worry about others' opinions about this, not even your husband's. I know that must be hard. I hve had to let go of many ill feelings towards my husband's friends lately and just accept that I cannot control who he hangs out with. I'm not his mother. All I can control is how I respond.

Try to see this as an opportunity to take care of yourself and grow as a person. You don't need these people, or the ones that are judging you.

Emily

I need to clarify, I do believe your husband should support you, but we just can't make people behave the way we want them to all the time. He may disagree with you on this one, but think of other things that you do agree on, in which you support one another.

Please don't let this drag you down. I know how hard it can be when you are depressed. I am actually just pulling out of a cycle of depression. Ironically, wellbutrin is really working for me. You might want to discuss the increase in depression it with your therapist and MD. A tweak in meds may be appropriate. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to take care of yourself.

Put your needs first for a little bit. Do waht you need to do to feel better about yourself.

I know you just wanted to vent, and I hope you don't mind my chiming in with advice. You can take it or leave it. I just felt that I have been going through similar things over thw past month, and this is what has helped me.
Please, just take care of yourself!

Emily

Eeg- well that's exactly what I've been doing is starting to think about myself first and learning that I need to take care of myself first before I can do all the other stuff I need/want to do and I've been thinking about hobbies and etc. I in fact have splurged already on something I've always wanted to do. I don't have time to take a photography class but I got myself a really nice camera and I've been experimenting with it and learning how to use my camera and learning different things that I can do with my pictures. I haven't had much of a chance to use it though since I am on the go a lot due to work and school and helping out my mom. I don't mind your advice at all. Before I did kind of feel like I was a little too dependent on my husband and too willing to compromise. I just felt like maybe I would be a bad wife if I was not willing to compromise on things. But I'm starting to think if its something really important to me then I shouldn't back down otherwise I'll just be unhappy and resent my husband. I guess it's just learning how to pick your battles. I was being told that I was the crazy one in all the letters I was getting and I can act pretty out of character if I go off of medication but I have not been off of it since I've been there done that and learned my lesson. So I guess I just needed to vent and see what other people's response was and if I was actually being crazy!

I've been feeling a great deal of anxiety due to all the stress I've been under and I think that's what has got me depressed and I was wondering if anybody is also taking an anti-anxiety medication along with their anti-depressant and did it help? If so maybe I should go back to my doctor and ask about anti-anxiety medication as well. What do you guys think?

Wow...that sounds like a horrible situation to have been in. I would have wanted to get away from those people, too. That doesn't sound like a healthy bunch at all...good for you for getting away! I don't think you are crazy at all...not one bit.

re: anti-anxiety...I am taking Ativan on an as-needed basis. It is in combination with a mood stabilizer and an anti-psychotic. I find it helps a lot when I need to take it, I try not to take it but end up taking it about 1 a week or so. Don't hesitate to voice this to your doc...follow your intuition and good luck!

Do these women think they're still in high school?
It would be awful to buy into their thinking and it sounds as though you've tried to cut ties, so that's all you can do really.
It shows great strength of character that you'd not want to be around women who think sending a note through someone else is adult behavior. Girls in my grade nine class don't even do that.
If your husband wants to go out with them, good! Perhaps he'll realize it isn't much fun without you. Do your own thing. I always think a good relationship is one that has clear, distinct boundaries and this is maybe yours. Maybe doing some stuff on your own might be just the thing if you thought you were too dependent on him.

UPDATE: Thanks to all that posted and you were all supportive. I greatly needed the support. I have still continuously been harassed. Unfortunately since they have not tried to physically harm me or follow me etc and since it's not on a daily basis it's not enough to where I can file charges with the police to get them to see I'm serious about not wanting to be contacted by them anymore and I've just had to ignore it. It's just one girl now that is still doing all of it since by fortune or fate or whatever some of these women actually moved away unexpectedly and so did their husbands so my husband does not work with most of these men anymore and just one remains. My husband has learned some hard lessons to say the least since I last posted about this. I think he's finally learned that you do not reveal what your spouse has told you in private and that most people even if they are your "best guy" friend are going to always try to cover their own butts first with their wives so that they aren't made miserable by their wives at any sign of trouble. My hubby has learned also that as long as I'm not in the wrong and not doing any wrong doing that he needs to support me and stand up for me if necessary. Also my hubby has agreed to listen to me and my gut feelings from now on. We're working on trust issues in our relationship since this whole situation and his reaction to the situation and how he treated me really damaged my trust in him and made him realize that he had trust issues with me for reasons that go back into his childhood. I have started doing things on my own without him and I've met even more friends now myself and apparently these girls that I was hanging out with before they were not very well liked and the people I'm hanging out with now they were too polite to tell me and also they were unsure of me as well since I was hanging out with these girls which I didn't even realize so lots of things have been smoothed over with some really cool people that were just acquaintances until now.

I'm so glad you are feeling better and that things seem to be headed in the right direction. I don't have a SO but if I did and he did not back me up I would be devastated. I hope things continue to improve and GOOD FOR YOU for standing up for yourself.

HUGS

Have you ever faced up to these women or confronted them directly? Sounds like you took the high road and started avoiding them, which is what is driving them crazy. You may need to try the old high school move of turning up and confronting them directly to tell them to take their games elsewhere. Sometimes bullies need that before they back off, and that is all these beyatches are, by the sounds of it.

You sound like an agreeable person who lets things go, which really annoys people like that who want to fight about small things.

So as I see it you have two choices - let it go and continue to ignore them; or face up to them and give them a piece of your mind.

PS: Of course your hubby should support you, but as someone else said, he's a big boy so let him do what he likes, and don't let the witches interfere in your relationship.

Augigi-Yes I did try to talk to them and reason with them but it was pointless. Every single thing that I said was twisted around and one of the girls made it even worse by lying and told the other girls that I had called her a "b****" and I hadn't. I offered to show them proof that I hadn't done that or some of the other things this girl said I did and the rest of the girls weren't even interested in it. The big thing- the underlying issue was apparently they were upset that I was still friends with this other girl that they aren't anymore and thought I was spying for her. Paranoid.. I haven't confronted them in person or anything since I'm a little concerned that it would become physical since these girls apparently have a history of violence and harassing other people which I didn't know about. Since word has gotten out that I'm no longer friends with these girls, I'm meeting a lot of people through mutual former friends of theirs that are telling me they've had the exact same experiences and my experience compared to some of these other girls and guys was mild apparently. I do think that my ignoring them is driving them crazy because my husband ran into one of the couples about two weeks ago at a gun range in the area and he was polite to the guy and said hello and that he would see him at work on Monday but just ignored the girlfriend and word has now gotten back to us through mutual acquaintances who don't like them at all but have to be nice to them since they are actually related to them by spouses and they have been ranting and posting stuff on their myspaces about the encounter. I'm to the point where I find it funny in a way. It's November and the big blow up happened in July and they're still trying to badmouth me and now my husband and cause problems. By now pretty much all of our other mutual friends that used to be friends with them have decided that I was the one that was treated wrong and that I didn't do anything wrong and they are wonderful and it really has brought about some good.