AITAH for refusing to support my ex-friend through a miscarriage?
On a throwaway because I have friends on my main.
I used to have a friend, “Mandy”. Mandy and I were friends since school. We were pretty close. Our friendship ended when, shortly after the death of his wife, Mandy started dating my brother “Eric”, and later married him.
No, they weren’t having an affair. They’d met maybe twice, once being at my wedding, over the years we were friends. They found each other on a dating app. I do believe that. Eric was deeply in love with his late wife, I don’t believe he’d ever cheat on her, but he was devastated by her death and just didn’t process his grief and started dating really quickly to fill the void. Terrible decision, really bad choice as a father. I told Mandy all this when she revealed they’d been seeing each other, but she didn’t listen. I called her sick for dating a grieving father with grieving young children and refused to have anything to do with her.
She married him a year later. Fast forward 5 years, my niblings hate her, I hate her and my brother, my parents tolerate her so they can still see their grandkids. The family relationships never really recovered. Over the Christmas period, Mandy and Eric announced that she was pregnant. All hell broke loose at my dinner table and the kids ended up staying at my place through new years. Last week, Eric asked me to take the kids for the weekend as Mandy was going through a miscarriage. He made it sound as though it was stress related but personally I feel like this was just to make everyone feel guilty for not being excited for them. I said of course I can have the kids (I love those children deeply and have taken on a “motherly aunt” role for them since they refuse to be taken care of by Mandy) and was ready to hang up.
Then Eric asked if I would consider reaching out to Mandy as she could really use an ally right now. I told him Mandy wasn’t my friend or my family and I didn’t like her so no. Eric said that wasn’t fair, what Mandy was going through was traumatic and she needed someone who could understand (I had a miscarriage a couple of years ago). I told him there was nothing about Mandy I could understand, she was an emotional vampire who trampled over grieving children so she could secure herself a husband just as greedy and selfish as she was, and I wasn’t going to pretend the “stress” she was dealing with wasn’t the cost of what she did. I guess Eric’s phone volume was pretty loud because I could hear Mandy start wailing in the background. Eric called me evil and hung up.
I wouldn’t wish a miscarriage on anyone, I really wouldn’t. And I never wished one on Mandy. But her going through something horrific doesn’t change the fact that I think she’s a shitty person. I don’t have anything kind to say to her, and reaching out would be disingenuous so I’m not doing it. But my mum thinks I’m a giant AH for refusing to offer support. She agrees with not rekindling the friendship, but said I should probably have shown some kind of support just as someone who would have been an aunt to their baby. To me, these people haven’t really been in my life in 6 years, why would I ride in now just over this, even though I still can’t stand them?
AITAH here? Should I have just let my feelings go because Mandy asked for support?
EDIT – Added context of the issues I have with the way Mandy and Eric treat his children below. (Copied from a comment)
*The way she treats his kids is what’s missing from the story. Firstly, she had absolutely no respect or patience for the fact that they were grieving. She moved in within six months of their mother’s death, removed all her personal effects from the house, and took over “parenting” these kids she barely knew. She had zero compassion for their acting out (the youngest child was 6 when their mum passed, and Mandy would get upset when she had tantrums saying she wanted her mum). She’s consistently pushed herself into the kids’ lives when they don’t want her there (volunteering at their school events, calling them her kids when they’ve asked her not to, calling herself their mum). She told Eric they don’t need therapy because they’re too young to benefit from it because they barely remember their mother anyway. She refused to buy my niece new clothes for nearly 6 months because my niece didn’t want to go shopping for the clothes with her. And through all of this my spineless, selfish brother just let her run the show because he never wanted to learn how to be a single parent. He’s not innocent, but she isn’t either. Those kids are miserable, and neither of them care.*
EDIT 2 because people seem to think I’m ignorant to Eric being the main problem here. I’m not, and I never have been and I have given him more shit for what he did than I ever gave Mandy. He’s the parent, it was his job to look after his kids and he didn’t. I can honestly say I haven’t like who he’s become since his wife’s death and I think he’s a bad parent. I don’t have a relationship with him beyond coordinating seeing the kids because of how disturbed I am by his behaviour. I absolutely know that most of the blame lies with him. I just don’t see Mandy as a victim either, and she is the person who wants to benefit from my “support” here because of our past friendship, that’s why this story is mainly about her. But yes I am aware Eric is mainly to blame for fucking up with his children.
