A little background: Ryan and Rachel have been friends for many years, but they talk about once a month and mainly about her. When we got engaged, she cried for days. I get this could be a happy thing, but her husband and I found this very strange. She also was very controlling over our engagement party, changing everything and even wanting to do a speech. Speeches can be lovely, but we both wanted a very informal thing and didn’t want speeches. Because Ryan did not want to upset her, he said he wasn’t too keen, but he didn’t say no. Rachel had also written a speech for Ryan which was very impersonal and didn’t really include things about our relationship. On the night of the party, she kept asking when she could do the speech, and I eventually snapped and said, “No, I don’t want that!” very loudly, and she went to the bathroom crying. I felt really bad and apologized the next morning. Rachel then did not speak to me for months and every time all our friends got together she would blame me; it was very awkward. Most of our mutual friends and her husband defended me, saying it was our party and not hers, but, annoyingly, my partner did not say much to her.

When it came to wedding planning, she would text Ryan saying all our ideas were terrible, and she kept making suggestions to change things. Rachel even told us not to “rush into anything” after we announced our wedding date (two years into the future), which really upset me as we had been together for over five years at that point, and since she got married to her husband after two years, I don’t see how we could be rushing.

I have also felt that when we all meet up, all of Rachel’s attention is on Ryan and she will make jokey snide comments about me a lot, which I always take on the chin, but they do upset me. If I am honest, I feel like she fancies him although I don’t think she knows it. Ryan now believes she may, but he is just allowing things to happen. When Rachel told Ryan of what she had planned for his birthday, she said she was going to do another thing, but I was already doing it, which upset me a bit because she then spoiled my surprise! I feel like she is taking over his birthday after I’ve spent weeks of planning, and it means every day the attention is on her. Also, it is worth mentioning that Rachel’s gifts aren’t all small gifts; some are quite large and we are only on day 6 of the 30 at the moment. We worked out that she has spent £60-70 ($80-$95), which is quite a lot where we come from.