Well, it looks as if the woman formerly known as my BFF has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a suddenly naive, wannabe Stepford wife.

I have to know if anyone else has experienced this but first let me tell the story.

After this incident, we had a private conversation about her newfound desire to be a stay at home mother and wife.

When she started off the conversation with "my ideals have just changed a lot and part of me wishes we could go back to the 50's where women stayed home and men worked", I knew I was entering an alternate fucking universe.

The 50's?????

What the shit?

When women couldn't get credit cards or property in their own name? When husbands had free reign to fuck outside the marriage and women "looked the other way cause that's what men did"? When men were "allowed" to smack their wives around with virtually no fear of negative consequences? When the women who DID work were subjected to rampant sexual harassment and had no protection or reprieve? When women had to grit their teeth to stay in bad marriages because there were no widespread alimony, child support, or community property laws?

And this is off topic- but the same fifties where my ass would have been getting sprayed with a water hose and then lynched by white people?



THAT IS THE FIFTIES SHE WANTS TO GO BACK TO?

Who IS this person????

She proceeded to tell me that she was "ruffled" by what I had said about women and economic dependency on men and said "you know, I just can't think that way. I just can't think that something would happen to my husband or to my marriage."

Wow really? They've only been together since the summer of 2008 and have only been married for 6 months. Their marriage was predicated on her pregnancy as far as I could see, since he proposed after learning of it and they quickly married two months before the kid was born. This isn't exactly a rock solid union with years of history behind it.

And I happen to like this guy, but still WTF do you mean you "can't think about it"?

That scared the bejesus out of me when she said that.

You see...her SAHM friends don't "think about that stuff". They raise their families and they make "sacrifices" for their kids and "don't plan for catastrophe". She agrees with this philosophy thinks it's "negative" to talk the way I do about making contingency plans.

Amazing isn't it?

Apparently being proactive instead of reactive is "negative" to SAHM's and their disciples.

Let me see if I can get on-board with this magical logic...

Why strap your kid into a car seat when you go places? That's planning for catastrophe! Why have health insurance in case you get sick? Or car insurance in case you get into an accident? Why draw up a will in case you die? That all falls under the pesky "planning for catastrophe umbrella, doesn't it?

Pffft, we don't think about that stuff!!!

How'd I do?

The woman formerly known as my BFF wasn't amused with this comparison. Probably cause there isn't any valid, sensical counter-argument to it. Sometimes you have to "think negatively" in order to protect YOURSELF.

Ugh, who the fuck is this person and where is my BFF?

Apparently she made hubby sit down with her so they could try to figure out a way for her to stay home but their current financial situation requires her to get a job and STAT- because they are barely making the mortgage (which was news to me- more on that in a sec), and they are "broke" according to her.

Her husband is so stressed out, he had his first genital herpes outbreak in 8 years (before you ask, yes, she knew he had it when she started dating him). Also, after she quit her job to stay home during her high risk pregnancy, he started having erectile dysfunction because of mounting pressures. He has been the sole income since May and according to her, he is stressed ALL THE TIME.

Hmph, who the hell wouldn't be?

They bought their house a year ago and now may have to try to sell it and move to an old house that he owns and rents out in what she describes as a "bad neighborhood".

Um, kinda hard to sell a house when you're upside down on it- which in this economy, most people are. Also, you're on the brink of having to raise you baby in the ghetto of Oakland and you are STILL trying to figure out how to not get a job?

There's all of this going on and she has become SO pre-occupied with stay at home motherhood and wonders how she can further "sacrifice" to make this happen!

What the fuckitty fuck.

Recently she posted something on FB talking about how down she was. Do you know what our mutual SAHM friend posted back?

"Just tell yourself it's all worth it."

It was sad to read that for some reason. This friend of ours also quit her job to stay home after having a second baby this summer and is also barely making the mortgage every month (the reason I know this is because she posts about it regularly).

I always have to fight the urge to type a comment in all caps telling her to "GET A FUCKING JOB!"

Then I remembered that Facebook has a hide function to save me from myself.

Thank GAWD.

But this is the life these people live.

"Just tell yourself it's all worth it" is helpful advice in their world. Can you imagine living a life where you have to struggle daily to "tell yourself it's all worth it", when you know it's lies???

UGH! These people sit on a throne of LIES I tell you!

My advice to empower yourself rather than delude yourself? It's "negative".

I don't even know who this is anymore but after our last conversation a month ago, we haven't spoken. I need time away from her and her newly shitastic logic.

Maybe permanent time away.

Her life is in a downward spiral, HER MINDSET is in a downward spiral and there is just nothing I can do about it. She, like her friends, can't even be bothered to THINK about something bad happening.

She wants what she wants.

And I think the dynamic of our friendship has been slowly changing anyway.

As of late I've made a group of new friends (mostly without kids) and we spend a lot of time socializing and going out together. Whenever I post pictures of us doing things as a group on FB, I think she feels alienated.

Our lives have unfolded in such drastically different ways. When we met, we worked together and had nearly identical lives. We hated our job and our bitchy boss. We were underpaid and overworked. We loved our cats. We loved the same cheesy 80's music. The same bad reality shows. We did everything we could to support and help one another. We made each other laugh endlessly. We were like one person.

But then she moved away for a man and I got a new job paying what I'll admit is a very generous salary. I instantly loved the people and what I do. At the time I started, she was miserable at her job and I think she was really envious. Happy for me, but envious. When I took my first self sponsored exotic vacation last year, she admitted she was jealous. Last month I started planning for a September trip to the Canary Islands and didn't want to even tell her about it. I hated feeling that way. Like I couldn't share more good things happening in my life with her since hers is such a suckfest.

The world that we once shared seemed so limited. So constricted. We bonded over that.

Well, the world has now become expansive for me, but only more constricted for her. I think we both feel it and I don't believe our friendship will survive at this point.

This is really the first time I've had a very close friend get married, have a baby, and totally transform into a different person. That's why I write about it regularly I guess. Just flabbergasted and needing to vent.

In any case, I think I'll try to avoid this as best as I can in the future. It's really draining.

Have any of you experienced this? One day you're friends with a fun, seemingly independent person and then she has a baby, loses a brain, wants to revert back to the racist, sexist 1950's, never work a paying job again, and live a life of full on dependency?

Tell me it's not just me.