She wrote that she was so “impressed” by the people in her mom group “and all of the amazing things they had going on,” but the dynamic went South when she found that she was being excluded from mom hangouts.
“At first, I tried not to take things personally,” Ashley explained. “It’s not like people aren’t allowed to get together without me—and maybe there were perfectly good reasons that I hadn’t been invited. We were all busy, life was hectic. I told myself it was all in my head and it wasn’t a big deal.”
But the experience made her feel ill at ease.
“Here I was sitting alone one night after getting my daughter to bed, thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not cool enough,’” Ashley recalled. “All of a sudden, I was in high school again, feeling totally lost as to what I was doing ‘wrong’ to be left out.”
