I'm so hurt and angry I could blow a gasket.

I'm not sure if this belongs in Relationships, but I've felt like a caregiver in this situation.

I think I mentioned that I belong to another support group for people who have a depressed/bipolar person in their lives. It's not as easy as many of you may think it is, and having a support group of people who understood the frustration and the stigmas first-hand has been really helpful for me.

However, in this group are some people who are in just plain bad relationships. Maybe their partners are depressed -- some have been diagnosed, but in other cases, the non-"depressed" person tries to find something, anything to blame the bad behavior on.

I developed one close friendship there, with a woman whose boyfriend was VERY emotionally abusive, abused prescription drugs, and did several other bad, bad things in front of my friend and her 8 year old daughter. Things that an 8 year old never should be exposed to. I spent hours, days, weeks of my life with this friend trying to soothe her after the typical eruption that would happen several times per week. Among other tangible and sometimes expensive things that I did to try to support her, I drove 6 hours each way one weekend in September and cleaned her entire house to try to help her feel less overwhelmed during a time when she felt like the walls were caving in on her because of her relationship. He had broken up with her for the millionth time, said all kinds of rude and insulting things to her, and threatened to call the police on her if she contacted him again. She was a complete mess and was crying nonstop for a week.

Shortly after that weekend, I stopped seeing her online and she only briefly replied to my emails, usually days after I sent them. I assumed that she was busy -- I missed her, but I didn't think too much of it. I was just glad that she wasn't crying all of the time anymore.

I emailed her the other day and said that I hoped she was doing well, and she replied, nervously, that she had married the guy but was afraid to tell me.

I don't care that she married him. Truly, I don't -- she said that he's feeling and been treating her better and if that's true, then I'm happy for her. But, I feel VERY used and thrown away, like there isn't much of a need to be my friend anymore now that things are going well for her.

It hurts, a lot.