<human>: Can you give me the gist of the text in a nutshell?

Throwaway account involved because the people involved know of my regular account.  I'll also try to sum this up as briefly as possible:

A couple who are friends to my wife and myself invited us to the birthday party of their five year old daughter.  Just to keep track of them, let's call them the "Millers."  We've known the Millers a few years, but wouldn't exactly call them close or anything.  Part of the issue is that they're close friends with the "Taylors," who my wife and I aren't exactly on good terms with.  To sum it up as quickly as possible, they're just dating, and the girl in the relationship kind of betrayed both my wife and one of my best friends in the past few months.

We'd be more than happy to put on our big boy / girl pants and ignore them, but there's a twist that makes up the largest factor in this.  The guy in the Taylors is an old college friend of mine, and he and the guy in the Millers have offered me some contract design work with their small business.  So I'm essentially forced to play ball and play social games like this birthday party with both of these guys as a pre-requisite of getting any of that work done.

The other small factor is that my wife and I feel as if we don't want to be required to buy some gift for the four year old.  It feels forced, and we frankly don't want any relationship to hang on whether or not we buy something off of a wish-list shoved in our faces, especially considering the proximity to the holidays.

Any ideas on how to handle this?
<bot>: Wife and I are somewhat being forced into awkward social situations like this in order to keep friends and for me to have some supplemental income, and not sure how to handle it.