Dating Don’ts: How To Get Through A Friendship Breakup

MichelleS1017
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 08:15 am: [report]

this happened to me several weeks ago. my ex-friend and i always get into these spat, dont talk for months, finally make up somehow, then again become “best friends” again. however, this time will be different. being friends with someone should not be this hard. also, i dont need negative bipolar people who dont kno how to treat others in my life. i was her friend for so long because i knew she really did mean well, she just had a mean streak and expected me to lay over. broke the last straw

vaiaster
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 08:18 am: [report]

presently, i’m having an issue with a friend i have known for 16 years, and happened to be my maid of honor at my wedding over two weeks ago.

though this article reminds me of a friend i once had and this exact situation happened to me.

perhaps at one point, everyone needs to move forward and in my present situation with my maid of honor, we’ll see what happens. for now, i’ve chosen to step into the shadows for a while and allow her to make choices and decisions in regards to certain areas of her life.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 09:36 am: [report]

I have two perspectives to offer on this issue, one from my point of view as a male and what I would suggest and the other as a friend who has seen several women in their 20s go through the same thing.

While friendships are important and having a good friend for such a long period of time makes you think it should be easier to patch things up when there is a spat between you. This may be so but a lot of times, the offense or argument or whatever has to be of a more serious degree given that you are such good friends and it would take a lot to drive a wedge between you. As a man, I say that it is good to be in touch with your feelings and express what you are thinking or feeling inside rather than letting it simmer and become worse however it is also a good thing to have a capacity to move on in certain times and situations. Having compartmentalized areas of jadedness or callousness are a healthy thing in my opinion, not saying that you have to express these options outwardly all the time but if a friend refuses to respond via whatever means of communication after you have made an effort, I say it is time to cut your losses and move on without racking your brain with questions. I know this may be easier to me, or some might say, because I am male and do have the expanded capacity or need for friendship that females might have but stressing over such things can just add unwanted drama.

As for the first hand account of seeing friends who are women go through this same thing, being dropped via facebook or not having texts or emails responded to, all of the friends stressed out loud about what they could have possibly done and how this person was such a good friend. I hate to say it but the “life long friend” status usually sticks but some people move on or change in ways that make them unpredictable and they might drop you like a hot potato when they get a new BF or hand out with a new set of friends. From my point of view, I sense a need for complete closure or verification that the person worrying isnt a bad person of some kind. I obviously cant speak from the point of a woman but this is the feel that I get.

MoonBabye
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 09:42 am: [report]

Honestly, while I understand how sucky it can be, because for some reason women tend to bond with everyone faster, I tend to see it as a blessing in disguise. If people can be so fickle over something trivial or routine (even negative cycles are still cycles), then they weren’t ever your friend to begin with. I struggled with something similar last year (and a little into this year) over women I befriended because my life seemed to be in a blah state. One is similar to the boyfriend hungry person listed in the article, one was a newlywed and the other just seemed to want to dwell on negativity. Sure, it sucked to not have these people in my life because it meant not having the girl chats and outings, but it felt better finding out who they truly were in a matter of months, than years. You learn who your friends are when the chips are down. And four years and a couple hundred miles apart, I know who my true friend is (even though I still have my doubts sometimes:) )

retro chic
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 09:54 am: [report]

@MichelleS1017… this identical scenario and personality-type from A-Z is happening in my world too. I’ve always forgiven the “bipolar b*tch with the heart of gold,” but, enough is enough. Her own mother has confided that she believes her to be psychotic at times. Even tho there is the obvs break, as you said, the last straw, I still feel compelled to leave her with my feelings and reasons out of respect for our very long friendship, where we saw each other thru many escapades, laughs, deaths—she herself surviving a burst brain aneurysm.

I’ve begun to speak up more, not lying down for the abuse, and she doesn’t like that, but, is very contrite after. There’s just no learning and growing, or the rewards that such a long, substantial friendship should be able to (pro)claim by now. I’m hoping I can just downgrade the friendship from a hurricane to an off-shore coastal eddy without too much fuss, otherwise, I’m afraid, we’re kaput.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 09:54 am: [report]

Good point Moon…also, not in a typical male way at all I assure you, I do so love your avatar. Im a nerdy art person who notices lines and form and all that so I find it to be a great photo.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 09:56 am: [report]

I have been strongly debating whether I should give James a rest and put one up of myself, maybe a bit self conscious, no as many people like green eyes lol

MoonBabye
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 10:00 am: [report]

Thank you ECM! And I’m a sucker for green eyes. If you’re Irish, I may fall for you. :-p. Being in the majority (brown eyes) is kinda blah.

Arty
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 10:13 am: [report]

@ECM You probably should put yourself up, seeing as I’m basically convinced as of right now you look exactly like James. Good advice there, too.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 10:18 am: [report]

uh oh, I was gonna say that the only group that I belong to on facebook so far is Irish Pride lol. I have my irish family crest as one of my two tattoos. Eh I dont bear a resemblance much to him, just like to project his image as my darker side lol. Well here I am anyhow, this is me…

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 10:24 am: [report]

oops didnt take for some reason. Wont let me load it as an avatar but if you click my name, I now have it as a member photo.

Arty
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 10:32 am: [report]

@ECM You live near NOVA, right? I’m going to keep my eyes peeled…

Lynn
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 11:05 am: [report]

Friend breakups are rough. I still mourn the loss of friends who I haven’t spoken with in a year or two. I still tear up over it. I don’t ever do that with a guy I was dating two years ago.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 11:14 am: [report]

That I do Miss….right in the NOVA area. eyes peeled eh? “thats him officer, thats the man I want a restraining order against for bad posts” lol

twilight faerie
wrote on June 6 2009 @ 03:10 am: [report]

Friend breakups are so hard to get through, especially when you don’t have many friends. Recently I called out my only close friend on her habit of constantly answering for her boyfriend (who was also my friend) whenever anyone would ask her a question. She felt that this was a perfectly acceptable behavior and told me she was going to cut me off unless I agreed to butt out of their relationship, which I clearly “didn’t understand”. I refused, so the friendship ended. Now I regret confronting her about it - it annoyed me to no end when she would answer for her boyfriend, but it annoys me even more that I no longer have any close friends.

loveitlala
wrote on June 6 2009 @ 05:52 pm: [report]

Great article.  I’ve lost friends… I think the more we age and become different people who make large life choices, the more we disagree with the choices of another.  Some people no longer are able to relate to each other, some people butt in too far, and some people just lose interest.  It’s really sad, but inevitable I think until we get older.  Hopefully then we’ll realize that the choices that have drove us apart are really insignificant and we shouldn’t lose the ability to relate to each other based on those small things.

FreeSpirit
wrote on June 15 2009 @ 01:23 pm: [report]

I still miss Laura (not her real name) even though I haven’t heard from her in almost a decade.  As soon as we met, Laura and I clicked.  In one of those wonderful bonding moments in the ladies’ room, we discovered we both hated our respective mother-in-law, we had the same gynecologist, and we both had a useless college degree.  We spent a lot of time together going to garage sales, taking our children to the park, and most of all just talking.  I felt I could tell Laura anything.  I was the first person she called when her father died.  She was sitting by my bed in the hospital when I woke up following emergency surgery.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could say we were still best friends?  We drifted apart when both of us returned to the workforce.  There was no time for trips to the park, our children went to different schools and were no longer close, and our weekends were crammed with laundry and grocery shopping.  But we still talked on the phone sometimes.  Then Laura and her husband got a divorce.  She took her children and returned to her hometown in another part of the country.  I took her to lunch before she left, and we cried as we said goodbye.  We vowed to always keep in touch.  She gave me a photo album of snapshots from earlier, happier years when our children were little.  After she moved, I was going through a tough time with aging parents and a rebellious teenager.  I needed Laura’s support.  But she was hundreds of miles away.  She didn’t always answer my emails, and when she did it was obvious she was making a new life for herself.  She never answered the email I sent when my mother died.  There’s no happy ending here, no phone call from a long-lost friend.  Laura’s ex-husband died last year, and I saw her children again, now grown, at the funeral.  They told me their mom had long since remarried and was very happy.  It was a sense of closure.  Wherever Laura is, I wish her well and hope she remembers me sometimes.

zappafrank
wrote on June 15 2009 @ 02:53 pm: [report]

This is a topic that is very near to my heart, since I’m still reeling from a recent “break-up” that was sparked by trying to stand my ground on something and being put in an unwinable situation as “punishment.” But I have a slightly different perspective since I’m male and my (best) friend was female (FYI there was never any prospect of us dating; she and I have both been involved with people while we were friends).

We would always get into spats about things, and the picture had been painted that I was always the one to blame, pushing too much and expecting too much out of someone who was “just a friend.” But the term “bipolar b*tch with the heart of gold” is right on the money. She has such mood swings (only with the close guys in her life, from what I’ve witnessed…and mental illness, prob. some kind of personality disorder, is prevalent in her mom’s side of the family), that it became apparent that part of the problem wasn’t so much my instigating things (though I accept my blame) as it was also her over-reacting and perpetuating the cycle. The comments talking about abuse etc. really resonate with me. MichelleS1017 and retro chic, I hear ya, I really do. Many people have told me that looking back it was an (emotionally) abusive relationship, with her as my abuser.

The reason this article stuck out to me - and the reason I’m commenting - is b/c there seems to be this idea that when people are “just friends,” it’s automatically assumed that there should never be work involved in the relationship, and that if there is, then something’s wrong, b/c after all, you’re “just friends.” But like twilight faerie says, when you don’t have a lot of friends, the ones you do have mean a lot. A relationship is a relationship, no matter if it’s romantic or not. And I daresay that there can be just as much at stake.

I miss “Laura” (like Free Spirit, not her real name, but I chose it for very specific reasons), and hope she comes to her senses someday. But I feel I have too much working against me (her sickness, surrounding herself with “yes”-people, this myth she’s created that I’m the sole problem). But I’ve learned that if “calling someone out” on perfectly acceptable issues enrages that person beyond the point of reason, then the problem is with her, not you (I just hope I can get to a point where I really believe that, instead of constanting blaming myself for having the “nerve” to express an opinion).

booklover
wrote on June 16 2009 @ 11:54 am: [report]

Wow, this story is so similar to what I recently went through with my best friend of 13 years.  And after reading everyone’s comments, I see that my situation is very common.

“Julie” and I had been friends for a long time, so it was obvious that she would be a bridesmaid in my wedding last year.  I think she had assumed that she would be my maid of honor, but she and I were many states apart and I had made a new best friend while in college.  I think this is where it all started.  A few months later at my wedding, I was so excited for her to be there because she never came to see me (I often went to visit her, though) and I really missed her.  On the day of, she was pouting, but I decided to ignore her so as not to put a damper on the most important day of my life. 

Flash forward to 7 months after our wedding, and she has deleted me from her Facebook friends and is incredibly short with me on the phone.  I figure she is just stressed out (with losing her job and planning her own wedding), so I let the rudeness slide.  But the Facebook thing didn’t make much sense, and when I asked her about it, she said she must have accidentally deleted me, a load of crap, but I ignored it. 

I finally get her to tell me what is wrong with her, and she tells me that she was upset with me that I didn’t pay more attention to her on my wedding day, and that she was “treated like s*** that day”.  Any bride out there understands that one’s wedding day is incredibly busy with lots of people to talk to, and I explained that to “Julie”.  But she didn’t get it, maybe she will on her own wedding day.

She also told me that I didn’t call her enough.  Which, I admit, I was guilty of.  But I had a lot going on (planning my nephew’s 1st birthday party, planning a bridal shower, bachelorette party, etc.) and wasn’t intentionally not calling her.  She told me that she had decided to “clean house” of her friends that weren’t around enough for her.  And I was one of them.

So at the end of the conversation she told me she had too much going on to keep talking about our friendship.  So I told her that when she was ready to talk, for her to call me and we would talk.  That was almost a month ago.  I don’t ever expect to hear from her again.  And it’s so sad.

After all this, my husband told me that he has always thought that she was using me, and that she may be bi-polar.  I never noticed all of this when we were friends, but now it is so obvious to me that it never really was a healthy relationship. 

Sorry for the long post, but it feels good to talk about the situation. 

zappafrank
wrote on June 16 2009 @ 01:49 pm: [report]

“I never noticed all of this when we were friends, but now it is so obvious to me that it never really was a healthy relationship.”

That’s the really interesting thing, and I’ve had people say the same things to me. I thought that all the little things that made me feel low, inferior, like I was always the problem were simply “part of the deal,” and that you took the good with the bad. And when I tried to address “the bad” it made things even worse.

I still miss her incredibly, but I really think she’s too sick to see how abusive she is.

BlueVibe
wrote on August 24 2009 @ 11:31 am: [report]

I had to dump a friend a few years ago and it took me a long time to get over it.  We had been *so* close and had so much in common, but I felt like I was doing more and more of the work of maintaining our friendship.  She’d ask me to come see her—3 hours away—and then wouldn’t want to do anything.  I didn’t feel like driving 6 hours round trip to sit around watching the cooking channel!  She was a stay-at-home wife (no kids at that point), too, so it’s not like she was so busy at work that she just wanted to unwind.

Finally, she asked me to come up one weekend.  She called me back the night before and said she had a writing workshop she wanted to take in the morning, and something to do Sunday afternoon—could I just come for Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning?  Um, no.  I am not driving all that way for one day, especially since she wasn’t going to bother to make any plans.  I told her to forget it.

Her parents live seven miles from me.  She’d come visit for a week and not have time to see me.  Or want to meet for coffee and make me come get her; apparently she couldn’t borrow a car for an hour or two!

She’d always been a bit moody and fretted constantly about her health.  Some of it was real, but after awhile I just wanted to tell her that her husband could get a job anywhere—why didn’t they move someplace with fewer allergens so she wasn’t in constant hay-fever misery?  She always had the flu.  How do you get the flu all the time when you never leave the house?  Don’t you have an immune system?  See a doctor, for crying out loud!

Then, she got pregnant and was “too sick” even to answer emails.  Disappeared completely once she had another reason to fret over herself all the time.

Actually, it was pretty painful.  I stewed about it way too long before I finally—and apologetically—unloaded completely on another friend (one who did not know the first friend and had no personal interest in what had happened between us).  Apparently all I needed was to feel like somebody had listened to me, because after that I didn’t care any more and I could stop thinking about it.

Hilary
wrote on October 21 2009 @ 08:57 am: [report]

This just happened to me.  We were best friends for at least 13 years.  Then all these things were happening in my life and she didn’t like my choices and told me how I should handle things.  I didn’t feel like she had any right to judge me or tell me what to do.

I didn’t answer her phone calls, but I sent her a long email about why I was upset with her.  I said something to the effect that well if you can’t be happy for me and support me, then I don’t think we can be friends anymore. 

She has not responded.  It’s been about 2 1/2 months now.  It makes me really sad that she chose to end things…but I guess it’s for the better.

marvi380
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 09:06 am: [report]

I think I found this discussion (actually, accidentally stumbled upon it through CNN!) at the right time, and it’s SOOO comforting to read everyone’s real stories about friendships and not feel ALONE in this. Literally, like now in my life, I am practically friendless and on the “hunt” for meaningful relationships. Now 2nd year in college, a time when friendships cast the tone for these four years and usually last the longest, I quickly learned how hard good friends are to find. It seems like most of the friendships around me evolve around druken nights and frat parties, cuz ppl haven’t reached maturity yet. Though, I’ve learned that I cannot force or seek out frienships, the best should come naturally?
Recently, I deleted almost half of my facebook friends, not out of spite or anger, but simply because I barely knew any of them and many were really UNHEALTHY friendships full of “Lauras”. A blogger above mentioned this before, but it’s amazing how we can FINALLY gain courage to take charge of our lives and yet feel guilty for leaving ppl behind. I know that walking away from bad relat. will help me later, but at the moment, I cannot say I have any close girl, or guy friends. I do believe, however, that many of the stories involve the same theme-one broken friend with a stable, strong friend. A relationship can’t thrive if someone is insecure about themselves or immature. And it’s not up to the STRONGER friend to fix it