Being dumped by a friend and then the former friend wants to reconcile?

Hi! In answer to your last question, it depends on the situation what is going on, there is no answer to every friendship. If the friend only wants to reconcile on her terms, that isn't fair to you. Healhty relationships define friendship paramaters mutually, not one person over the other. The exception is when one or antoher friend has done something horrible. For example, if a husband cheats, the wife gets to have the right to know where he is at all times and he should have to explain himself whenever she wants, for a reasonable amount of time for her to build trust back up again. But the husband has betrayed the relationship so that is why the wife should be allowed to set terms for awhile. If you have not committed a huge crime in the friendship she should have no right to define how it should be. Sure, you can both have paramaters, such as you can say "I am not willing to open up to you again if you are giong to shut things down and not talk to me. If it happens again the friendship is over. How can we make sure that doesn't happen again?"

I became fast and close friends a little over a year ago with someone who I knew in a very different context about a decade ago. It seemed that we had instant chemistry and we got together regularly and stayed in nearly daily email contact, even though she lives less than 10 minutes away. I also got to know her three children, who I adore. At this time she had just started the process of separation from her husband. Then after about 5 months of what I can only describe is a close friendship where I felt like I could really trust this person and be totally open and honest with her, she told me about her new boyfriend, who she met while separated, but still living with her husband. For the next few months I didn't see her at all and our email conversations were much less frequent, but she said that she loved and missed me and I believed her, despite experiencing a difficult range of emotions having to do with the fact that I had developed other feelings for her (I am gay and she is not, although her behavior towards me has always bordered on flirtatious). I did manage to see her once since finding out about the boyfriend on Valentine's Day, of all days. I helped her move furniture after she had moved to her new house and she talked about all of the things that we would do together in the near future. She even said that she and the kids wanted to have me over within the next week or two. When I got to the point where I realized that I was the only one initiating communication in our friendship and several of my attempts to suggest times to get together were being met by responses such as "I'll have to check", but my now former friend never followed up, I started to get frustrated and ended up writing her what I thought was a kind email, but one that explained some of my frustrations about the friendship and also told her about the difficulty I was experiencing with having developed other feelings for her. She wrote back initially saying that she didn't think she could fight what I was saying and said that she would be sad if I wanted to sever ties with her but she would understand. But then I ended up apologizing and it seemed that we were going to continue being friends - but all of this happened over email, which I now regret, though I don't know how I would have done things differently, considering what she said in some of her later emails... I sent her a card on her birthday, tickets from the organization where I work on multiple occasions, a chatty hand-written letter, and at one point another apology letter for having made her feel like a bad person, even though that was far from my intent. When she received the apology letter she did call, but while I was at work and couldn't talk. The sentence she said to me on the phone was kind, but the follow-up voicemail and emails were filled with excuses and accusations. We continued to interact with sporadic emails having bumped into each other only once at a grocery store within the 4-5 months since I had last seen her. Most of her emails included something about how busy she was and how she didn't have time for anybody or anything except for her boyfriend and children. She said that she didn't initiate in her friendships and was only capable of making plans with her boyfriend and that she didn't talk on the phone or have time for lunch, etc. We had tried at one point to figure out when we could next get together, but after these boundaries she established (she was too busy on weekends, on the one non-weekend day when I don't work and we used to get together, in the evenings, etc.) I simply didn't know how to go about being her friend. I gave her medical advise after learning that she and her boyfriend would be traveling to a country where I had lived for over 7 years. She thanked me but didn't even contact me when she returned. I blocked her on Facebook after seeing a post from another of her female friends commenting on her 200+ trip photos, to which she responded that the friend must come over for lunch soon, since I realized that she was capable of initiating, making plans, and having lunch with other friends. Although she had clearly said to me that it was not at all awkward for her that I had admitted having certain feelings towards her that I was trying my best to ignore, I felt that maybe this was not the case. I blocked rather than de-friended on Facebook since I have on many occasions left Facebook entirely for months on end and felt that it was more likely that she would not notice my absence this way, especially since I had only blocked her for my own sanity, not wanting to see her hundreds of happy trip photos and posts, when all she told me about her trip was that she got sick when she returned and still felt like a failure in her life. All I wanted to do was be there fore her as a friend and have her be there for me. After she told me that she would bring the kids soon to the place where I work, using the tickets I had given her, she did not show up before the tickets expired (they had been good for a year). Then during the holidays I decided not to reach out to her but told myself that I would respond if she ever wrote to me. All I had was silence for the next 2 months. I wrote her one more heartfelt letter that I mailed just after the New Year. In it I thanked her for being in my life but admitted that I wasn't sure whether she was a lifetime friend or one who was in my life for a particular reason. I realize I was probably pretty intense, but I explained that I truly wanted her to be happy and hoped that someday we could be friends and be close again. I told her why I missed our friendship and said that I still thought highly of her and missed her and her kids a lot. I also told her about the unexpected passing of my aunt, which had happened during the holidays, and how I had wanted to much to reach out to her for support but feared that she would not have time for me. I told her about how most of my other local friends had recently moved out of the country or were about to do so. Of course none of these situations were her fault, but I was hoping that she could better understand why I was feeling so lonely and could have used her friendship, if she cared about me or thought of me as a friend. When she had asked me in an email a few months before I wrote the letter how I was doing, I was truthful (she had even told me how important it was to her that I always know that I could be totally open and honest with her) and told her I was going through an especially difficult time. I mentioned having not celebrated my birthday this year because I didn't have anyone to celebrate it with (she had spent my birthday the year prior with me and had written me a beautiful birthday card about how she had hoped we would celebrate many more together and how she thought I was a beautiful person, etc...now I can't even look at the card). She didn't even wish me a happy belated birthday. So in my letter I mentioned some of these things, taking care not to be accusatory in my tone but trying to explain why I was questioning our friendship and wondering if maybe there were hints I should have picked up on a long time ago - like the time we ran into each other accidentally 8 months prior to me writing this letter (which was, incidentally, the last time I actually saw her, despite the fact that we live less than 10 minutes away from each other) and her son looked at me and said something about how they hadn't seen me forever (these were the same kids who my ex-friend told me had said I was the favorite of her friends--now I wonder if she was just being polite) and she then walked away without saying anything... So in response to this letter, which I thought was a last ditch genuine effort to really connect with this person who I cared for so much (and still do, despite my attempts not to), my friend wrote me an email in which she didn't even offer condolences for my newly deceased aunt (despite me telling her how distraught I was over it)...she simply said that she found my letter, like the earlier ones (which included an apology, a birthday card, a chatty letter, and a letter with tickets for the place where I work, which is a place that her children enjoy going to--the children who she says are her only real priority) was self-indulgent and that I was acting like a child and not behaving towards her as a human being. She said that I needed to get help and peace but she would not be the one to do that for me and she ended by asking me not to contact her because she felt that I was harassing her. This ending to our friendship was such a blow and so hurtful, when I sincerely believed that my letter was the only way I knew how to reach out to her, since she had but so many boundaries on any other means of communication. But I also feel like maybe if I had understood earlier how she was feeling and had been less intense, maybe given her more space and stopped trying for some time, she would have started acting as a friend again. It was devastating. Although this happened only 2 months ago and I have no intention of tempting fate and reaching out for a few years, I have already written the email that I would desperately like to send to her in another few years from now - not so long that she forgets me entirely, but maybe in another 2-3 years. I want to tell her that I do have regrets and that I wish I had understood earlier how she was feeling. There is much to say, but I just don't know what if anything she is feeling. Unless she lacks empathy all together and is totally narcissistic (which I realize now is a possibility), I would just like to make some attempt at reconciliation or at the very least closure, which I do not feel like I have now. This friendship and the ending of it haunts me daily and I have to live with this pain that at times feels almost unbearable. All is better with time, I realize, and I do have a wonderful therapist who I started seeing because of this troubled friendship. But I have never before lost a friend to anything except for death, and I do believe that everyone deserves a real second chance (in this case on both her and my side). I love this friend of mine, any past feelings beyond friendship aside--I just want her back in my life and miss her so very much. All of this said, I would so much like to hear what some of you have to say, since I think that Irene and many of the people who write into her blog have a lot of wisdom to share. Be gentle, please. And many thanks in advance for any advice you have to give.