getting over

Hi Irene,

I have been reading the questions and answers on your website and finding them very helpful. I thought I would write and ask my own question. I have a friend with whom I'm currently going through a break up.

For a year or so, she's either ignored me or shut me out when she is going through something hard or is cross about something. I decided not to be close to her anymore as I find it too painful to be ignored for months on end and then treated like nothing has happened.

My dilemmas: We go to the same church, which is small so I see her every week. I try to say hello. Sometimes she will speak to me. Other times, she ignores me and I feel hurt all over again. How should I act around her?

Also our sons are good friends and haven't been spending much time together as we are not visiting each other's homes any more. I don't think it's fair to let our problems come between our sons' friendship (they are only 5), but having play dates would seem weird to me and I'm not sure what to do about this.

We have been friends for the past ten years and I'm having issues letting go so I feel guilty and think she is just reacting to me not being so friendly with her.What do you suggest about our son thing and how to just move on when I see her every week?

Thanks
Sheila

ANSWER

Dear Sheila:

If this situation has been going on for about a year, I presume that you've tried to talk to your friend about it without any satisfactory resolution. You really have no choice but to move on.

Breaking up is never easy but if you've truly decided the relationship is over, the answers to your questions are straightforward:

1) Always say hello and act cordially at church, regardless of your friend's response. You live in the same community and will invariably see one another. if you take the high road, you'll be able to feel good about it.

2) In terms of your kids, at the age of 5, parents still determine friendships. Given your current relationship with your once-friend, I'd advise against setting up play dates for your sons. You're right. It would be too uncomfortable.

Like most breakups, yours isn't simple---especially because children are involved as well. It reminds me of another breakup question I recently answered. In that instance. too, a friend withdrew without explanation when she was besieged by personal problems. When this happens, it leaves the abandoned friend feeling helpless and hurt. Since your situation with your friend is recurrent, you need to find other friends who are more stable and predictable. You've tried to be there for her over and over and she has only rebuffed you.

Hope this is helpful,

Irene

QUESTION

Dear Dr. Levine,

I'm so glad I found your blog --it seems there are many resources for how to break up with friends, but very few for the friends who get dumped! Your blog addresses both sides of the issue, for which I am thankful.

The first (and only) time I've been dumped by a friend happened over a year ago, but I'm still not over it. We were close friends in high school, then drifted apart as she went to a conservatory to study music and I went to a university to major in psychology. We talked mostly online, but it was usually her talking about music, rehearsal, theory class, etc; we didn't really have much in common anymore.

One day, I made a stupid, tactless joke while we were chatting online; she signed off, offended. I felt immediately remorseful, so I emailed her an apology right away.  However, she ignored me for 3 months afterward; the only contact I had from her was when I was back home for break and invited her to lunch (She said she had food poisoning). Finally, my boyfriend (a mutual friend) contacted her to demand that she let me know where things stood. She emailed me the next day to end the friendship, and I was blown away by how unhappy she was with me.

She told me that for some time now, she had felt I was looking down on her, and she accused me of putting my friends down so as to make myself feel better, along with many other hurtful things. I was upset since I'd never meant to make her feel this way, but I was also confused as to why she'd never said anything to me before if she'd been upset for so long. My boyfriend later told me that she also confessed to him that she'd had feelings for him for a long time (which she also never told me; in fact, she was the one who set me up with him).   

I never emailed her back because I didn’t trust myself to stay calm, plus she said she never wanted anything to do with me again. The thing is, I can’t get over her. There are so many things I want to tell her, but I feel there’s no use in telling her now since it’s been so long. She never unfriended me on Facebook, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I look up her profile constantly to see what she’s up to.

I’m just so shaken that I never noticed her resentment. I find myself questioning whether any of my friends really like me, or if they too are secretly tired of me. I hesitate to celebrate any of my accomplishments with my friends for fear of coming across as boastful or snobby. I even fret about winning too many scrabble games! My boyfriend says that it was mostly her insecurity and jealousy that brought this on, not my behavior, but I just don't know anymore.

I don’t know how to get past this. Should I delete old emails? Unfriend her on Facebook?  I don’t know how to stop thinking about it!  

Thanks,
Still Hurting

ANSWER

Dear Still Hurting:

I agree with your boyfriend: Your ex-friend seems to be very insecure and it sounds like she was jealous of you. First, she betrayed you by telling your boyfriend about her feelings for him. Then she seized upon your “tactless joke”—for which you later apologized—as an excuse for ending her friendship with you without giving you any chance to redeem yourself. My guess is that she was feeling too uncomfortable to sustain her relationship with you.

Given these circumstances, you should be angry with her rather than hurt. You should immediately defriend her---and do everything else you can to get her out of your consciousness. You certainly shouldn’t be tracking her status on Facebook or be reading her old emails because she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to have a relationship with you.

You were dumped and the loss of any long-term friendship is very painful, especially when the decision to end it has been one-sided. Try not to use this fractured friendship as a yardstick for others. Hopefully, you will learn to trust again and your trust won’t be broken.

Best,
Irene