Friendship Fallout: When Self-Respect Means Letting Go

I reflect on the disintegration of a once-close friendship and the unresolved feelings that remain. Not all endings are tied up in a convenient little bow.

Are you still carrying unresolved feelings from a significant relationship, and how are you navigating that?

Podcast Hub

IG

Enjoying the show? Leave a review!

Transcript

Intro

Speaker 0:14

This is Shamron, and you're listening to Open Hearts, Hidden Truths. At what point do you walk away from a friendship? Do you pull the plug? How do you know when it's time to pull the plug? I got a call the other day a couple weeks ago from a friend. I guess he's a former friend. We used to be tied at the hip. He and I for about ten years. I let the call go to voicemail, but didn't pick up. Didn't have any desire to pick up. We were tied at the hip. We did everything together. We went on vacations together. We spent holidays together. I spent time with his family for Christmas. I was close with his parents. His mother especially. I enjoyed the closeness that I felt from that dynamic. In a way, I looked at his parents as my pseudo-parents. I don't have a family. I don't have parents. And so I sort of I've adopted many people over the years as my pseudo-parents. And these two people, very special. I developed a close relationship with them because of this friend. We were as close as you could be, but without any sex involved. It was platonic. It was like a very tight brother-sister dynamic. There wasn't any sex to muddle it up. It was pure. It was real. It was authentic. A deep, authentic connection. Sometimes I think a deeper connection can be had when there isn't any sex to muddle it up. Sex can sometimes be a distraction, a distracting accessory. And it was extremely close. I was extremely close with him. We were we were extremely close. And I came to rely on him and his friendship for a while. I valued him deeply. And I know he valued me. I thought I thought he valued me.

The Past

Speaker 3:02

A couple years ago, he was dating somebody. And he was pretty ecstatic. He was sure that this was the one, and I was so happy for him. I liked the person he was with. But this person dumped him. Right after they went on a big European vacation, this person got back to the States and dumped my friend. My friend's reaction was to push me away. He pushed a lot of people away. He was crushed. He was I think it shook the foundation of how he saw himself. I think it crushed his self-esteem. I can't perhaps understand all of it because he never really voiced it to me. What I observed, he was getting a lot of his sense of self, his validation through this relationship. And when this person ended it, it just shook him, it shattered him. It really threw him off. And so he pushed several people away, but he especially, he especially pushed me away. Your friends are there for you during these times. They are your rock, they're your support system. That's what friends are for. That's why I'm here. And you pushed me away. I couldn't communicate with him. I couldn't get through to him. The few interactions that we did have after this breakup were difficult. He was combative. He was cold. He changed. I can only surmise so much because I'm not in his head. And he never has communicated what exactly happened. There was sporadic communication, but he was doing his thing, I was doing my thing. The relationship was very fractured. This friendship that was once so tight, this person that I relied on for support vanished. Why? Why this happened, how this happened, trying to make sense of it, trying to grapple with the fallout. We didn't really seem to see eye to eye anymore. I mean, I guess it was hard to tell if we could see eye to eye anymore because there just was such a lack of interest on his part in communication. I didn't reach out very much over the next couple of years. It was clear something had shifted. He didn't want to talk about it. He couldn't even acknowledge it. To this day he still hasn't acknowledged what exactly happened. And I was pissed off at him for many years. Angry that he discarded me. He dropped me like a hot potato and started just all these other friendships, partaking in a lot of really frivolous friendships, distractions, escapes. He seemed to me to want to escape whatever pain he was going through. I remember he told me he had a few sessions with this motion therapist, a very California-sounding thing, a motion therapist, where she would hold out her hands and he would push on them and she would create resistance, and somehow this was supposed to help him get over the uh pain and trauma of having a relationship just taken away from him suddenly. And instead of doing the work on himself internally, he started resorting to gimmicky kind of kind of things like that. I kept my mouth shut. I didn't say anything about it. Okay, you want to go to a motion therapist? Go for it. Go for it. I missed him. I missed the old friend that I used to have that was kind and considerate and thoughtful and fun. I missed that guy. This new person I didn't really recognize. So I kept my distance. We drifted. This time last year, I had a loss that I felt that I wanted to share with him. That I felt he something I thought maybe he should know. So I texted him and I shared this uh the situation with him. And he was in Italy at the time. I recall he texted me back right away. A very thoughtful, very kind response. I remember I was sitting, I was lying down in my bed. It was about 6 a.m. I couldn't sleep. And I remember texting him back and forth, pretty long text exchange. And I remember thinking, maybe, maybe this is a fresh start. Maybe this is a new start, the start that we need. Turning over a new leaf. Maybe this is exactly what both of us need. I'm open to it. I'm open to reconciling. And it wasn't even so much about having a big discussion about what happened. It was just that I knew I felt really good interacting with this person who seemed to have reverted back to his older self. It's hard to tell in text, but the interaction felt good, and it felt comforting. So I left that conversation on a positive note. He said I'll be back on Saturday. Let's get together. And I said I'd like that. That's how we left it. Saturday went by, another Saturday went by, and another and another. Several, several months went by. No word. I didn't reach out to him. I was dealing with my own feelings, my own pain, my own hurt. He knew that. He knew my emotional state. I told him. And he didn't reach out.

Clarity

Speaker 10:05

And that to me was a blessing. It provided clarity. That was the final nail in the coffin for me. Okay. I get it. I get it. You don't care. You're doing your thing. You're in your own world. I can move on. It's okay. I'm disappointed, and I'm surprised actually, because I would be there for you. I would be there for you, and I have been there for you. I wouldn't treat you the same way. I wouldn't treat you the way you've treated me these last few years. Who are you? But this is what's happening. I can't control it. I can only control my response. What do I want to do with this? How do I want to move forward? I know I don't want to put myself in the same situation again, put myself in the same cycle where I'm going to be disappointed and angry and frustrated and confused. I don't want to feel that anymore. So I'm just going to remove myself from the situation entirely. I'm not going to let you have another opportunity to hurt me. I'm not giving you that chance. Again. So when he called, I didn't answer. Not because I'm trying to punish him, not because I'm trying to teach him a lesson, but because I don't want to engage and I don't want to start that same hurtful cycle all over again. Every time I think I'm over this and I'm over some of the pain and the disappointment, just talking about it makes me feel upset and hurt and angry all over again. So if it still conjures up these feelings, am I really over it? I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe I'll never be over it fully. Maybe certain relationships leave such an imprint on you and affect you so much that you're never going to be over it. Maybe that's just the way it works. When someone who was very significant in your life is gone. Just all of these false starts over the last couple years where, oh, is this it? Are we gonna finally get to the real stuff, to the nitty-gritty where we can move past this or talk about it or address the elephant in the room or just something. Something real and meaningful and enlightening. I feel like I'm trying to talk to somebody underwater. We're not getting through to each other, we're not understanding each other, we're not aligned. You're not getting it. You dumped me like I was some dirty old rag. Like I was some leper. And I don't forgive you for that. I don't forgive you for that. I'd like to get to the point where I can forgive this person. But I don't. I don't forgive him for that. But I'd like to. I'd like to get there. Yeah, just talking about it makes me feel pissed off all over again, makes me feel hurt all over again, makes me feel all this resentment stirring up in me all over again. I resent the collateral damage he caused. All of this stuff, this lack of communication, this I don't even know what it is. I don't know what happened to this person. But I can't just pick up where we left off because we're not aligned. We're not on the same page. I wish we were on the same page. I miss our friendship. We were two different people then though, so I don't know, maybe it's a lost cause. When a person's actions provide clarity, it's stupid and counterproductive to ignore it, to deny it.

Moving Forward

Speaker 14:38

I don't want to put myself in that position again, in that cycle again. I'm disengaging. I'm disengaging because I care enough about myself to do that. Some friendships are just really complicated. Some are difficult, some are challenging. But if you can't communicate and if you don't have basic respect, I don't know how to move forward. I don't know how to move forward when we're not on the same page. Have you had a fallout with a close friend? Were you able to pick up where you left off? Were you able to reconnect? Or did you two just drift apart? And that was the new normal. When a person's actions speak louder than words, and they show how they feel by their actions over and over, I'm not a glutton for punishment. I'll walk away. I did walk away. But I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy about it. What are you feeling? Talk to me.

Call to Action

Speaker 16:04

If you're enjoying this podcast, click the subscribe button. If you have a similar experience you'd like to share, drop me an email or a DM at Open Hearts, Hidden Truths.