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  • Blandish
    Junior Member
    • Oct 2011
    • 1

    I'm losing my best friend.

    Recently, I've been feeling heartbroken. I don't know if it's real, or if it's all in my head, but I think my best friend of fifteen years doesn't want to be around me anymore. I understand why, but I still feel like crying every day when I think about her. A few years ago, when she saw me, her face would light up and she'd be so happy. I'd be so happy just to see her. We were as close as sisters. Now, because of events that soured her friendship with my other best friend, I feel as though she doesn't want to see me because I didn't take sides. I didn't choose either side, because the fight was about a boy, and she chose the boy before her friendship with anybody else, and the other girl was delusional about the boy's feelings and was malicious - but also insane with jealousy. Nobody was right. Nobody was wrong. My best friend of 15 years came away feeling as though everyone had turned against her. I came away from the experience feeling as though I couldn't trust her to love me more than she loved some guy she barely knew for three months.

    I don't think either of us have gotten past this, and I feel like the wedge has grown deeper through time and distance.

    Now she doesn't smile at me when we meet. She doesn't visit me - I am the one who always goes to visit her, when she can spare the time, and it always includes her boyfriend or family or other friends. I've lived in my current house for three years, and the only time she visited was because she wanted some place to stay in town without paying for a hotel. We recently had a party, and she didn't even try to talk to me, or spend any time with me. I understand, there were many other people there as well as her boyfriend, and this is the way it has been for the past several years. We never have alone time to talk, and all of her time is taken up with her boyfriend. I don't even feel like I have the right to ask her to give me some of her time, and I feel like even if I did ask her, she'd give any excuse not to be around me.

    She's a kind and wonderful person, but I think her patience with me has run out. I'm negative, gloomy, I mostly dislike her boyfriend, am judgmental, and I was snotty at the tail end of the party because I was jealous, tired, and was so busy slapping filters on what I wanted to say that I ended up being terse and somewhat y. In the past, she's always understood and tolerated me. I don't think she can tolerate me anymore because we lost the trust our friendship was based on. I sent her a message trying to apologize for being snotty, and she hasn't sent me anything back. She's commented in a general way about me, but she hasn't spoken directly to me for weeks unless it was to ask for something. The distance between us is growing, and I think that this is what she wants.

    On one hand, I would grovel as much as she wanted me to in order to stay as friends. I'd keep begging for scraps of her time, and accept that I'm the lowest priority that she has, as long as she would start talking to me again. On the other hand, I feel so hurt because I'm not allowed to be grumpy, or make mistakes, or mention my other friend, or be myself when I'm around her. I always have to walk on eggshells to avoid stepping on conversational bombs. I always have to put other people ahead of myself when it comes to making time to be with her, because I'm not as important as all of the other people in her life. I feel like she's placed all of these conditions on who I have to be in order to keep being friends with her, and it's wearing me out.

    I don't know what to do. Her life is so busy and full of stress that I can't find a moment to talk about how I feel. It would just make her feel worse, and she doesn't need it right now. But I'm losing her as a friend, and if we can't talk about that, then I'm going to be stuck in this heartbroken state because nothing will be resolved. It will be a long, painful death, and I'll likely come away from the whole experience bitter and doubting myself. I still love her, but whatever we once were to each other is dying, and it hurts.
  • CHANDLERS WISH
    • Mar 2008
    • 22440

    Welcome to the Forum, I understand your hurt...15 Years is a long time, I am thinking of my friendship with my "sister" 20 years now and how I would feel.

    But, the thing is we know each other, our lives, when we are stressed, busy, when one needs a shoulder the other is always there.. She has a close friend, I was a tad jealous I guess off, but I just kept being me, and in that, the other friend never communicated as much or was there the same way and we remained the close two over all those years.

    You have to accept people for who they are including who they date...be-friend and open their heart to, you just warn them but let them know it's their life, it's okay just remember I am there.

    I get the impression that you feel he took her away from you, not so sweet, life changes and people go into different directions, sometimes that friendship is distant but no matter how many months go by, you don't forget, it's like you picked up where you went off....

    Why is the focus so much on one person in your life, talking about dying... And pain.. Mam, you must gain more than one friend in 15 years, or for sure you feel alone, when things aren't the way you want them.

    If you were to start to do things with your life more, and share those "guess what?" via internet maybe to start with and she could see that you have grown with strength and she is still your best friend, I think things would turn around.

    Maybe, she feels smothered slightly and hurt herself because you obviously show things you aren't happy with about her decisions in life, yet they are her own.

    Why do you feel so sad at present, think about it.
    PUT A LITTLE 'LIKE' IN MY SOUL!

    Comment

    • jns
      Assistant Admin
      • Mar 2010
      • 8398

      Blandish, you didn't say how old you and your best friend are. I'm guessing you are both in your early twenties. Over time both of you have developed your own personalities that are somewhat different. Is this her first real bf? As her best friend, she expected you to stick by her and her choices but you don't like him because he takes precedent over you in her order of friendships. If she is serious about him, that is the way it should be. By you not sticking by her, she sees the relationship as being damaged or destroyed by you. Your role as a best friend would to be there to pick up the pieces if things fell apart for her. It is your time to go out and find a relationship of your own. Ask her for some time to talk and tell her you are sorry for not standing up for her against the other girl. Realize things are going to stay the way they are as long as she is happy with him. Accept the new role or no longer think of her as your best friend. BTW, three months is not too short of a time. Sometimes it could be a week or two if a person has strong feelings for another.
      I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
      ...
      Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

      From a speech by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775 at St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia

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