Strains in a ~15 year friendship because of romance

[rolfedewolfe]

Hello everyone, I need some guidance.
For context, I have a best friend who I was in kindergarten with and we have kept contact up until now. It's been pretty rocky from my point of view. I moved schools in primary and we didn't keep in contact too much, then we went to the same orientation school, then we lost a bit of contact again. Now we are studying in the same city and we see each other every week.

Personally, sometimes I didn't really enjoy her presence. She was too overbearing from my point of view (I'm a person who has low energy and is quiet, she is the opposite). But recently I told her about it and I think she understood.


I'm a bit lost nowadays, I fear she doesn't have interest in me anymore, ever since she has made new friends. They are much more energetic than I am. In only 2 or 3 years, she's already made another best friend and she's going to travel with him soon. It's hard to know how she feels, we never really discuss meta topics about our own friendship. It's hard to bring up the topics too because of awkwardness.

Besides, recently I got into a romantic relationship with someone from her circle of people and ever since that, there's been many issues in our friendship.
I feel pretty fullfiled with my partner, we communicate openly, unlike my friendship with her.

There was a big fight where we would accidentally make her feel left out when we we would hang out us three, and she suddenly stopped communicating with me for a few weeks. I'm a very emotionally sensitive person so I assumed the worst and spiraled until I couldn't take it anymore and then we finally talked.


Now she has a crush on a guy, and it's been weighing on her immensly. I always tried to make her see things from a logical point of view, in times when emotions take over, as opposed to others who made it seem like the beggining of an awesome love story.

Anyways, some idiots convinced her to confess to him when she was having an emotional breakdown over her crush. It seemed like it caused many issues, as the target of the crush does not want to advance things and pretends like the confession never happened. She says she is tired of ambiguity and wants an answer, but he is so against talking about it for some reason.

This crush thing has been going on for months and it's starting to majorly annoy everyone around her.
Plus with all the issues with our friendships, I'm just so lost. I don't know what to do anymore, what to bring up and how to bring stuff up. It's too much.

[Andy]

Hi there, rolfedewolfe, and welcome to the boards!

That really sounds like a lot and I’m sorry to hear it has been troubling you so much.

It sounds to me like there are several separate things going on. One is the current situation with your friend’s crush, another is your own romantic relationship and how your friend perceives it and another is how has your friendship, and you, been changing over the years and lately. Do I have that right? Does any of these things feel the most pressing right now and would you want to start talking about it?

If not, I would like to ask a bit more general question: how do you feel about your friend and your relationship with her right now: do you feel excited when you are meeting her, do you enjoy the time spent together, does the friendship meet your needs?

Edited to add: we also have this amazing article about changes romantic relationships can make in friendships that I think you might find helpful: To Ditch and Be Ditched: Relationships, Friends, and Finding a Balance

[rolfedewolfe]

hello Andy,

I'm gonna go read that article, thanks.

Yes, I guess there are a few things piled up. None that I think are the most pressing.

We generally have fun times, though it's a bit hard to get my word in sometimes as she constantly tries to fill in any silence. She always has so much to talk about, so much to say about her daily life. It's fun stories but I would also like to tell my life, though it doesn't make nearly as exciting or interesting stories. It does feel like a fail whenever I try to say something fun about my life, she doesn't react much, it feels like. I just can't tell if she truly likes me or not.

I would like to add that after the big fight, she is now against hanging out together with me and my partner, and as much as I try to be understanding, I still feel hurt and confused.
I did try to reassure her that we would not let it happen again but she still disagreed. I really just want to be able to hang out with my best friend and my partner at the same time, as they both are friends with each other anyways.
She also told me in a sort of playful way that she prefers us when we are apart.

There are many things about her way of processing the world that I do not understand, and I can easily feel angry at things I don't understand.

[mikky]

Hi rolfedewolfe, hope it is okay for me to chime in here.

It seems to me like the strain in your friendship isn’t just because of romance/experiencing new relationships outside of each other. It sounds like there are quite a few factors that have caused strain, including the general experience of growing up and changing!

It sounds a bit to me like when you started dating a friend of hers, and she would feel left out, that was her also experiencing the strain and pain of changes. What has she said when you’ve talked before?

I wonder what you would like for your friendship with her to look like? And do you think that image is realistic?

This reminds me of a very long friendship I have. For many years as younger people, we spent so much time trying to figure out how to “fix” our friendship. I am grateful that I was able to let go of a closer friendship with her because it gifted me what we have now, which is different, but emotionally sustainable and realistic for our lives.

[rolfedewolfe]

Hello Mikky, thank you for your input.

During our talk, we didn't really go indepth into why she was feeling this way. She just said she didn't want to hang out us three anymore.
Though way before this, she did mention feeling scared that my partner will replace her, and I tried to reassure her that our friendship is not replacable because it's unique and so is my partnership.

I'm not sure what our friendship should look like. I think I just want to feel more equal, as it often feels like she has the upper hand and I'm just following along. It's a battle somtimes to get my word in during silence before she does.

Speaking of that, that's exactly how it is with her new bestfriend. They're often fighting to be heard when they talk. Both very energetic people in my eyes.

[maille]

Hi rolfedwolfe,
From what you have shared, it certainly seems like this friend is used to playing a loud, in charge role is her friendships.

It sounds like there are some changing dynamics in your friendship with her, which can be hard. I am glad you attempted to reassure her about the uniqueness of your relationship, and I agree. Relationships with partners and friends can fulfill different needs in our lives. Did she seem receptive to this logic?

I do not think your friendship 'should' look like anything. Although I know it can be hard for friendships to fade out and grow apart, it does happen, often to make space for new blossoming relationships. Do you think this could be true of your friendship? What would it look like to just let the friendship feel natural, even if that calls for some distance?

[rolfedewolfe]

Hello Maille

It's a bit hard to know if she was receptive to that logic, though she didn't seem to be entirely reassured by my words.

I don't know if our friendship could fade, but if it doesn't get better I don't know how long it will last. Leaving it natural would be to let her use me as a way to get her thoughts out even though I didn't ask for it. Often our interactions starts by her immediately showing me something. No hello's or how are you's.
She does ask me how I am now, maybe she's making an effort ? I don't know. But last time she asked me how I was and didn't even wait for my response before immediately showing me something.

It's just a bit bonkers how little I feel like I am able to show myself to her, she doesn't leave me space to do so since she's not very attentive. Maybe she doesn't actually care.

It left me feeling some resentment. She has an issue where she always needs to know everything, even when it isn't addressed at her or doesn't concern her. Can't be left out of anything. I was a socially anxious kid, even today I still don't have the courage to go and say hello to people sometimes.

She says she's particularly good at reading emotions, but she doesn't seem to use that skill very often then.
In fact, she really tries and make it seem like she's particularly good at many things, she shows off a lot in normal situations. I don't like it one bit.
I am unfortunately competitive due to being a gifted child so I take it like she's trying to announce that she's better than others, more impressive. I mean, I don't know how else I'm supposed to take it. I don't know anyone else who shows off like this.

How do I tell her any of this ?

[Andy]

Hello again!

I’ll be honest with you, this really doesn’t sound like a good relationship, definitely not like one that is meeting your needs, or potentially could be with just small changes. You shouldn’t feel like you have to fight for your space in conversations, like your life and interests don’t matter or like there is some kind of competition going on between you and her. And I’m really sorry that you do feel like that.
You know, the way you describe your friendship reminds me of some of my past relationships, those that I’m in retrospect really glad have ended or changed dramatically. So if hearing more about someone else’s similar experiences would be helpful, feel free to let me know!

You are asking how you could tell your friend these things, but before be get to talking about that, I’m wondering what exactly are you looking for from that conversation?

Talking things through is amazing and really important, but it can’t fix everything. When people, and their needs and wants about the specific relationship, just aren’t compatible at a given time, they just might be incompatible and it is often kinder to end or adjust the relationship instead of trying to live in it with exhaustion and resentment.

This might be a lot, so I will pause here to ask how does reading that make you feel?<3

[rolfedewolfe]

Hello,
Well the possibility of letting the friendship go is very difficult to think about. I wouldn't want that to happen, I want things to just change. I would hope that a conversation could help me finally figure out what exactly she wants from our friendship.

I suspect we have stayed friends for this long partly due to the novelty. She did use talk about how we will always be friend. I hope that is true and that we can just talk and make it more clear our intentions when seeing each other.

Besides, it would feel awful to lose a friendship like this. It would feel gross even, the fact that I have found a partner who I get along with and then the idea of simultaneously letting go of another relationship. It would feel like a replacement, which I don't want it to be.

Though I don't know how alive this friendship really is, potentially that it's been dead for a while now. I just want to talk about our commitment to each other's friendship and finally define it. Through all these years, we have never really defined what it is we want from each other truly.
We could not possibly do that as children, but we can now as adults.

[Tara]

Hi, rolfedewolfe:

I do understand the pain of letting go of friendships, especially those we began when we were young, because they hold so much memory and experience during our formative years. I have had several situations like this where I had to evaluate where the relationship was at current day and make decisions on whether I should continue the friendships or not. In most situations, I had to let go of the relationships quite simply because the people wee had become were different than what we once were, and also no longer compatible.

I am not telling you that you have to let go of this relationship, but I do encourage you to probe more into the nature of the relationship to figure out what it is that is beneficial, the things you like, etc. so that you can figure out a way to enhance the positive things and detract from the negative. Detracting from the negative may look like setting up more distinct boundaries with this person so that they don't bring you down. Or, reconfiguring the relationship so that neither of you is getting disappointed or hurt. You may have to have some very real, honest conversations with this person to explain how you are feeling and decisions you are going to make.

Do you think you can continue with this relationship in a positive way after assessing what is working and what is not working and putting boundaries in place?

[rolfedewolfe]

Hello Tara,
I see. Well I'm not completely hopeless with this friendship, we still have good times, so I think there's a decent chance that it can continue.

Though she has the habit of being defensive over everything so it might be a bit difficult but it should be doable.

And also due to the uncomfortableness of it, I don't know how deep we will be able to get. When I tried before to do that, the conversation didn't go far and was pretty short.
Though the difference is that I wasn't too sure what topics to bring up, now I'm a bit more sure since my thoughts have been sorted. So thank you guys for helping me with that.

[Tara]

I support you in this decision! I am glad there is still value in the relationship that you can invest in. You can always try it out in a new way for a while, see what works, modify, have conversations, etc. I am glad we have been able to help. Let us know how we can further support you.