On May 23, 2011, I made the decision to end a lifelong friendship. The two of us first met when we were in Brownies. Although I don’t have memory of this, she has always said she sat on my Mom’s lap and learned to knit. Years later we went to middle school and high school together. We were always together doing sleepovers, going to the mall, riding the streets in her Mom’s car, going the movies and the all famous going to the skating rink. Since we graduated from high school 20 + years ago, we maintained a friendship through college, marriages, divorces and just life in general. It wasn’t until 1996 my Mom told me my friend wasn’t the friend I thought she was. My friend, my best friend, had been telling my Mom AND our mutual friends EVERYTHING about me, what I was doing, and personal details of my marriage or about my husband at the time…everything! My Mom said my friend couldn’t wait to pick up the phone and tell her the intimate details of my life. Details that are only shared with your best friend, not your Mom. After some time, I forgave her. I didn’t understand why she did what she did and I still don’t. She betrayed me and crossed the line, but I forgave her.
Years later, here we are. Last 4th of July my friend invited my husband and I to her parents home for the weekend on the lake. She invited a guy she met on Facebook, who we also went to high school with. I was excited at the possibility of a new relationship for her. They hit it off right away and we all got along so well. After a few months of them dating, my friend promoted a friendship with her boyfriend. He and I began texting and calling each other. Our communication wasn’t every day, but maybe a couple times a week. The more we got to know each other, we felt comfortable talking about my friend, his girlfriend. Sometimes he needed to vent or just wanted to tell me about an argument they got into over the weekend. Sometimes we didn’t talk about her at all. I trusted him and I believe he trusted me. He would share intimate details about their relationship and he would talk ugly about her. When I hit a rough patch with my friend and I felt like I was losing her friendship, it was my turn to vent to her boyfriend. I told him things about her I shouldn’t have. Private things. Situations. I expressed my opinions to him about how I was feeling at that moment. We all say things we shouldn’t because we are hurt or we perceive things to be one way.
My friend and I eventually talked and got back on track. From that point on I decided not to talk about her to her boyfriend and I limited my interactions with him to a minimum. When he would say ugly things about her or things she did that bothered him, I would just tell him he needed to talk to her about it. I wanted to work on my friendship with her. She began confiding to me about some issues she was having with him and I felt it was time to come clean. I told her everything her boyfriend and I had discussed. Big Mistake! BIG! At first she said he would never know what we talked about. I was concerned about losing him as a friend and hurting him and I knew if she told him that would be the end of the friendship. The next day, she told me she wanted to talk to him about it. What could I say? I had dumped all this information in her lap and I was to tell her not to do that? After she talked to him, all hell broke loose. I had already told her the content of my conversations with her boyfriend before she talked to him. I didn’t want her to hear it from him for the first time. Even after she confronted him, he was still lying to her. She felt betrayed by both of us. She was deeply hurt, humiliated and said she felt like scum. Her boyfriend and I BOTH crossed the line in our conversations. We BOTH betrayed her. We BOTH said things about her that weren’t in a kind way. We BOTH were the cause of the pain she was now feeling.
Over the weekend, I had the feeling she was going to work things out with him. Because he now hated me, I knew I could no longer be friends with her if she stayed with him. After all she found out, she wanted to stay with him. I sent her a message and she said they were going to try and work these problems out. I took the moment I had to again apologize for my part in what happened. I told her I was removing myself from her life that way I would not hurt her ever again. I thanked her for her friendship all these years and said I hoped in years to come, she could silently forgive me. That was so hard for me to do. We were like sisters. She was hurting and feeling so bad and I ended my friendship with her. There was nothing else I could say. I couldn’t say anything to make her feel better or change anything. Only time could do that. I felt everything that happened was my fault and the only thing I could do was to leave her life. It’s been a week now and I do miss her. But like everything in life, time will take care of that. This was a hard life lesson I learned. I know what I did wrong. I understand the mistakes I made. I can only be responsible for my actions. I have to be accountable. Leaving her life isn’t something I wanted to do; it’s something I had to do.
My dear friend Karen wrote in her blog about this very subject and after I read it, I was like “That’s me! That’s how I see it as well!” The way Karen expressed her words, is exactly the point I’m trying to make here. Karen’s point of view makes it much easier to move on. To read Karen’s blog in its entirety, click the link http://www.karenrutherford.com/journal/2007/2/12/endings.html. This is an excerpt from Karen’s blog:
“God removes people from our lives so he can carry out His plan for us. It is actually an act of mercy, because He only
wants the best for us. It could be that He wants to force us to lean on Him alone. It could be that He knows that certain people will be a hindrance to our future journey. God places people in our lives for a reason and a season. Maybe they have already served their purpose.
And God removes people and replaces them with new people, but according to His time and plan. He understands and allows a bit of time for us to grieve and adjust. But He expects us to have faith in Him. He knows best and we need to replace the grief with trust in Him.
So, the only message I should need is this understanding that the friendship served a wonderful purpose, its ending is for my good, and that what is to come will be better for me”.
I’m sorry to say I played a hand in the demise of this friendship. Well, actually two friendships. I learned a valuable lesson from this, a little too late unfortunately. One thing I learned is that you could be friends with someone all your life, but you never really know and understand someone, until the friendship hits turbulence. If I could undo everything that happened, I would. I thought I would always be a valuable person in my friend’s life. Or was I just wishing that? I felt up to that point, I was a faithful and true friend to her. When I look back on our friendship and what’s happened through the years, I see what my Mom has tried to tell me all this time. As I type this, I want to tell about specific situations, but what difference would it make now? My friend knows exactly how she has treated me over the years, how she also disrespected our friendship, how I was made fun or I was the butt of jokes. And even as I ended this friendship, deep down I hoped she would text or call me back, telling me she still wanted to be my friend and to please not end the friendship. That didn’t happen. Justifiably. She was hurt. Justifiably, this was meant to be the end.
It’s odd, but I feel a sense of relief. Much has been lifted off me. I feel renewed and a new outlook on life. I feel I can do anything. My life with my husband will continue on. We will continue on life’s path together. We will continue to work on ourselves and regain what is really important in life and in our relationship. We will make new friends. We will be happy! We will be ok. I will be ok!
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