Friendships are different for adults. When we're children, our best friend is the kid with the best box of crayons and who shares their Oreo cookies at lunch time.
As an adult, our best friend has seen the very worst of us and loves us anyway. They've held us as we cried, plugged their ears as we screamed, and picked us up from the side of the road after we've been abandoned.
They are the ones who ask "which one" when you tell them an organ is failing and you need a replacement.
You go on vacations together. Cook together. Sometimes you even live together. Their children are like your own children, because you'd give anything for them to be happy. You punish them when they do wrong. You kiss their hurts. (I'm talking about the kids, not the adults)
You have inside jokes, and inside looks, and you finally feel like here is someone who gets you.
You had called her when your husband raped you the last time, and she came and got you and took you home and you laid in bed with her and cried everything out on her shoulder.
She got you blistering drunk when you finally realized your marriage was shit and you needed to get out.
You took the children so she could have a date night with her husband.
You put off two weeks of work to help her move.
You think they'll be there forever and a day, because you know you'll be there for them for forever and a day.
Then you get that phone call in the middle of the night, the one where she is screaming accusations at you that you've fucked her husband and lied to her about it. That you're trying to steal her family from her.
You don't bother reminding her that you've been her shoulder to lean on with him. You've been the one to hold her hand when she freaked out over the amount of porn her husband watches. Who told her she was crazy when she pointed out his profiles on "dating" and "looking for sex" websites. You told her that he loves only her, and that him having cybersex with strangers is just a way of blowing off steam.
She tells you that you're a dictator when you ask a simple question. But she doesn't tell you she's angry until you call a few days later and she is rude and short with you and when you ask what's wrong, she says "you know what's wrong".
When you call her crying that someone who is supposed to love you and be honest with you turns out to be a pathological liar, she says "well, you are just upset that your security blanket isn't working anymore, grow up". When you tell her that you feel like you're going crazy because someone is pushing you towards that cliff, she hangs up on you.
I'd love to say that I bit my thumb at her and told her where to go. But I didn't.
Instead, I've stopped calling. Stopped texting. Stopped emailing. And this withdraw makes me feel better. I hope she realizes one day that I slipped out of her life quietly, easily, without fanfare and didn't leave my shoe laying on the front steps for her to find me with later.
I wonder if her husband knows she thinks he's a cheating bastard, and a liar to boot, but I don't tell him. Let her fester in her paranoia and anger, I've got enough drama in my life, I don't need to borrow from their life.
As an adult, our best friend has seen the very worst of us and loves us anyway. They've held us as we cried, plugged their ears as we screamed, and picked us up from the side of the road after we've been abandoned.
They are the ones who ask "which one" when you tell them an organ is failing and you need a replacement.
You go on vacations together. Cook together. Sometimes you even live together. Their children are like your own children, because you'd give anything for them to be happy. You punish them when they do wrong. You kiss their hurts. (I'm talking about the kids, not the adults)
You have inside jokes, and inside looks, and you finally feel like here is someone who gets you.
You had called her when your husband raped you the last time, and she came and got you and took you home and you laid in bed with her and cried everything out on her shoulder.
She got you blistering drunk when you finally realized your marriage was shit and you needed to get out.
You took the children so she could have a date night with her husband.
You put off two weeks of work to help her move.
You think they'll be there forever and a day, because you know you'll be there for them for forever and a day.
Then you get that phone call in the middle of the night, the one where she is screaming accusations at you that you've fucked her husband and lied to her about it. That you're trying to steal her family from her.
You don't bother reminding her that you've been her shoulder to lean on with him. You've been the one to hold her hand when she freaked out over the amount of porn her husband watches. Who told her she was crazy when she pointed out his profiles on "dating" and "looking for sex" websites. You told her that he loves only her, and that him having cybersex with strangers is just a way of blowing off steam.
She tells you that you're a dictator when you ask a simple question. But she doesn't tell you she's angry until you call a few days later and she is rude and short with you and when you ask what's wrong, she says "you know what's wrong".
When you call her crying that someone who is supposed to love you and be honest with you turns out to be a pathological liar, she says "well, you are just upset that your security blanket isn't working anymore, grow up". When you tell her that you feel like you're going crazy because someone is pushing you towards that cliff, she hangs up on you.
I'd love to say that I bit my thumb at her and told her where to go. But I didn't.
Instead, I've stopped calling. Stopped texting. Stopped emailing. And this withdraw makes me feel better. I hope she realizes one day that I slipped out of her life quietly, easily, without fanfare and didn't leave my shoe laying on the front steps for her to find me with later.
I wonder if her husband knows she thinks he's a cheating bastard, and a liar to boot, but I don't tell him. Let her fester in her paranoia and anger, I've got enough drama in my life, I don't need to borrow from their life.
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5 comments:
Wow. (we say that a lot around here, don't we?)
I kind of agree with you on the slipping out without fanfare. I attempted to discuss my ex friend's boyfriend bullshit with her... when I hit that "brick wall" and she essentially plugged her ears and closed her eyes and screeched, "I can't hear you... la la la la la... can't hear you..." I knew it was time to go. I let it go. I didn't send her the indisputable picture of her boyfriend groping a 16 year old girl... I just let it go.
And, I noticed she hasn't tried to fix it. She has never tried to come back.
I'm still standing here, maybe only on one leg from time to time, but I'm still here facing down the demons that she pretends doesn't exist.
In the long run I think that's better.
The position you are in now? I think I'd probably lose it... but, right now - this girl has bigger internal demons than you do and you'll be stronger for it. She won't. And maybe she'll come back around to you and want to fix it and maybe she won't but either way - it's going to come back and be up to you and there's a modicum of comfort in that, not much... but a little.
I don't think it's necessary to drop a bomb to end a relationship. I prefer the "slide on out" method too.
And what the hell is WRONG with some people? Damn.
@Charlotte- Talking gets nowhere. It's like the Family Guy Donkey, she'd start braying as soon as something she didn't like passed my lips.
@Celeste- it saves on so much drama to slip away, doesn't it? Other people may call me a coward, but I didn't end up crying in the corner either.
I don't think you are a coward at all. Maybe being so far away is just the break you need from her and will make the slip away so much easier on you. If you were closer she would continue to pull you in and drag you under.
Oh, I didn't say anything about talking to her. I agree totally that you should just slip away. I just think if I were in your spot with everything else you have going on I'd have a tough time not blowing up on her.
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