Staying friends with both parties of a separated pair.

In my life, I have not been blessed with many “couple” friends. However that has at times perhaps been fortunate because if you have been friends with a couple, and then they uncouple, it can certainly be tricky to remain friendly with both sides! And although I have limited experience with this, I have encountered 2 sets of best friends, who ultimately parted ways from one another, which I imagine is still a similar scenario.

In one scenario I lost both initially and one later rekindled, and in the other I maintained both all along. In the first scenario my mistake was perhaps asking them not to discuss each other with me. When they were each experiencing a painful loss that they wanted and needed to discuss, I pushed each of them away somewhat by neglecting to allow them to openly express themselves because it made me feel uncomfortable. In the second instance, I allowed them to talk about it. I was careful not to betray confidences, however did at times try to express the other person’s perspective on the issue, without taking sides.

It was actually quite eye opening to see how one situation could be seen so differently from the 2 people involved, and how each was perfectly sound in their perspective and justifications. There really is 2 sides to every story! This helped me not to take sides. Not that I had wanted or intended to, but sometimes you identify strongly with one side over the other.

While I allowed space for both parties to talk about one another, and their experience of the parting, if they veered off into talking negatively about the other person, I was quick to defend the other person and remind each of them that this is still a friend of mine. I did respect that they did not feel very friendly towards each other, but I was not interested in taking sides no matter how much I could validate their individual emotions and experiences.

The second mistake I made with the first pair was allowing them to put me in the middle, and play off one another. You should not play messenger, you should not interfere and tell either party what they should or shouldn’t do, and you should remain completely impartial instead of leaning heavily on the side of one person or the other. This can be really challenging, especially if one party struggles for quite some time and the other seemingly moves on quite quickly.

Inevitably, a time will come, when they will ask you about the other party, and it can be very challenging to answer some of those questions without breaking loyalties and while being honest at the same time. I didn’t want to lie and say the other person was doing well if they weren’t, but I also didn’t want to rub it in anyone’s face, or conversely make anyone feel bad for whatever their experience was. So I had to learn diplomatic language like “everyone copes differently. These things are never simple” or “it’s important to focus on you right now and not on them!” I know at times these vague responses were not what either party wanted, however, they weren’t untrue and each ultimately respected that I wasn’t prepared to go into detail and it wasn’t really ok to ask!

The final difference in how I handled each situation differently, making one more successful than the other was making equal time and space for each person. If one feels on the outer because you are always with their “ex” they will more naturally pull away from you and possibly assume you are taking sides. If your friends were married with kids, offer your support for babysitting to both parties equally, or offer neither a place to stay for example. Try your best to keep it measured.

I have found after many years, each party still occasionally asks about the other, or fishes for information. I do not shy away from the fact that I maintain contact with them both, and after more time passes, I will give details asked for, and move the conversation along. For example I may say that the ex just got married or had a baby. I will say if someone passed away or someone is unwell. As a general rule I wait for them to bring it up. And even if they both talk about reconciliation, I stay firmly out of that. They know how to contact each other if they want to!

The biggest rule is never to say anything about anyone you wouldn’t want them to know you said. They may indeed reconcile at the end of the day – in which case they are likely to discuss what you said. Stay as neutral and positive as possible. Don’t hint or meddle or offer your thoughts on if they should stay together or not. That is for them to decide!

Being in the middle is never easy, so as much as possible direct each person towards the things you share in common apart from the ex, to distance yourself from that common ground place. Work hard to create new memories, support their growth apart from one another and distract them both as much as possible!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The friendship Zombie

Last week we talked about Ghosting and all the reasons why a friend may choose to exit your life without a word. I wrote that post because “why”  is one of the biggest questions that is typically left on your mind after a ghosting. Once you have reached a certain level of acceptance, but before you reach closure, it is likely the next lingering question on your mind is “will they ever contact me again?”

I can’t answer that question exactly, as I don’t know you, or your friend, or the circumstances. What I can tell you is that if they do enter your life again, the chances re high that they will use a move referred to as the zombie. In short, this means that they just reappear, start talking to you again, almost as if they never left to begin with. If they do acknowledge the absence, typically it will brushed off, taken lightly, and often somehow intended to imply that the silence was mutual and inconsequential. For example, one day they may just message you and say “Hey stranger, long time no speak, how have you been?”

Almost immediately the onus and pressure is on you, to go along with this rouse and pretend everything is fine and you never noticed their absence. How you feel about this might vary from anger, relief, confusion, sadness, elation or even a sense of numbness. You will likely feel conflicted, a range of all these things at once, and I advise you take time to contemplate your response to this. However, it isn’t always possible. Sometimes the person catches you off guard, on the phone, or even in person, typically in public. It might be after a week of silence, a month of silence, a year of silence, or a decade or more.

This robs you of your opportunity to contemplate your response and regulate your emotions. Social pressure may force you to politely conform or your emotions may overwhelm you and you may cry, hug and express sorrow or tell them that you missed them. I want to reassure you that all responses are normal, there is no right or wrong way to react to a zombie. It is also normal to later question, or regret you initial reaction. You weren’t prepared for this! (If this hasn’t happened to you yet, and you think it is possible, formulating your response in your mind may help you feel a sense of control, although whatever you plan to say may well escape your mind at the moment of surprise.)

When this happened to me, I found it somewhat discombobulating to be honest. To say it caught me by surprise is an understatement. My friend and I crossed paths several times every week as we both attended the same organisation. It had been 18 months and for that whole time we had pretended not to see each other. Neither one of us had acknowledged the other. On the odd occasion we were forced to interact, we spoke briefly about only the matter at hand and went our separate ways. I actually found seeing this person at all quite painful, although they seemed, on the surface at least, as if they had completely forgotten we had ever been more than polite strangers to begin with.

Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, they just struck up a casual and unnecessary conversation. They told a joke and I laughed, they told me I was looking good, and they walked away. Initially I felt really good about this, but later when I got home I was annoyed at myself for laughing, for letting them get away with just speaking to me casually, and for letting them believe that I was ok with this. I let it simmer in my mind, and decided they obviously wanted to reconnect, felt badly about our split and didn’t know how to address the issue. I thought they would follow through with something of more substance. All that ensued was more casual conversation. And it angered me more and more. My friend seemed to want us to be casual friendly acquaintances whereas I wasn’t ok with this at all. I wanted us to continue ignoring one another or to reconcile.

More than that, I wanted answers… but honestly what I wanted most was an apology! An acknowledgement of the rift, and some sort of clear plan forward. I did not like this unknown limbo land I had stumbled into and I wanted out of it. I had to sit with this for some time and decide what I wanted. Sift through the confusing and conflicting emotions and decide what I wanted. I could not force my friend to apologise, to reconcile or to give me the explanations and answers I craved. All I could do was either accept it as it was, discontinue engaging or try and pursue more. I reflected that the silence between us had been painful for me, because I had never accepted the ending of us. I had wanted my friend to follow through because I wanted to reconcile. Therefore I had to act in a reconciliatory way.  

For me this meant, I didn’t address the issue head on. I reflected on the things I had thought of during our time apart, the parts I may have played in our parting. My mistakes, things I wished I had handled differently and I knew if I went in hostile, making demands of explanations and apologies, it was counterintuitive to the new friendly tone my friend was trying to create and that I wanted to nurture, ultimately. So I reached out, I apologised, I asked to catch up. We rebuilt, and to be honest, we never really talked much about it ever again. I had to rise above it, let it go and put my ego aside, swallow my pride and realise it was in the past and that is where I wanted to leave it. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.

Your case may not be the same. You may decide to disengage, you may decide to ask for answers, you may or may not reconcile. You may be too hurt, offended by the idea they could just walk in and out of your life like it never mattered. I can’t tell you if your friend will ever reach out to you again. You can’t control that. You can only control yourself. So my best advice is to prepare yourself for the zombie apocalypse and how you’d like to respond based on what you would like to happen. Revisit that mindset occasionally to see if your feelings about it change, as it may well do over time. You don’t have to allow a zombie back into your life, you may never trust them enough again! All you can do is act in a way that you are happy with and that is congruent with your values. It’s not wrong to ignore a zombie, they taught you how to ghost after all! The choice is yours to make. I don’t regret mine.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Five reasons friends ghost!

A ghosting, when a friend just stops returning any communication from you, can be a terribly painful and isolating experience. It may be sudden, or slow. You may know the reasons why, or you may be left in the dark. It usually feels like the silent treatment, which is actually a form of torture and a very isolating experience for the human mind to cope with. That’s not meant to imply that your friend is intentionally torturing you, only to validate the pain you are experiencing and the search for closure or understanding that is plaguing you.

There are so many reasons why a friend may ghost you, and most of them are not about you at all! You might have things that they want for themselves, which upsets them and triggers feelings of grief and loss or even jealousy. They may have health issues you know nothing about that cause them shame or embarrassment and making them hide away. Their life may have changed, taking them away from you some way, or you may have outgrown each other having little in common bonding you together. Their values may have changed or their beliefs causing them to see you differently even if you haven’t changed. Their circumstances may mean they have less time for friendships. Maybe their partner or mother doesn’t approve of you.

If it is about you, it often relates to power imbalances, feeling unheard, uncared for, not valued. Feeling manipulated, steam rolled, bullied or pitied. Even then it is not to say you definitely did those things, only that it was interpreted that way by your friend perhaps. Perception is everything and that is why miscommunication is so easy.  Cancelled plans may leave them perceiving you as flaky instead of how you perceive yourself as over committed, busy and exhausted for example.

These are all possible reasons your friend may have ghosted you, but I am not really talking about specific reasons here today, as without  knowing what is going on in your friend’s head, we cannot really ever say for sure. It is likely you have a better idea than me, and even if you have no idea, you are probably still asking yourself why they didn’t communicate the issue! And that is what we are looking at today. Why do people choose to walk away silently as opposed to confront the issue head on and try to resolve it? That factor alone can leave you blaming yourself and thinking you weren’t worth a conversation or effort to fix things. It can make you question your worth and make you feel disposable.

The first reason that comes to mind is that they tried to tell you. Maybe you remember a conversation, and you thought the issue was resolved, but they actually felt unheard and dismissed? Maybe you tried to tell them they were over reacting due to their current circumstances and you felt you had calmed them down and got them to see your perspective? But in reality they felt you didn’t listen, and probably never would. Alternatively it is possible they tried to talk to you and then whatever boundary of theirs you were crossing – you continued to cross. And they felt there was no point in bringing it up again as you were not likely to hear them a second time or change. They concluded that this is who you are and that they could no longer accept it and let their actions speak for themselves in ways you could not ignore. If they feel exhausted by you, they may not have the energy to fight.

The next reason I can think of is that they are acutely conflict averse. For whatever reason, conflict opens deep trauma wounds for them and they will avoid it at all costs. If they have tried to raise this with you and you got angry, or even if they didn’t but they suspect you wont take the information calmly, it is less traumatic not to have you in their life at all than deal with your negative feelings. It is never easy to receive criticism, so it is natural that you may get defensive on hearing that you have upset a friend. It is human nature to want to justify things and correct perceptions about you. However, it is also hard to give criticism, and if someone has worked up the courage to speak up, what they are genuinely hoping for is listening, acknowledging, apologising and changing. Justification can only come after those steps, and most of us do get that wrong. They may even be hoping that by leaving things unsaid the friendship door remains open a crack, so after some space if you were to run into one another again, potentially you could rekindle and never have to discuss the awkward issue at all?

The third reason might be because it would reflect badly on them to tell you the reasons. If they betrayed you and cannot deal with the guilt or think you will find out they may ghost. If they allowed boundary crossing for a long time and feel it is too late to assert themselves without causing confusion. Or just because ending the friendship makes them feel like a pretty awful person, no matter what petty reason they could offer you for the rift. Just saying “I don’t like you” is so harsh, they don’t want to say it out loud. Let’s not forget that it might also just be a reason they don’t want to share with you. If they have an embarrassing health issue such as an STD or continence issues, this may push them to withdraw themselves, and likely not just from you! Some people suffer such acute social anxiety if they feel they have let you down in some way or made a fool of themselves, they may be so crippled by this that they basically hide to save face.

The fourth reason on my list would be because they felt some distance from you! If they thought a change in your life would lead to a rejection from you, like if you got into a new relationship and they worried they would be in the way or forgotten, or if you had a baby and they worried you wouldn’t have time or wouldn’t be interested in the friendship anymore, they may pull back as a way to protect themselves from having you reject them. If you have been neglecting the friendship without noticing or if they felt pushed out, sometimes it hurts so much that people just walk away rather than playing the limbo or waiting game to see if you will ever come back… so they make the choice for you and actually at times tell themselves they are doing you a favour by avoiding the issue all together.  If they feel unwanted by you they just withdraw to avoid that feeling of rejection.

Lastly, it’s entirely possible your friend has made up their mind, they don’t want to fix things, so they feel a conversation is unnecessary and unproductive. Why bother having an official conversation to end things, when the other party will either get angry, defensive, or try to work it through? Not to mention that they probably already feel badly about this, especially if they know it might blindside you, and will definitely hurt you. They would rather not deal with your emotions about it all and just move on. It’s selfish, yes, but human nature tends to be a bit selfish, and they probably tell themselves it is kinder not to tell you the reasons, to hurt you and further make you question things about yourself. But in this case, most often I feel there is no one good reason apart from they’re just not that into you anymore. Often in this instance the ghoster actually believes they are your victim, and they had no choice. A lie they perhaps tell themselves in some instances to justify their hurtful actions against you.

I am not saying these are good reasons, or the only reasons, but if you are trying to put yourself in their position and you know them well enough, chances are that one of these things will resonate with you and hopefully offer some closure that leaving this way was ultimately about them and their issues and feelings, regardless of what transpired between you. You have no real say in the matter, and no real choice but to accept that their actions have spoken even if they never said a word.

I hope this brings you some comfort or a sense of closure. Being ghosted is not a reflection of your worth or the value of the friendship. You may feel you had no voice, no choice, no control, but what you can control is yourself. Their silence doesn’t have to ring in your ears so loudly, that choice is up to you. Instead of looking up more articles on why they ghosted, or if they will ever zombie you (come back into your life like nothing ever happened – more on that next week…) ask yourself why you care about someone who no longer cares for you? They aren’t googling articles about you right now, I can almost guarantee that.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

If mothers NEED friends does that make them NEEDY?

Following on from last week, this week I am still discussing mothers in particular and how much they need friends…..Does that make them needy friends?

First we should look at some words that come with the title “Motherhood.” Obligations. Expectations. Commitments.  These are also a pretty accurate representation of how a mothers time is spent. So little of our involvement with others is about choice. We must make sure we meet the needs of our children, our partner, our extended families. Even happy occasions like celebrations become a chore of pleasing everyone involved. You find yourself choosing what you should choose, without even questioning what you want. Want is a moot point. You have forgotten it matters what you want. You have forgotten what you want at all in some cases.

As the first of my small group of friends to have a baby, I needed them more than ever. They were the only remaining link that tied me to myself, and while they did listen to me talk about motherhood, they also still spoke to me about other things, work, romance, the news, money, travel. There was no competition, as they couldn’t really relate to my struggles, they just took my word for it. I was lucky they kept in touch, even though I did have to sit back and watch them still enjoying the freedoms I had given up, which was hard. They would see me during the day and then return to their fun free lives without a second thought to leaving me behind. It was assumed I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to join in, so invites were less frequent. At least I still got to hear about their adventures without me I suppose.

As my son approached school age, he was diagnosed with special needs. This meant appointments with lots of specialists trying to help him, while I had just had my second child. Both of these things meant the light that was school at the end of the tunnel was dimmed for another few years as we struggled through these times with both the kids. Busy is an understatement, and I began to understand the meaning of the Curtis Stigers song; To Be Loved. Quote

“Find a man that can provide
Try and fill the hole inside
With a family and a home
Tell yourself you're not alone
Keep your memories of yourself
In a shoebox on a closet shelf”

Read more: Curtis Stigers - To Be Loved Lyrics | MetroLyrics 
 

Put your memories of yourself in a shoe box on the closet shelf. How accurate.

And that is again, where friendships come in. They are the only relationship that exist purely out of choice. Yes circumstance and convenience play a role, however, choice is the deciding factor!

Our friends are not obligated to us, as much as it might feel that way occasionally. They are the only relationships that exist where we are not seen as an extension of someone else, or expected to compromise who we are in order to be with them. They allow us to be fully who we are, and they LIKE us. They don’t have an investment in us being successful, rich, single or married, thin, fat, ugly, pretty, fit, a perfect parent or anything else. They don’t want us to be perfect because then they don’t have to be either. These are the people we make time for because we want to. They are the people who care about our likes, interests, hobbies and like to cheer us on or commiserate with us and share their highs and lows with us. There is no pressure to impress them, to make them proud, not to let them down, to get it right, or to have sex with them! There is less expectation in general. All they want is our time, the pleasure of our company. How refreshing. They are the people who help us remember who we are. They listen to us vent about our lives without trying to fix it or telling us “I told you so!” They are the ones who encourage us to chase our dreams and remind us our happiness is important rather than point out all the potential things that could go wrong.  These are the people who choose to make time for us, which helps us make time for ourselves.

They say friends are the family you choose for yourself. I think they are better than that because they are not family! They are not bogged down in the unimportant things like how messy you are or if you are really ready to date again after the separation and how you should focus on the children. They are the people who are in your corner, even when you are wrong and the people who build you up again when life breaks you down. They are the people who validate you and fill your emotional cup. Not because of anything you do for them necessarily, or by default because they have to, but just because they value you as a person. Friends are the people who see us as individuals separate to our other roles in life. Ironically their lack of investment, and their enthusiastic interest anyway turns out to be just what we need to feel fulfilled.

There is a parenting model called the circle of security which outlines that children need parents to “delight in me” (amongst other things) to become adults with secure self-esteem. It basically means “love me for who I am outside of any achievements or anything you gain from it. Just enjoy me.” I need to work on this with my own kids, and I am. It is about filling their emotional cup. That is a hard thing to do if the cup you are filling from is actually empty. It prompted me to think of the people who most fill my cup (or any mothers cup) and delight in ME?! That would be my friends! Yes, my husband does delight in me, and I am lucky he does. That said, he also gets to “fill my cup” in other ways in return, ahem, if you know what I mean (apologies for the visuals, haha) and that takes away from the joy somewhat. He gets something out of it. So do my friends – I also delight in them!

As a mother it often feels like everybody needs something from me. Often more than I have to give. As I write this, the cat has basically plonked himself on my face, and he will return promptly when the kids go to bed. After I fend him off my husband will be expecting my attention. I will probably get an email from my mother asking why I didn’t respond to her last email and when I will be spending time with her not just asking for babysitting. I will make a mental note to email her back in the morning after I drop the kids at school and before the internet technician comes over. When he fixes the problem I will go online and pay the bills and do the banking. I will be adequately stressed when I meet my friend for lunch, but I will feel adequately relaxed after I leave. I am a lady who lunches. People roll their eyes at this, but It is my lifeline and my connection to myself, so I can go on filling the emotional cups of the other people in my life, if they chose me or not!

Along with this, more and more, I learn to remember to follow my heart and dreams too. This helps me learn how to be more mindful to stay present and fill my own emotional cup when my friends just can’t. Mostly because their life is just as busy as my own with multiple demands on their time! This is important. We do Need friendships. But there shouldn’t be much “need” in your friendships, or you will just become another obligation. We choose to enter friendships and being too needy is one certain way to ensure people choose not to enter them with us, or alternatively end them. We need friendships to learn who we are outside of pressure and expectation, and to learn to like and love ourselves. Once we can do that, we don’t need much at all from anyone, and ALL our relationships benefit from this! If you are feeling needy, check your emotional cup and ways you can fill it outside of one particular person, preferably on your own. Remember to take down that shoebox and be a person you love again, not just someone who loves everybody else.

<3 Love,

Your Best Friend ForNever
x

Why do Mothers NEED friendships?

I know I have kind of covered this territory before, but this is still very important and overlooked. Not just by society, but by mothers themselves. I want to give all the mothers out there permission to spend time with friends. With and without the kids. To talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of motherhood. And to not talk about it at all!

Humans have pretty complex social webs if you think about it. If we look at the important roles a woman plays in her life, she is a daughter,  and may also be a sister, a cousin, a niece, a wife or partner, an employee, an employer, an aunt, a mother, a grandmother, not to mention all the in-law titles too, and the ones I’ve missed! It is fair to say as a society, perhaps even as a species in general, we value family relationships!

This starts as soon as we are born and our basic human needs must be met by the people we depend upon the most – our family. We look to them to meet our actual needs for living, and they do this, for no other reason than they love us. Babies are cute, and if I had to guess I would say this is some sort of survival tactic. They love us because we are theirs. They created us, and in a sense we belong to them. It is supposedly the most unconditional form of love.

Let me be clear in stating I do not doubt that parental love is the strongest form, the most natural if you will. It IS pretty unconditional, but it doesn’t always feel unconditional. Most of us live in the same house as our parents growing up, and if your house was anything like mine, it was a pretty universally “my house, my rules” kind of situation. As we reach adolescence we start to explore who we are as people and sometimes rebel against those rules. It starts to feel like our parents don’t really see us as separate people and we long to be free individuals. Ask most teenagers, or parents of teenagers and almost all of them will admit living together at this time is tough. Petty day to day things like who did or didn’t empty the bin, or put washing in the basket become bigger power struggles and detract from our ability to enjoy our kids as people. Sure they know we love them, and they know how proud we are of them when they achieve something, but those achievements may start to feel like conditions.

I have heard quite a bit in the media about humans craving parental approval. No matter how late in life, we want to feel like we have satisfied the people who chose to have us. Feelings of stress and anxiety arise when we disappoint them or make mistakes. We know they love us, but this does add an extra layer of pressure trying to win their approval. “Approval?” What does this word even mean in this context? We already know they love us – but do they like us? Pretty quickly we learn that maybe it isn’t their job to like us, more for them to mould us into likeable respectable people?

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To your family you are the world...... No Pressure.... Lol

Luckily for us, our friendships during adolescence are ripe and plentiful. Definitely not to be categorised or minimised as easy, but intense, because we seek validation that people actually like us. Around this time we may turn away from our parents when we face dilemma’s and instead turn to the ear of a friend? Why is this? Because a friend is less invested in the outcome. They are less worried about the potential bad things that could happen to us and don’t have a need to protect us (mostly from ourselves!) They are more likely to be encouraging which makes us feel competent as we prepare to embark into adulthood.

It is with the support and encouragement of our friends that we start to explore the world of dating, relationships and sex. What an exciting time, even with our parents telling us we have more important things to be focusing on such as our future, or alternatively pushing their own values onto us. Alas, we wont be told and most of us have had at least one romantic relationship by the time we reach our early 20’s.

It feels important to find someone to partner up with, even from a young age. We prefer not to see out this life alone, and even if the statistics are against us, most of us hope and believe we have met “the one” pretty quickly. As we enter this phase, friendships may start to fall by the wayside, to make room for our partner in our lives as we prepare for our future and the responsibilities that start to face us.  As we start to settle into these much desired romantic pairings though, we realise they too, have their conditions and compromises. Certain sacrifices have to be made as we find ways to become a “we” and let go of being “just me.” Thankfully, we are still young, relatively free, and usually have just started working and earning money, which we are mostly free to spend on ourselves. How wonderful. Again this stage of life is very conducive to friendships. We start making friends in the workplace and these people see and treat us as capable adults, and we have the time and the money to socialise with them after hours. Most of us somehow successfully navigate the balance between being ourselves and part of a couple, with working and studying providing outlets away from our partner to still be who we are.

It all starts to change though, when in a few short years people start getting married and having kids, or trying to have kids. Many of us lose our identities completely as we give up the people and situations that validated us as complete competent confident individuals, such as work and a social life, to raise a family. Only at this point do we start to understand where our own parents were coming from, and how much of themselves they gave up to raise us. (This kinda explains the high investment in us and their inability to see us as people separate from themselves I suppose?! Lol)

As I transitioned into motherhood myself at 26, I felt ready and mature enough to handle this. Ha! I started to notice pretty quickly though, how irrelevant my identity had become. Instead of asking me how I was, people asked how my son was. I almost never talked about anything other than him, although I wanted to, the opportunities were small.  It had become my sole purpose in life to take care of somebody else, and I felt so guilty for the longing I had to be away from the role and to just be myself. As my own mother will readily tell you – it always feels as if a mother is taking care of everyone, but nobody is taking care of her…..

And this is of course where friendships come into play! A place to be yourself, to remember who that is! Tune in next week for more reasons mothers need friends, and if that makes them needy friends?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

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Do Friendships Retire With You?

Growing up I always watched my mother with her friends. The way she would light up around them, the way she would cater for their dietary needs and remember birthdays and anniversaries. The way I could tell which ones she liked more than the others by her level of interest and effort to see them. The faces have changed over the years, but she still has a delightfully full social life now she is well into her retirement years.

In the last few years especially she has become very socially active after moving to a retirement village full of peers. It has been beautiful to watch. Even my father has branched out, joined clubs and volunteered time and has made his own social connections. I doubt I have ever seen him so socially engaged! When they aren’t at their various groups or catch up’s individually they are with other couples doing dinners and drinks.

However it wasn’t a smooth transition. My mother retired first, and she enjoyed a good few years of having the house to herself to entertain friends should she want to. She got into her own little social routine, a phone call with one on Tuesdays at 8am and a catch up with the other at the shopping mall on Mondays etc…. She had the house to herself, she had her time to herself and it worked for her.

Now I want to first acknowledge that my parents are one of the lucky few who make it to retirement still together and alive. They are blessed and I am not trying to take away from that. However being a couple for a very long time has it’s challenges too. Particularly when much of that time is spent raising children and working and living somewhat distant/separate lives…. But one day, if you are lucky enough to reach retirement age together, you will BOTH be retired.

When my dad retired things changed. He hadn’t had the years my mum had on her own to build his own routine. He retired and mum was there and so the assumption was that they would now spend their retirement “together.” My parents are not the only ones either, as it came up in general conversation the other day that another friend’s mother felt/feels similarly. Being part of a couple does not erase your individuality or your individual connections outside of the marriage. However men often don’t put as much effort into those social connections, preferring to focus on work and spending time tending to the house and family on weekends etc…..

So when the time came, and dad would ask mum “what are WE doing today” she felt a mixture of guilt and resentment. Should she have abandoned her friendships and routine to enjoy retirement with my father? Should she invite him to spend time with her friends? It’s not that she didn’t try. It’s not even that she didn’t want him there especially. It’s just that there are things you may not say (venting about your husband for example) when he is there. But more to the point, there are things your friends may not feel free to say when your partner is there.

I know from my own experience, when I have invited friends over for coffee when my husband is there, even if we are not sitting in the same room and he is otherwise occupied with his online gaming, my friend and I will be discussing something and he shouts through with his 2 cents! You can hardly tell the man not to listen or speak in his own house! But he is in my way somewhat and I know it will be an adjustment when he does retire one day! And as my father in law contemplates retirement I know my mother in law is less than enthusiastic too!

So in order to make sure your friendships don’t retire when you do (or when your spouse does!) you have to give yourself some time to find the right balance. Give the second person a chance to find their groove. Have conversations before retirement about your expectations. Make time for each other as a couple, but give each other space too, to grow your own connections and find your own hobbies. It will give you things to talk about anyway! Continue some independence as you each had before retirement and trust that time spent with others individually is healthy, not a personal rejection of your spouse. Retirement is a time to rediscover yourselves and friendships are an important part of this process. Embrace this!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Controlling Friends

A few weeks ago, I shared with someone a post I had written back in 2017, when although my intentions were pure, my behaviour was actually somewhat controlling in nature. That got us chatting about the concept of control in friendships and the ways we have experienced it and also displayed it in ourselves.

There are controlling people, who know exactly what they are playing at and they target people who seem easily to control, but these are not necessarily the people I am talking about today. Today I am talking more about subtle controlling antics, and hopefully, how to navigate these behaviours in yourself and your friendships. These may or may not be “controlling people” in all aspects of their life, but the chances are high that they don’t consider themselves controlling, and they would be horrified to know you thought they were either.

It is human nature to desire things a certain way, therefore it feels safe to assume we all do what we can to assure the likeliest chance at success (things turning out just the way we hoped they would.) Added to this, we are taught to believe that we do have some control of outcomes, for example, if you eat less and move more, the chances are high that you will lose weight. Or if you get good grades in school you improve your chances of having a fulfilling, well paid career later in life. And while these things are proven and true, chance always plays a big role too. It is harder to do well in school if a parent gets cancer for example, or harder to lose weight if you suffer from thyroid or gland issues or lipoedema. And all of those things come down to chance, but they do impact you more negatively. Just the same as someone else may get lucky and win a scholarship or a family member may offer them an apprenticeship they might not have had otherwise.

Because of all this, I believe in some level all of us strive for some level of control of ourselves and our lives and our outcomes, because we are all fighting chance and a future unknown. We feel less anxious when we are able to tell ourselves we did everything we could have done to influence the outcome, as we also don’t enjoy feeling regret lumped on top of disappointment if things don’t go our way.

So this post is not to crap on your friend or your friendships and call them toxic, it is to help us understand and validate that on some level this is a struggle for us all and it is something we must try to manage within ourselves.

Some of my more controlling tendencies in friendships tend to be: Being the event planner. This way I approve of the event and the time, I have checked that it suits me before taking it to the invited event goers! I can be thrown off balance if someone else invites me to an unexpected event as I do to them, because what if I want to go but it isn’t convenient for me? Added to that I am a picky eater, in that I don’t like sushi or seafood, and so I wont agree to go to a place everyone else loves, I will try and insist they cater to the minority for example. I may be unwittingly partial to emotional blackmail at times too, like letting my displeasure be known if my message is not read and replied to in an acceptable timeframe, and I can definitely be passive aggressive too.  All of these things are listed as red flags for controlling friends.

I definitely don’t want or mean to be controlling, and some of these feel to me more like “honest compromises” like I know you are busy, but if I sent you a message and asked a question that needed a timely reply and you read it and didn’t get back to me, am I not allowed to be upset by that? Is it controlling to express that I am hurt or angry or frustrated? Or is it controlling to ask me not to be and just go along with however the other person wanted me to handle it? I don’t think it is always a black and white issue.

Even if the friend in question is controlling in general, they may not even realise that you feel controlled by them. And I do have to question if we allow ourselves to be controlled somewhat to avoid a confrontation at times because it is easier. I know I do. So can I blame someone for pushing their way on me when I don’t put up a fight? And is it ever a compromise? Does a compromise have to be nobody getting their way instead of just one person? Like, if I agree to travel to a friends house although I didn’t want to, because that was what they wanted, with an agreement that they would come to me next time, is that a compromise? Or is that just them insisting that we could only meet at their house and me submitting to control? Would a compromise be us both travelling half the distance although neither of us wanted to travel be a compromise? That way nobody got what they wanted and nobody is especially happy, but it was a sacrifice for both?

Some of the ways I have found friends controlling, have been correcting me when I identify myself, for example telling me as I am married to a man and am also attracted to women that this makes me bisexual, even if I don’t identify that way. Or purchasing me food or drinks when I did not request them, regardless of if I wanted them or not. Or pressuring me to buy the clothes they think I look good in even if I wasn’t so sure about them myself. The biggest way might just be expecting me to carry on with things the way they are because that is the way they have always been and my friend doesn’t want it to change, even if I do.

Some of these acts might be innocent, and well intentioned. Maybe I really did look great in that maxi dress, even though I don’t wear maxi dresses because I don’t like them. My friend was just encouraging me to break out of my comfort zone, and I felt uncomfortable and pressured, then I label it as controlling instead of just saying “No, it would be a waste of money because I know I would never wear it, maxi dresses are more your style.” The friend may continue to try and convince me I looked wonderful and I should change my mind, but I don’t have to feel pressured, I have a choice to listen and nod along and feel pressured, or to just tell them they are wasting their breath as my decision is made and moving the conversation along.

I think the issue really stems with the fact that having boundaries is uncomfortable. We don’t want confrontation unnecessarily and we don’t want rejection. So we allow ourselves to do things to keep the peace, such as buying the dress and returning it later instead of just addressing the situation head on. When we feel controlled we get defensive as a natural response and want to say “back off.” Instead we really need to push through that and have a more calm and measured approach, reacting from a place of logic instead of emotion.

Things quickly become patterns if we allow them to. So when a friend purchases me a food item I didn’t request, my first thing should be “Thank you, that was a kind gesture, but please, in future I would rather make my own choices around food.” (NOT “You shouldn’t have done that how dare you make choices for me, how controlling of you!)  Next time that friend would think twice before making the same mistake, whereas if I politely accept and just think to myself that I didn’t want this, nothing will change. The friend may push, insisting that you deserved a treat even if you didn’t want one or that they wanted to surprise you, but again, all you have to repeat is that you would rather they didn’t. If the behaviour repeats, you remind them of the boundary, and next time you are together say “remember I will order for myself, please don’t order anything for me.”

Of course, you run the risk then, of your friend thinking you are being controlling! But at the end of the day, the only person we can control is ourselves, and once you master that, you will not feel controlled by anyone ever again!  Thoughts?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Can Dogs and Cats be Friends?

The last few weeks I have written about friends who are driven and triggered by fears of abandonment, or engulfment. To read those articles, click the respective links. If you already read them, you are probably eager to get today’s instalment, because believe it or not, these 2 groups of people are usually drawn to one another. (It all comes down to childhood trauma and attachment styles, but I will let the professionals deal with that.)

People with fears of abandonment can be likened to puppy dogs. They are playful, happy to see you and dependent. They may cower if you abuse them, but they need you and they don’t give up easily, still wagging their tail relentlessly when their owner gets home. They also pine when their owner leaves and have an uncanny ability to play the victim with their big sad eyes and persistent whining. No matter how much you play with them, they don’t tire, they want more. They make demands for attention and although they are fun and cute, you need to get on with life, you need them to sleep, to leave you in peace! You feel guilty even thinking it, because they really are sweet and loveable and you wish you could just play with them all day, but that isn’t realistic and eventually you tire of them even if their affection for you only grows with each pat. The dog thinks you are a god.

People with fear of engulfment can be likened to cats, metaphorically speaking. They prefer not to be approached, and save affection for only a chosen and trusted few. They run away if chased and like things to be calm and quiet and routine. The do not hesitate to let you know when they are displeased with you and will lash out with no notice. They will only chase things to play with them and torture them. They enjoy tormenting you, they enjoy chasing much more than catching. Everything is on their terms, they make the demands and you lowly servants submit to those demands without question. They know you love them, because they are a god! But when they choose to sit on your lap, you feel special, like you really earned it, as a chosen one. When they let out those deep purrs, there is a sense of satisfaction like no other, and when they fall on you it is an honour that they trusted you enough. When they let you scratch their belly, you know you are in! Alas, they will never settle, never stop chasing shiny things and they will never put your needs ahead of their own, intuitive as they are and as much as they love you, their basic nature is independent and you must accept and embrace that.

What typically happens is that a friendly but lonely puppy sees a cat. “A friend” he exclaims, bounding over excitedly to say hello. The cat stops, arches it’s back and growls at this overbearing creature “We are not friends” it hisses before running away. “But wait, the dog calls after it, I love you, I just want to play and have fun!” The more the cat runs away, the more the dog wants to chase it to prove it’s inherent worth and joyfulness. The dog then sees the cat another day, chasing after a mouse. The dog is confused. Why does the cat chase the mouse to play, when he is right there, begging to play. What is so good about the mouse?

The dog brings a shiny bone to impress the cat, but it turns away in disgust. The dog offers to share food with the cat but it turns up it’s nose. The dog growls at other dogs to protect the cat, but it does not thank him. No matter what the dog does, he cannot earn the respect of the cat. He wants it too much and that scares the cat away.

Giving up, the dog starts playing with the kids at the park instead. They throw the ball and laugh and are indifferent to the cat. They are friends. The cat sees this and wonders why the human is friends with the dog. What quality does the dog possess that the cat missed? The cat starts to feel they have made a mistake. They got quite used to the dog trying to get their attention, in fact, maybe she actually quite liked him grovelling at her feet. Walking away and not trying has got the cat’s attention. The cat goes to the park where the boy is playing with the dog. The boy throws the ball and it lands near the cat. The dog approaches much more hesitantly, it knows the reception wont be warm. The cat does not react when he takes the ball from right beside her! The dog notices but is too scared to say hello and runs back to the boy. The cat swishes her tail in annoyance, why wasn’t anyone paying attention to her. To get some attention, she chases a bug nearby, hoping to impress the boy and the dog, and lure them over to see her catch.

It works, the boy wants to see the bug the cat has masterfully caught, and she si proud as he delights in her success. The dog takes this opportunity to sniff the cat’s bum. This is too much, too soon, and she swats him away. He runs off yelping and the boy follows. She feels both relieved and sad at the same time. Even she can’t explain why she wants the attention, then when she has it she gets uncomfortable and pushes it away. This pattern continues until the dog learns to approach the cat, and just sit next to her. Look the other way, spend time together, alone.

After a year of the dog laying quietly by the cat, one cold day, she cuddles up next to him. He doesn’t react, he lays his head on the ground. She licks his ear and his tail wags the tiniest amount. She lets out a purr. They are friends. The cat still chases mice with an excitement that the dog does not understand, and the boy still plays with the dog in a way that makes the cat a little bit jealous, however together they lay, still, warm, cosy, safe, predictable. The dog is loyal, protective and grateful for her attention. He feels rewarded for all the time he tried. The cat is caring, loving, she grooms the dog, she trusts him enough to depend on him for warmth, she seeks him out. He has learned not to seek her out, he observes her body language, if she did not catch a mouse that day, to leave her alone, she has had a bad day. He will lay near her favourite spot and wait for her to decide if she would like his company and if she does not, he sleeps peacefully alone. The cat has learned when the boy has not played with the dog he gets sad and lonely. His tail doesn’t wag as much and he stares out the window. She loves him, she doesn’t want him to be sad, so she lays with him more those days and sometimes lets him chase her.

Let’s remember that cats and dogs are “enemies,” essentially because each is afraid of the other. The dog will always be a dog. The cat will always be a cat. They can’t expect the other to be anything but what they are, but they must learn to speak each other’s language. What’s interesting about people that isn’t applicable in real animals, is that we swap roles. We are 2 sides of the same coin. So when the dog gives up, they take on the role of the cat, disinterested, cold, aloof. The cat then must play the role of the dog, they must warm up, chase, get the dog to be a dog again. This can become a cycle of hot and cold, cat and mouse. A dance where the dog steps forward and the cat steps back. When the dog steps back, the cat steps forward. It feels like they are moving, however all they are doing is maintaining the distance between them. In order to really progress, they must be still.

Cats and dogs can be the best of friends, if they learn to understand, tolerate and not be frightened of one another. They both really want to be safe and loved, they just don’t always know how, because they don’t speak the same language. The dog will rush but needs to slow down. The cat will run, but needs to stay still. You both have to control your emotions and trust in the other, and be patient. Very patient. Understand what triggers each other and how and why. It really is that simple!

I think you might find the friendship world is literally raining cats and dogs!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Avoidant or Afraid of Engulfment?

Disclaimer: This post carries on from last weeks post relating to fears of abandonment. As stated in that post, I am not a qualified mental health professional or medical professional. This post is personal opinion only. Should you need help for these issues, I strongly encourage you to seek professional guidance to heal yourself.

Last week we explored people with fear of abandonment and I know some of you could relate, be it in regards to a friend or yourself. I also know some of you couldn’t think of anything worse. You thought the idea of them sounded smothering and needy and repulsive in fact. Why would anyone try that hard to be your friend? Why would anyone even want to be your friend? You are a self proclaimed hard ass and proud of it. You haven’t got time for that rubbish, right?

Welcome dear readers, you are probably avoidant, or maybe your friend is avoidant. No matter what you do, these people do not want to let you in. Closeness is a weakness and they will fight you every step of the way. They are independent, often career or results driven and can at times be seen as abrupt, rude, flaky or inconsiderate. They are often late when they do show up and they seem to hold you at a distance. You somehow always sense a resistance from them, like they don’t like you or they have better things to do.

That’s not to say they never put their guard down and connect with you. They do, and it feels so rewarding when you finally see a glimpse of their inner workings, so you are unprepared and hurt when they are cold again the next minute. Like your moment of connection never happened at all or meant nothing. These people can be self depreciating, yet no matter how much you try and build them up, their low opinion of themselves sticks. Alternatively they can be full of themselves, always taking every opportunity to tell you how great they are, acting as if they could care less what anyone thinks of them. They don’t need anybody else.

This is because they have a fear of engulfment. Which basically means fear of entering a friendship or relationship with a person who depends on them to the detriment of them depending on themselves. They are so afraid of caring about your needs, it is a full time job caring for their own. They can’t do both, even if they want to. They do want to, of course, but they must put their own needs first, or they cannot survive. They will never ask you, nor anyone else in their life to help them, they will never depend on anyone but themselves. It is safer that way you see, because people will only fail and let them down anyway, so it is best not to ask. They have long ago accepted that nobody cares about their needs and nobody will.

From the very first meeting these friends are somewhat cold and standoffish. They may well be the coolest most well put together person in any room, however, laughing nonchalantly with fine wine and designer clothes. They can seem intimidating and out of reach. They are far more interested in rubbing shoulders with people above them than being polite to the wait staff. Even if they are not directly rude, there may be an air of hierarchy about them as they make petty demands to command status.

Interestingly, you may notice when talking to a senior, someone they respect as higher on the food chain than themselves, they may show a vulnerability that you wouldn’t expect based on your own encounters with them. You somehow always wish they respected and cared for you the way they do for those in positions of power. Ironically those are the people least interested in giving them the validation they crave whereas you do try but it is almost inconsequential to them. They do not care what you think of them if it is of no significant value in their life.

Emotional displays may embarrass or disgust them, gifts will be accepted then tossed or laughed at behind your back and somehow you will feel lucky for what little time and attention they have to offer. It will be hard to set boundaries with these people because they are flighty. They already have one foot out the door anyway. You may feel unable to express if they have hurt you or let you down and they will not hesitate to minimise your emotional responses to their bad behaviour. Be prepared to be told you are over reacting and that what you feel is silly. Plans change, they casually tell you after ditching you again at the last minute or standing you up, you should grow up and get a life.

These friends are the first to call you needy if you try to plan something in advance or brush you off if they have already seen you once that month. They don’t hold much time for friends, there is always something more productive to do. Family will either be their main priority or they will have cut ties entirely. There is very little middle ground.

While our friends who fear abandonment seek to connect and push to keep that connection real, our friends who are scared of engulfment already know that plan is futile. Nobody will stay. Nobody really cares. Everyone will leave, so you best get in first. In fact they go one step further and try avoiding connections in the first place because then it doesn’t hurt when they inevitably leave or fail you in other devastating ways. They have been used for personal gain and they will use others for theirs too, so you better have something to offer if you want any of their time or attention.

The contradiction is of course, that they too are human, and they too just want to be seen and loved and accepted. The reason you see a more vulnerable side of them with people of power or influence is because they desperately crave acceptance and success. The pursuit is endless, because it never brings them the love they really crave. The same love that could save them they actually reject. Being loved scares them too much, being hurt destroys them and they despise being weak or pitied.

So if your friend is avoidant, they actually need the same things as your friend who fears abandonment. They need slow consistency. They will push you away as a test time and time again, and you will need patience and persistence to teach them that you are safe, that you will not leave or disappoint them. You must praise and adore them, yes, but casually in small measure. They must feel as if your respect was to be earned or it was worthless to begin with. They need space. They need to feel you aren’t depending on them because nothing will turn them off sooner. They want to see that you are fine without them, or they will be scared away. They do care about you and how you feel, but they cannot and will not care too much too soon. That is a burden they cannot carry. You must prove you can handle your own emotions.

These friends are more practical. They will help you solve life problems, but your emotions are your own. They are not interested in them and will not accept any accountability for how you feel about something they did. No matter what they did, how you feel is your responsibility to handle and if you cannot they will walk away. This is because they cannot fail, or their ego will fracture, so you must tolerate much coldness to teach them you are a safe place to be warm. Although they push you away, they really want to know you will not leave. Don’t chase them, just be there for them. Allow them to come and go, to be hot and cold. Remain yourself, consistently warm. Unaffected. Slowly, over many years, they will grow to trust you, although it will be easy to scare them off and trigger their fierce independence by big emotional displays, positive or negative, although mostly negative.

They want to feel good enough for you which is ironic as they treat you like you are not good enough for them. They want to be loved as flawed individuals, without letting anyone see that they are flawed. Measured praise and limited criticism is the best route to follow with  this friend. It wont be quick or easy, but it will be worth it. As when you earn a place in their heart and their life, you’re generally there forever.

So what if you and your friend have opposite fears? One of you fears abandonment and the other fears engulfment? Tune in next week to dance our way through it!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Afraid of Abandonment?

This post is about fears or triggers. It may help you understand yourself and your own behaviour or that of your friend. This is a topic of interest, however I am not a qualified psychologist and am not writing this piece as advice. If you feel you may suffer from fears of abandonment and you would like professional guidance on healing from this, I encourage you to seek help from your trusted health professional for a referral to a psychologist.

People who suffer from fears of abandonment come on strong as friends initially. They put maximum effort into being well liked, and will be on their best behaviour. They will be fun, charming and encouraging. They will be supportive and caring. They will make invitations and buy gifts and listen and observe you closely. This is so they can find out what  it is that you want to see in order for them to show you just that!

So you might find these friends, initially at least, seem like the perfect person, someone you have been waiting for or wishing for! If you see them with their other friends however, you might notice some discrepancy in character. How is it that they are the life of the party with you, a joke a minute, but are quite solemn with another friend and quite academic with another? You may just be impressed with how well rounded they seem, or you may start to question if they are just mirroring people.

As humans, we have fairly big ego’s and this tends to mean that who we secretly like the most is ourselves. People with a fear of abandonment therefore, may observe you, and then almost become you. You like sports? Suddenly they have an interest, and study up as much as they can so they can converse with you about it. You consider yourself intellectual? Watch them drop some fancy words into conversation, just enough that they catch your respect. You see what I mean.

If they aren’t mirroring you, their other party trick is still reflecting back to you what it is you want to see. If you’re a champagne tastes person on a beer budget, then watch them flash that brand name watch at you, or even better, give you one that they aren’t using anymore. (Whether it was one they had laying around or one they bought to gift to you but didn’t have a reason to gift.) They see, in this example that you value status and wealth, so they do what they can to offer you just that.

It is easy to get sucked into their whirlwind you see, because these people value being loved above all else. If you love them, you will never leave. You leaving them would be the worst case scenario. Ironically, they fear you might discover their true identity and it wont be good enough for you, so they pretend to be something they are not. You may even question how you are worthy of such a perfect and wonderful individual or why they would bother being friends with you, just a regular person. You may also wonder why they appear to have relationship drama when they are just so nice!

This tends to be because pretending to be something you are not is exhausting, so eventually you start seeing contradictions. It could be small things like them not replacing their phone to the newer level despite pretending to be rich, or bigger things like moodiness when initially they were so fun and upbeat?! But it is always easy for them to brush these things off, by saying they aren’t good with technology, which is feasible, or you may tell yourself everybody has bad days… so you can talk yourself out of seeing what is right infront of your eyes.

People with fear of abandonment often feel they have to manipulate or control you into staying in their life. That is where the rouse comes from in the first place. If they are everything you ever wanted, then you will love them and as long as they keep on showing you they believe you will keep on loving them and find security in thinking you will not leave. They cannot tolerate being alone. Sadly, this tends to make them sensitive to rejection, which will cause you many problems as they will be liable to perceive rejection in most things although there was none intended. The smallest of actions can and usually will be taken personally as a rejection. These are not the friends that you can casually say “I’ll call you back later” to, and then forget to call. This will be perceived as a rejection. Taking that example further, you can expect either a text that asks you if you are upset with them because you didn’t call back, or an angry accusation that you don’t respect them or their time or you would not have forgotten. They wont hesitate to point out that they would never have forgotten to call you back, because you are clearly more important to them than they are to you?!

And this is where the drama ensues. All you want is to be loved the way you are, but suddenly their love feels like it has many conditions to it. And even if you pride yourself on being a good friend, it may seem like you are never good enough, they are never happy. They make it easy and hard to love them all at once, and can and will consume as much of your time and attention as you will allow. This reassures them that you still love them, that they are important to you and that you are not leaving them.

They are probably not even aware that this is happening, it’s not something they have consciously set out to do. They have lost sight of who they are as a person and think even if they knew that it would be a boring person that nobody would bother with. They have chronically low self esteem and even if you didn’t do a single thing wrong, then they will apologise for being not good enough for you and require verbal reassurance. These friends are exhausting.

And so, when you become irritated by the constant drama, tired of reassuring them and frustrated with being accused of not liking them enough, your instinct tells you to pull back, you want space. The more space you try to put in place, the more they fight and chase you. It is almost a test, how far can they push you equates to them how much they can trust you. In essence you see the best and the worst of them all at once, because their best is their worst. To quote Taylor Tomlinson in her Netflix comedy special, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The very behaviour to seek reassurance to prove people wont leave is exactly what makes people leave.

So how should you best handle a friend with fear of abandonment? Consistency and commitment, with boundaries. Do not agree to something you aren’t prepared to actually do, be clear with them about what you can offer and what to expect, and what not to expect. Be patient and reassuring, but do not give more than you can. An example would be telling them that you will call every Tuesday at 8pm, then making it a priority to always call them on Tuesday at 8pm. If you cannot, you need to speak with them in advance and prepare another time to call, so they know they were still important enough to you that you didn’t forget and you also look forward to the call. This is how they feel friendship is reciprocated. They may initially ask for more than a weekly call, but the onus will be on you to set the boundaries and stick to them. If you do, and you remain consistent, in time you will see their genuine imperfect self, and that will be a beautiful thing, because they do not trust most people enough to see. And when they trust your consistent effort and commitment, which takes time, they will feel secure, and the drama will stop, mostly. We do all have bad days and they will still be susceptible to triggers.

The irony is that these friends come on strong, hard and fast, when what they really need is a slow growing consistent, calm and boundaried manner. On the plus side, not giving them what they want often holds their attention better than believing the smoke and mirrors because they really do want to be seen for who they are not who you want them to be.

Does this sound like you or someone you know? Or are you typically more avoidant? If you are, tune in next week for your instalment!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

When a change in circumstance changes everything!

Recently a reader wrote in to me about a dilemma she is facing. She moved away with her best friend not so long ago and somehow living together has made them less close. This was unexpected and painful. But when I thought about most friendship issues, they do seem to revolve largely around big life changes such as these.

People move away, people move in together, people get married, people have kids, people change jobs/hours, people get sick, people retire. All of these changes to a person’s individual life will have a flow on effect to their friendships. And this is the one aspect people don’t tend to consider when they make big choices. Not to say that someone shouldn’t move away for work because their best friend will be sad, but just that we tend to assume that friendships will always be positive and drama free and we are ill equipped or unprepared to deal with issues that arise by our own life choices.

Now, my reader’s dilemma was somewhat different in that they both moved, and they both moved in together, so surely more time together would make them even closer right? Except living with someone allows you to see much more of them than you did previously, and just because you like someone doesn’t mean you can live together. Add other life circumstances like one having a partner in the same city they moved to and one doing long distance and it isn’t hard to see how resentments and expectations build up.

The friend with her partner in the same city may have assumed it was a given for example that Friday night is date night, whereas the one in the long distance pairing may have expected to be included in date night because they perhaps at least expected to be considered. They didn’t have a big network of social ties here, what were they supposed to do? These little things start piling up and soon you are arguing over who did or didn’t do the dishes instead of addressing the real issues.

It seemed to me like the friend who was in a long distance pairing felt they had no choice but to start spending time with a wider network of people, to allow their friend the time and space to continue their relationship. Even if they were invited to date night, nobody really wants to be the permanent third wheel and it may have been triggering to see them together, making their long distance thing seem much lonelier. And so perhaps that friend naturally moves away and starts spending more time with other friends, to protect their fragile heart and ego. Then the coupled up friend feels the distance, but can’t quite articulate it without sounding jealous or possessive. Before it felt like they had a super close best friend (Platonic Life Partner?) and now they don’t have both. So perhaps little stuff that might not have bothered them before (such as aforementioned dishes) become bigger issues as a way to vent frustration.

The thing is that nobody is wrong here. Each is only looking to meet their own needs. But one seems to need more space and the other doesn’t. It isn’t actually personal at all, it’s completely circumstantial. Their circumstances changed and it impacted each of them differently. They both miss the way it was before, however life has moved on, and it can’t be the way it was before.

I feel my reader’s pain, but as I reflect back on my life, so many times an open and honest conversation could possibly have changed things. A conversation cannot change these circumstances, however why are we encouraged to drop friends and accept things instead of talking about how to make our connections more meaningful and sustainable when changes happen.

I know I have at least one friend with whom I have had conversations around circumstantial changes and how to deal with them. Her work schedule has shifted making her much less available. For a while she was letting me know on the day of our catch up’s if she could make it or not. Most often she couldn’t. This was disappointing me and I felt let down each week as I had not made other arrangements in the hope that she would be free. Eventually we had to have a conversation around our expectations. It was no longer realistic to expect we could catch up weekly. The expectation was letting me down and making her feel terrible and guilty too. So now we are more casual about our arrangements, and she will reach out if she is free. If I am also free then I we will make a plan. That’s not to say life never gets in the way, it does, but it’s less disappointing when it isn’t a consistent thing. It isn’t the same as it was before. We don’t see each other as often and that means we have to be more intentional about keeping in touch via messages or reaching out when it has been too long and we feel disconnected, or we simply need each other. If it is important we will make the time. We are still as close as we were before, maybe closer because that resentment is no longer there.

Other times when I have tried to have conversations or when people have tried to talk about changes with me, it hasn’t gone as smoothly and we just left each other’s lives. Was that due to an inability to compromise and adjust? I suspect it was. Don’t make my mistakes dear readers. If circumstances have changed, see what you can do to work around those changes to salvage positive feelings for one another and still meet those needs. You wont still get what you had before, but you will still have a friendship and then if the circumstances change again more favourably in the future, you can still come together again.

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Work together even when life is tearing you apart. Allow each other space to grow, but a safe space to come back to. Talk openly about how you feel without blame or guilt then work together to find a workable solution. And if that isn’t working talk again and try something else. Be understanding of what is impacting each of you individually and don’t take things personally.

A little while back an old friend of mine and I reminisced about friends we had lost over our inability to be flexible, and how we might still be friendly, if not friends, had we been less all or nothing. We wanted things to stay the same, but insisting the impossible instead of asking how we could adapt was our own downfall in the end. We looked at it as less than before and less often feels worse than nothing. But it didn’t have to be less, it could have been meaningful but different if we allowed it to be. The choice is yours. Choose wisely!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Are Platonic Relationships The Same As Friendships or Relationships?

A while back I wrote some pieces on Queer Platonic Relationships. If you are interested in the topic, please read it here. The topic has always interested me, as I have always wondered if I was doing friendships wrong somehow. Mine have always felt somehow more like relationships, with all the intensity and angst to match. That is despite the lack of physical or romantic connection in most cases. It’s not that I don’t think friendships are relationships, I definitely do, I just never got the memo about them being the casual cousin on the relationship tree!

Recently someone shared with me a newspaper article about Platonic Life Partners. Unfortunately I do not know the title of the paper nor the date or author of the piece, however they referenced that platonic life partners often co-exist with romantic life partners. And when I read this, something about it really resonated with me. The article went on to say things I have spoken about on this blog many times, that we cannot expect one person to meet all our needs and friendships often help carry the emotional load. It touched on aspects of the QPR too, how often friends will marry or raise children together, but went on to say, that it is a myth that they always do. Many times infact, both parties will already be in a romantic partnership. It listed 4 myths about the Platonic life partner, they were: That you want to spend all your time together. You need to tell each other everything. You should be friends with their friends. That they always come first.

When I reflect on my own life, I have one friend who definitely fits the brief. Her and I have discussed this several times over the years, that we are somehow in some sort of relationship that isn’t. More than friends, less than lovers, not quite family but still very important. We tend to just say “whatever we are or whatever this is.” Because how could it be a relationship when I am already married and she is not queer? There has never been attraction, or even much physical affection, although we both feel very affectionately towards one another. We have struggled to define it because we do not spend all our time together, tell each other everything, we have separate groups of friends and we do not always put each other first. That and a lack of physical intimacy has us precluded from considering each other any sort of life partner. We both live with significant others.

However, as I look back over the years, this person has helped me raise my babies. I have been on more dates with her than I have ever been on with my husband, and we talk on a much deeper level too. She calls me almost every day, often twice a day and although I don’t notice if she doesn’t call everyday, I hear the silence loudly if a week or 2 passes without a call or much communication. (Unless I know she is away or whatever and expect not to hear from her, because we don’t expect to hear from each other when we are away etc…) We do operate as a partnership in many ways. If she can’t pick up the dogs from daycare, I will get them for her. When I need a curtain rail installed she appears with her toolbox. (My husband works very long hours 6 days a week, so these things never seem to get done by him!) If I need a break from the kids she takes them for the day or accompanies us to the theme park to ride the rides with them when she knows I don’t want to. She comes on family nights out with  the kids, hubby and I, or sometimes tags along on date nights with us. I help her with her work projects, bring her lunch if she forgets and we have keys to each other’s places. I would feel comfortable leaving my kids to her as they have such a strong relationship with her. And as she contemplates children of her own I instinctively know I will be an important person in their life too, and help her to raise them just as she has helped me. I have spent time with her nieces and nephews, they play with my kids. Her mum and I text sometimes. She texts hubby sometimes too. People sometimes ask me if I think they’re having an affair. They aren’t. I know they aren’t. But I’m not sure if I’d mind to be honest, she’s just part of us. I don’t think the revelation would shock me if it happened, and I don’t think it would shock him if her and I were sleeping together either. We aren’t. We never will be. Maybe that’s why it works, because we’re not?

I certainly would not like to live with her, more than a night together and we are sick of the sight of each other. I couldn’t keep up, nor would I want to, with the pace of life she keeps and she would be miserable at my slower pace too. She has friends she calls family and I don’t really know them, and she hasn’t even met some of my closest friends. Most of them actually. We do tell each other most things because of the frequent conversations, but sometimes we do surprise each other with information that was not shared, or turn away from each other for certain topics best shared with other friends. My kids and my husband come first. Her family and her work come first. Yet somehow it works.

My other friendships are perhaps more casual. I expect less of them, less time and less contact. I’m not sure I would say that makes us less close though. They are still more like relationships than friendships, even if they are somewhat more casual in nature. I doubt I could be so casual with them if I didn’t have my platonic life partner and my husband carrying most of the load of me! I can’t even really compare the 2 relationships I have, as I could never foresee a life with my platonic partner the way I do with my husband, and yet I find the idea of a life without her equally painful.

Of course, with it’s highs comes it’s lows. We bicker. We have misunderstandings and miscommunications relatively frequently and the boundaries are always being pushed and pulled and changed to accommodate everything else that surrounds each of us individually that impacts “us” relationally. There is sometimes jealousy, and making enough time for a separate relationship without hurting your other relationships also has it’s challenges!

But what struck me when I read the article, was just that validation of the “thing” that we are. It is a thing. It is possible. It is important. It does matter. It isn’t an affair, emotional or otherwise. And I suspect many more of us may be in this type of relationship we cannot articulate without even really knowing. Thinking we are unique and special. Or that these types of friendships only happen in movies. But they don’t. They are real, they are happening all around us. And I would like to add another myth to the list. That these people have to have been childhood or lifelong friends. They don’t. Mine wasn’t. But I knew almost immediately that I loved her, and she felt it too in a way that was perhaps more scary and perplexing for a heterosexual woman.

Sometimes you meet another one, after you meet the one, a special one. One that you can have right alongside your chosen one. One that you didn’t know you needed until you met them. One that you aren’t married to and don’t want to be. But one that you are committed to and will always be. And now you have the language to describe it and explain it. Apart from saying of course that you found the secret to having your cake and eating it too!

Are you in a Platonic Partnership? Do you have a romantic or primary partner too? Are they comfortable with things? What have been your experiences? Highs and Lows? Comment below or head to facebook, or share your stories here

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Which one of us is the bad influence?

When you are thinking “I like you, but I don’t like myself when I am with you!”

One friend in particular comes to mind when I write this post, but I think we probably all have one of these friends. The type we really do enjoy, but that our mother’s would probably call a bad influence! Are they a bad influence? Yes! They are. But aren’t we all in some small way to someone?

Recently a friend was telling me about a conversation they were having with their partner, and their partner commented that they were probably being a bad influence by bringing cupcakes into the house. However my friend told them it was infact me who had influenced them to eat cupcakes because there was a new flavour in town and I couldn’t get enough of them! I guess it came up in conversation more than once until my friend was eating said cupcakes and feeling bad about it afterwards! This is a minor infraction, if you ask me, as I never insisted that she try the cakes. But I guess I made them sound as delicious as they were! Haha

If you happened to be on a serious health kick, perhaps the infraction would hold more weight, but that still isn’t really what I am talking about. The friend who pressures you to drink too much, even though you are having a great time, or the friend who has you in stitches but at other peoples expense is more the friendship I am trying to describe. The person you really enjoy, however, doesn’t bring out the best in you. The friend who doesn’t take you seriously when you try to be better.

These friends are probably not bad people, they just have an agenda of fun, and they know how to have it. The best jokes are the least appropriate after all and most people do have a better time drunk than sober. The tastiest cupcakes are filled with calories too! That isn’t my fault! Haha The question remains, are you bad for one another?

Sometimes, yes, you probably are. You probably shouldn’t have had that last drink but they bought it for you and you felt you then had to drink it. You didn’t want to eat the cupcake but they were having a rough day and didn’t want to eat alone. You probably shouldn’t have said that hilarious but mean thing about the person sitting in front of you in the theatre. You definitely should try to encourage each other to be better and do better.

I think it is important though, not to blame your friend too much for your choices. Nobody forced your hand. Although they may have swayed the odds in their favour of getting the desired results, you could have been better even if they weren’t going to be. Also nobody is perfect. That person sitting in front of you probably also made a nasty joke about you too.

If you think this is becoming a big life problem, then yes, I think you should distance yourself from that friend. If you can balance the bad with the good that is even better. Encourage your friend to drink a glass of water between drinks, make an effort to say something kind to or about someone as often as you make a snide remark and maybe split the cupcake between you. You are the only person who is in control of yourself and you should be accountable for yourself. Maybe you are every bit as bad as them! So if you introduce healthier strategies, you are being the change you want to see in yourself and leading by example.

It is easy to think in extremes and blame others for our own choices. It is harder to take accountability and make changes. But a good friendship should be able to withstand some balancing changes, and a frank discussion about how you feel bad about yourself after time with them! Not an accusation, but an invitation to brainstorm ways to still enjoy each other but in healthier ways. Go to comedy shows where you laugh at other people’s horrible jokes but say more positive things yourself in your own life. Catch up for activities that aren’t centred around alcohol, or food.

There is only a problem if the ONLY way you can connect with this person is via unhealthy or self-destructive means. If that is the case, take your mother’s advice and move on!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Fade out or Fracture?

Sometimes you can feel it when a friendship has reached it’s shelf life. It’s not that you don’t like your friend, or that they have done anything wrong in particular, you just feel deep down that you don’t really have much in common anymore, or you don’t find the return of the investment versus the time you put into it to balance.

Most of the time this is not a decision a person comes to lightly. It is a feeling long before it becomes a thought and then it stays a thought for some time before any action is taken. Most of us do consider ways we could improve the connection, or consider the circumstances and if they are likely to change. However, sometimes the simple fact of the matter is that you have outgrown each other and the things that once brought you together no longer exist!

It is ok to let friendships go. For all you know, your friend might be feeling the exact same way. Nobody wants to catch up with a friend because they feel they have to. And nobody wants to be that obligatory friend either. The question at this point has often changed from not if you should let them go, but how and when you should let them go.

We will start with the when, because that might be the easiest place to start. The longer you leave it, the harder it gets and the heavier you feel about it. Not to mention the resentment that starts building inside which may cause you to actually be “looking” for any small infractions as reasons to end the friendship. This almost always backfires, by the way, and usually becomes pretty obvious if you break up with a lifetime friend over something minor like they accidentally smashed your favourite mug. So the sooner you do this, the better. The only exception is if your friend is going through some major drama in their life outside of you, such as the death of a loved one, loss of a job, health crisis or any other number of circumstances that would otherwise make their life harder than it needs to be.

Other circumstances are not a good reason to postpone your exit from their life, such as a birthday, Christmas or other celebration/event, held tickets to an upcoming show or event etc… There will never be an ideal moment. Life is an ongoing roster of these types of things and if you are using them as excuses to postpone, perhaps you aren’t really ready or don’t actually want to end it. Or maybe you are just frightened of confrontation!

If you are, the slow fade out method may be for you. This is when you slowly put more and more distance between yourself and your friend. You’re too busy to catch up, you check in less and less over time, slowly stop responding to messages or don’t carry the conversation on when you get them. If you are lucky perhaps, your friend might not even notice. Or they might be grateful you appear to be on the same page and no conversation is ever even necessary! This is so good because if you bump into each other in 5 years and suddenly you both have kids or dogs or some other factor in common the door is still open to reconnect without awkwardness or hurt.

However, more often than not, the feeling is not mutual. And that is why you have thought about it for so long! You aren’t a monster! You don’t want to hurt them, you just don’t really want to be their friend anymore. Except there is no friendly way to say that to someone, as it is an unfriendly feeling! So what are your options?

The first one is to ask for some space. If your friend respects boundaries and picks up what you are putting down, they will probably leave you well alone after this and understand the status quo. So you explain to your friend that you have some big things going on in your life, and you need to focus on other things and so you wont be around as much, but that it isn’t personal. Then you proceed to take space. If they contact you, you take weeks to respond with vague apologies and more busy excuses. You do this until they stop bothering to try and move on with their life. This is effective, but does require them to give up eventually and it will play on your conscience.

Sometimes though, no matter how hard you try, the friend just wont take the hint. If you are going through some things, they want to be there for you to support you even if that isn’t what you want and if you try to explain it accusations will be thrown about you pushing them away. Which is your cue to be honest and real and tell them that yes, they are right, you are pushing them away and that is what you feel you need right now. Thank your friend for their understanding and patience, wish them well and explain that this is about you not about themselves.

It wont always be received well. Initially a person will not understand what is happening. When messages go unanswered they may start calling and asking if you are ok. You will start feeling super guilty each time you ignore them, and if you have ever been ghosted, you will know that leaving without a trace and without a word can be traumatic. You don’t want your friend wondering what they did wrong for the rest of their lives, when the truth was that you just weren’t feeling it anymore.

They will ask for reasons and examples, and will probably bargain with you to try and fix things. Remind yourself that although this is frustrating if your mind is made up, that you owe them the conversation and that they obviously still care enough to try. It is hard when one party makes a decision for you both that impacts both parties. Give them time to process the information and allow them to be upset. You are probably not the right person to console them though.

The other option is to get in first, before the questions and calls start coming. It may be the cowards way out, but this is most often done by method of the written word. Letter, email, direct message or text. This is usually executed after a few unanswered communications from them but before they have started to worry that anything is wrong.

In this final correspondence, try to think more about them than yourself. Write about their good qualities, the fond memories you hold of them and always will. Explain your reasons if you can, but try to avoid blame. Keep your reasons about you, and what you want for your future, and not about what was lacking in them. Tell them you are not in a place to offer them the type of friendship that meets their needs and that they do deserve someone that can. Thank them for being part of your life story and wish them all the best for the future. But make it clear that you are ending the friendship. They may or may not respond, you cannot control that, but you do not need to respond or even read it if they do.

Just remember if you do send the dear john letter, it will be shown to others, and one day when you bump into them, you may live to regret it. It could make things for your future self a bit more awkward and complicated. Then again, that may never happen or you may never care if it does. We have to live for today as tomorrow is never guaranteed is it?

So do what you need to do in the kindest way you can, and know within yourself sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind and that one unkind action does not make you an unkind person. Friendships are mean to be voluntary and authentic, and if you are stringing someone along out of obligation, that is neither. So it’s not really a friendship anyway and you’ll both feel better eventually after you cut it off!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The Fill In Friend

When someone wrote in to tell me about a best friend situation, it was one I felt I could relate to, from both sides of the story! The gist of the story goes like this. You are sitting around minding your own business, and then suddenly you meet them. You quickly become besties and you don’t even know how you were getting by without this friendship before. Time flies when you are having fun, so before you know it a year or 2 has passed and you feel pretty secure with bestie. You have talked about your lives, and you are aware of a friend they had in the past, with whom they have lost contact for some reason. You have swept it under the carpet and haven’t given it too much thought, figuring their loss is your gain! Then, somewhat suddenly they rekindle their former friendship with bestie and you find yourself feeling cast aside and used! Were you ever friends, or were you just a placeholder or fill in for this other person during their leave of absence from bestie’s life?

I don’t know if this is good or bad news, but this certainly does happen, at the end of the day. But it isn’t as simple as that, well, not while it is happening anyway. I am going to draw on my own experiences here, and hope that it helps uncomplicate the complicated.

I have lost friends, and it hurts, especially when they were lifelong, or extremely close friends. When I have been in this situation, naturally it seems like a good plan to make new friends! I tend to be a pretty friendly person, and don’t always struggle to make new connections if I want to. And after a loss, the soil is pretty fertile to sew new seeds. Perhaps the best way to describe it is a serial friendship monogamist? From one straight to the next because I like connecting with people and building those in jokes and other intimacies, creating memories and having that person in your corner to turn to.

When I make these connections, they are not fill in’s. They are genuine and so are all the feelings involved! And as friendships are not monogamous, despite my earlier reference, if old friends come back into play, having new friends won’t deter me from rekindling old connections. It is always my genuine intention to maintain all of the connections, however life doesn’t always work that way does it?

Sometimes old connections are easy to get lost in, because they are established and patterns and habits fall back into step so naturally you hardly realise it. Not to mention when you reconnect with people after some time apart, you want to spend time together catching up on all the wonderful  things that you missed!

I think it is also important to point out that one person only has so much time at their disposal, and so when you add more people, the slice of time for each person gets smaller. I have found that this can be particularly hard for newer friends to withstand. It can indeed create jealousy and insecurity, rightly or wrongly. Friends can be possessive too sometimes!

Other times, depending on where you are at with your newer connections, you may have just hit that spot where the honeymoon phase is over, and you start seeing the person in a different light. The more time you spend with someone, the more you get to know them and discover all their quirks and bad habits that rub you the wrong way. If your old friend happens to re-enter your life at a moment when you are already questioning your friendship with the new person, that can be enough to make the newest foundation crack under the pressure of comparison.

Or it is also possible that because you were vulnerable and lonely when you met the new person, you were determined to make it work and cling to a friendship that wasn’t quite the right fit for you, but you felt better about letting it go when you weren’t so lonely. I didn’t say it was right, only that it is true.

In different circumstances you may have misunderstood a lifelong connection with a friendship fling, the type that starts hot and heavy but usually burns itself out pretty quickly too.

I actually once had a friend whose life was a bit of a revolving door of phases. One month she was besties with person A, but then they upset her and it was on to person B etc… eventually person A would walk back through the door and the cycle would start again. But we don’t always see this about our friends, as we want to believe the best in them!

What I can tell you is that if you have lost a friend recently and it has left you wondering if you were just a fill in all along, is that you weren’t. Not intentionally. Your friendship was real. Your friend didn’t have a crystal ball. They couldn’t predict the future. They didn’t know their old friend would resurface, they thought it was over. They really believed you were the next best thing, and nobody can take away the memories you made together! That means something.

If your friend went back to their ex friend, and left you in the dust, and you have tried to salvage the relationship without success, please don’t allow this to tarnish other good connections with good people out there. No relationship comes with any guarantees. People are worth the risk. The right ones will stay. Or maybe they will come back in time. Only you can decide what is right for you.

Friendships really do ebb and flow, and come and go. Most people already know this and are ok with it. Don’t feel badly if you are still learning! I am too, that is why I write this blog, because the struggle is real! But it is also worth it! Friends forever or friends fornever, all my friends have been essentially good people I was lucky to have known and shared a part of myself with.

Please stop trying to tell yourself things are worthless or unreal if they don’t last. Please don’t give up on yourself or friendships in general. Live and learn, that is all you really can do anyway. If someone wants to leave your life, hold the door open for them. Then, later you can decide if you want to open it again should they knock. But don’t be putting any locks on, as you will only lock yourself in trying to lock others out!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Railroading Resentment

Sometimes we want something so much, that we kind of railroad our friends into things they weren’t really interested in doing. The concert you really wanted to see and didn’t want to go alone, so you guilted them into going with you even though tickets were expensive and you know they don’t like that genre of music? That pub crawl you dragged them along on, knowing they don’t drink, because then they are the perfect designated driver? That dress they couldn’t afford because it matched yours and how cute you were going to look?

I suspect most of us are guilty of this from time to time, and our friends give in because they love us and turn a blind eye, knowing that we now owe them a similar favour. These are minor infractions, generally done with harmless intent. However other times, the railroading is much bigger than we care to admit and it leaves us feeling resentful.

I had a friend once who would regularly agree to catch up with the kids, then suddenly have to leave because she had a migraine, and leave her children with me for the day so she could sleep it off. I felt I couldn’t really say no, she knew I didn’t have other plans, as she was my plans. Then I would feel resentful that I got tricked into babysitting, again, when I did not offer or want to babysit her kids. Her idea of friends was “other nice mums who do things for each other.” So this behaviour never seemed out of place to her and she didn’t seem to feel bad about it. I let resentment brew for far too long before I spoke up, but even once I did, the requests kept coming. I felt railroaded.

In another instance I told a friend I was trying to be mindful of my eating and I would prefer we arrange our get togethers outside of food. She said I was being unreasonable and food was an important and unavoidable part of life, and flat out refused to comply with my request, saying I could order a salad and she would be supportive of healthier choices. I suggested meeting for coffee, instead of lunch, seeing movies (where she could eat as much as she wanted to but I would refrain), walking around the shops, and just meeting at our houses instead of going out. And she’d agree. But inevitably there would be some reason why we had to grab lunch after the movie, or worse, she would cancel the movie, say she was busy and only available for lunch. If I wanted to see my friend, it had to include food. Not only did I become resentful, because I felt unheard, and railroaded, but I also started to question if our time together was about me, or if it was only that she wanted to go out to lunch once a week and needed someone to do it with?

In a third example, I asked my friend to be more present with me during our time together. I asked her not to be on her phone all the time and engage with me more fully. This friend insisted that they could pay better attention to me while they were busy with their hands playing games on their phone. And to be fair, when I quizzed her after a movie we watched together , she could answer my questions about the plot lines, characters and subtexts although she was playing games on her phone the whole time. However, it soon slipped back to “I just need to quickly email this person at work.” Or “I just have to call my mother back as she has been trying to reach me all morning” (And you were too busy with someone else to take her call but I am not important enough for the same courtesy?) Or “I just have to buy this item on ebay/marketplace/gumtree before someone else snaps it up.” And then we are right back where we started as she spends the entire time on the phone communicating with everyone but me!

Exasperated I complained to my psychologist that my friends don’t listen to me or respect my boundaries and that I always seem to end up going along with whatever it is everybody else wants to do, feeling unheard and disrespected and resentful. I admit, I suppose I wanted sympathy and for someone to agree that I was being railroaded! But that isn’t what I got. What I got was a question. “What was I going to do about it?” And there in lies the problem with resentment. I was resentful of them for my own behaviour. For my own inability to stand my ground. I could have stopped agreeing to hanging out with any of these people as I know what to expect and I don’t like it. I could have insisted the first person take her kids with her when she left and said I was going to make alternative arrangements if she was unwell. I could have attended restaurants with my second friend without ordering anything, but being happy to meet and chat. Alternatively I could be just as stubborn and say I can’t meet with you at lunch, only morning or afternoon coffee. I could have told my last friend it seemed like she was too busy to spend quality time and to let me know when she was more available. I could have said no to her playing games as a compromise to begin with when it wasn’t what I wanted.

I could have done lots of things. Instead, I let it go and let it go because I don’t want big confrontations. I know my friends will insist, push their views and aren’t interested in compromising, so I feel if I want it to work then it must be me who makes the compromise. Because I like these people. I wanted to still be friendly with them. But I wanted them to change so I didn’t have to.

I admit I have not quite conquered this yet. One friendship didn’t last the distance as a result, and the other 2 still push my boundaries. But I am getting better at controlling myself, and my expectations. I accept my friends want what they want from me and if I am unable or unwilling to change, then nothing will change as I cannot control them. I am doing better at just meeting the one friend for coffee instead of a meal or just eating less if I do agree to a lunch. I am getting better at accepting an hour with my phubbing friend (phone snubbing) where she can be more present than a few hours when she feels she needs to be productive and doesn’t have a few to waste.

But more than that, when I choose not to direct my resentment towards them, I start to feel more compassionate and understanding of why they are the way that they are. Of how stressed they each are about different things and I feel grateful I am not burdened with that stress. I understand my friend who cares for her entire family all the time just wants one nice hot meal out of the house away from anyone wanting anything for her, and I can’t really begrudge her that. (Although I can still choose not to eat.) I understand my other friend keeps herself busy to escape her demons and feel useful in a world where she is unsure of her worth and value if there is nothing to show for it at the end of each minute. I am grateful I do not live under such pressure and the need to escape myself and avoid my own thoughts. (Although I could be busier too, as we all have demons!)

When we understand that resentment is about a situation and that we contribute to that situation, if we don’t want to change, why should they? We can control how much we are railroaded. And we can acknowledge how resentment tends to unfairly colour our thoughts about our friends in very unfriendly ways.

It isn’t perfect, but it is a start. Control yourself, not others. Set your own boundaries and stick with them! But it doesn’t have to be concrete or inflexible. Most of the time maybe I wont meet for lunch, but if I feel like lunch that day then why not? Or find a restaurant I am happy to eat at after assessing the menu and meet there.

The only person who can really railroad you is yourself. Think about that, and turn that resentment into action! What can you do o change things?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Friends, and Friendships Matter!

Have you ever entertained the deep dark thought that you don’t matter to the people around you? Have you ever entered a crowded room and felt invisible? Have you ever tried to speak in a group setting and found you were ignored, spoken over or simply not invited to speak? Like nobody held space for you to share? Have you ever felt forgotten or insignificant when yours is the birthday nobody remembers or yours are the texts that go unread or unanswered? Have you ever felt like people only want to talk to you, for you to listen to them but not listen to you? Have you ever felt like people only want to speak to you when they want something, or that you have to be useful to people to continue your place in their life?

I am willing to bet that most people can say yes to at least one or two of these extreme dark thoughts. Thoughts which can be confused with facts if you aren’t too careful. But if most of us have felt at one time or another that we don’t matter to the people around us, it is more than just a problem on a personal level. It means people haven’t always treated us with like we matter to them, and that means we have also probably treated other people like they don’t matter to us either.

To think that there were times our nearest and dearest felt like they didn’t matter to us hurts, doesn’t it? Because of course they matter, even at those moments when you didn’t do much to show it, they still mattered, right?! That said, it is probably also true that we could all do a little more to show people that they matter. Not just to us, but just that they matter.

Listen when they need to talk, and don’t turn the conversation back onto yourself. Ask more questions. Follow up a while later to see how things have progressed. Greet them warmly when you see them and express how happy you are to be in their company. Make a date to get together again in the future. Answer messages, and send them sometimes too. Put a reminder in your phone at least once a week to do something to show people that they matter. Send a card, deliver flowers or a meal, buy an item they mentioned they needed. Every week, think of something you can do to let someone know that they matter to you, that you thought of them, that you like and love them.

Friends matter, friendships matter, and letting them know that they matter, matters! Our friendships are one of the ways that we all use to confirm to ourselves and each other that we care and that we matter. It is hugely important to the human psyche to feel that you matter. Which is different of course from knowing that you matter. I like to hope that most of us do know that we matter, inherently. Like we matter to our family etc…. but even outside of that external source, we matter.

So instead of using that feeling that we all get from time to time to dwell on how little we matter, we can choose to reach out to others and remind them that they matter to us. Because letting people know that they matter, is just as important for reminding yourself we are all interconnected. We all matter. We feel good when we give to others. Not to mention that often when you give, you receive. Or we reach out to speak to a good friend, to let them know we have been feeling down, to ask for help. People would rather know you needed help than having you waiting while getting sadder and sadder because they didn’t think to offer!

Covid and all the social distancing and isolation hasn’t helped. It hasn’t been healthy for us mentally. It is easy to forget we are all part of something bigger when our worlds have gotten so much smaller. It’s easier to allow the thoughts and feelings to seem like facts and go on an evidence hunt, keeping score of what we have done versus what others have not done for us. It’s easier to become so insular with your housemates that you forget about the people who maybe don’t have any. It is easy to escape your fears in work and projects and forget about other people.

But just because it is easy, doesn’t make it right. So we all need to work together in both remembering that we matter, and trusting that our friends are just a bit busy to remind us, and also making that extra effort to intentionally let people know they matter. To spend an hour a week dedicated to reaching out to people, planning nice words, gestures or surprises for them. Just because they matter. Reminding ourselves that we matter, our friends matter and that our friendships do matter too!

Words are a powerful tool. Just reaching out to tell someone how much they matter for no other reason but you care and you wanted to remind them is a good start. Just make sure your words and actions match. It is not enough to tell someone that they matter and not do anything that supports those words. So yes, by all means, send the message, but when they respond, really listen, and if there is anything you can do, however small, do it.

Mattering Matters!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Are you needy or do you simply need reciprocation in your friendships?

This is one of those posts that may be wildly popular and unpopular all at once. Because most of us have a needy friend, and most of us don’t consider ourselves needy. That said, it is probably also true that most of us have a friend who considers us as their needy friend, even if we aren’t actually aware of it!

So what does it feel like to be the needy friend? This may help you identify if you are or if you have a friend that is! It feels like one person is always the initiator. They always call first, text first, make invitations first and make plans first. They often wonder, quietly to themselves, if they stopped reaching out, would their friend even notice? Would they care? Would they be relieved? Would they reach out? It can feel like the other person is doing you some sort of favour by spending any of their precious time on you, even if what you are doing is actually servicing them in some way. It can feel like they don’t care, like they aren’t really listening to you, remembering the details or asking you questions about your life. It can be quite a painful and confusing experience. You love your friend and they are enjoyable to be around, when they are around…. Except it feels like they never are around all that much.

Alternatively, this is what it feels like if you have a needy friend. They never give you a chance to miss them. They reach out frequently, like as soon as they see you online you get the messages hitting your inbox. They call at least twice a week and push you to hang out and make plans every weekend at least. Although you enjoy them, somehow you always feel pressured. There is a sense of uneasiness when you see their name on your screen, AGAIN! You feel frustrated and annoyed because you are busy and never feel anything you offer is enough to satisfy them! Do they not realise you have a life? You are busy, you have work deadlines, family, a house to run and partner to tend to. You like hanging out with your friend, and you honestly wish you had more time for it, but short of early retirement, you don’t foresee that happening!

So here is the real eye opener, no matter what side of the fence you fall on! Your needy friend is not needy. Your needy friend simply needs, reciprocation! It is human nature to feel insecure if you don’t feel your effort and energy is being reciprocated. Nobody likes feeling that they are begging for someone’s attention or that they are somehow not good enough for anybody else. Particularly in friendship where those physical attractions do not play any role. And nobody is so busy that they can’t possibly make some time, because the truth is that people will make time for what is important to them.

Consider your busy schedule as it is, then consider that a family member (child/spouse/parent/sibling) becomes unwell and needs regular treatment at the hospital for 3 hours 3 times a week? You make time, things get done, and the world keeps spinning. Now that is an EXTREME example, but my point is the same. If you really wanted to, you could squeeze more time out of your schedule. Consider that you are currently single, but still busy with work, extended family, a house and kids or pets etc…. Then you meet a potential romantic partner….. suddenly you are making time for someone new, because you are invested and you want this person in your life. Hanging out with them is a priority, right? As it should be, of course!

However, this is what your needy friend craves. They want someone who seeks them out. They want to feel important enough to you that you would want to make time for them. They really like you enough to make time for you, regardless of what else they have going on. (To be fair, circumstances do tend to play a role here. If you have a large close knit family, a job that requires quite a lot of work in your own time, a house that requires a lot of maintenance and a partner who is also home on weekends etc…. you will find that you have less disposable time than someone with a smaller, less close family, in an established home that requires little attention, a job that you leave in the office, and a partner who works FIFO or shift work including nights and weekends etc…)

Your needy friend doesn’t want to make you feel bad, just as you don’t want to make them feel bad either! You probably cherish low maintenance friends who you can go for months without seeing and spend an hour together and for that to be enough to keep your friendship solid for the next year! On the other hand, your needy friend feels disconnected if that effort to keep in touch is lacking.

So here is the part of the piece that neither side is going to like very much. The truth is, you and your needy friend probably just aren’t all that compatible. You are giving as much as you are willing to give and they still feel like something is lacking. They feel disappointed if you only spend an hour together on the weekend and honestly don’t appreciate that you had to move mountains to make that hour happen. On the other hand, they feel underappreciated, ignored and, well, needy! Haha If you are the needy friend, please understand, you are not asking for too much, you are just asking for too much from certain people.

Your friendship is reciprocated, but your efforts are not. So stop making the effort, and find people you are more compatible with to make the effort for! That doesn’t mean ditching your less needy friends, but it means filling your social time with people who have the same desire as you for a stronger more consistent connection. You will all feel better if you do! And hey, maybe there is a small chance your less needy friends will miss you, and actually start making some more effort to keep you around.

What it comes down to is that some people don’t prioritise friendships, either because they do not have the time or they do not have the inclination. If you feel like the needy friend, then you probably do value and prioritise it, and that is wonderful, as long as you find your tribe of others who do too! As I said in the beginning of this post, most of us do have a needy friend (even if we also feel like the needy one to someone else!) Those are your people. Go where the love is. And if you don’t like those friends as much for whatever reason, your mission becomes to make new ones that you do like as much, who will make time for you.

We all deserve reciprocation, it is just about finding it where it lies and not trying to force it where it does not. There are more compatible matches out there for you, so find them! Every moment you waste chasing the attention of someone with none to offer, is a moment lost with a potential new friend who is also waiting for you to come into their lives!

Find your people and ease and reciprocation will follow.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Boundaries after the break up

What is the appropriate way to handle a situation when you have had a helluva heated argument with a friend, and then you have to associate, personally in a group or professionally? We read a lot these days about boundaries; both instating them and respecting the ones others instate! But what if we have different boundaries or ideas about how to behave?

What if one person instates a boundary that they do not wish to talk to their friend. That they will be polite, say hello, share necessary details, and otherwise avoid them. However their friend has opposing views or feelings, in their eyes, it is acceptable to make small talk, to appear to be friendly even if they are no longer friends. Does that mean that the second person is disrespecting the boundaries of the first?

Is there an appropriate course of action to take? If someone knows you don’t want to engage with them, and yet they continue pushing you into it, is this a violation of your boundaries? If they know they are putting you in a position to act against your values, by engaging with them deliberately in unwelcome small talk, is this ok?

Let’s say Danielle and Mary have an irreparable fracture in their friendship, however they are both part of a larger social circle that congregates in group settings often. Danielle does not wish to engage with Mary at all. She will say hello, however does not feel the need to talk about the weather with Mary. She would rather avoid all interactions. Mary however, feels embarrassed by their friendship fracture. She is insecure the rest of the group will side with Danielle. So at the next few group events, Mary goes out of her way to be friendly to Danielle. She always approaches Danielle to say hello when she arrives and she insists on lingering, trying to make polite small talk about the weather or the traffic or asking the whereabouts of other members.

This makes Danielle very uncomfortable and puts her in the precarious position of entertaining the charade or risk facing the judgement of the others if she is rude to Mary. It feels like a power play to Danielle. Mary knows she is making Danielle uncomfortable and yet persists.

Mary feels it is important to take the high road, she doesn’t want to appear petty to the group and she doesn’t want the silent tension affecting the rest of the group. She doesn’t really want to talk to Danielle either, but she feels it is the mature thing to do. This way, if Danielle refuses to engage with her, or if she is rude to Mary, it reflects poorly on Danielle and not on Mary.

Danielle has no desire to make Mary look bad to the group, she just doesn’t want to pretend that her and Mary are still friendly, when they are not. She is happy to acknowledge Mary, however she feels it is pointless to engage in needless conversations about nothing, when it would otherwise be appropriate and not uncomfortable for silence to stay between them.

Each time Danielle arrives at a function, Mary ill approach her directly and say hello. She goes out of her way to do this. It isn’t necessary, Danielle feels, as nobody would have noticed had she slipped into the room without greeting Mary, particularly if a group hello would have been fine. Mary insists on asking how traffic was, and if Bianca is coming, does Danielle know.

Danielle is annoyed. Mary could ask any of the other members about Bianca. Mary knows that Bianca and Danielle are not particularly close and there is no reason to expect Danielle would know anything about it. Why didn’t Mary ask Charlotte where Bianca is? They are close?

MARY “Hi Danielle, you’re late, was there a traffic accident on the way? Bianca isn’t here yet either, so I wondered if you were travelling together… obviously not. Do you know why she isn’t here?”

DANIELLE (loudly addressing the group) “Hello everyone! I Have arrived! No traffic or disasters, just unorganised as always! Charlotte, I see Bianca is not here tonight, is everything ok with her?”

Mary sits back down at the table next to Sheila and starts expressing frustration about Danielle, how that was very rude of her, how immature it was to snub her in front of the group like that. Danielle sits away from Mary near Charlotte and continues a conversation about Bianca, who isn’t here tonight because she is babysitting her niece tonight. She makes no mention of Mary.

Later in the evening Sheila approaches Danielle and asks why she didn’t talk to Mary. Danielle tells her they had a falling out, and she doesn’t wish to discuss the details, but would prefer to steer clear of Mary for her own wellbeing and for the sake of the group. Sheila says that Mary is upset and perhaps Danielle could talk to her. Danielle asks Sheila about her husband, who recently had surgery, and Sheila respects Danielle’s boundaries enough to let it slide.

Is Mary talking to Danielle as a power play? Is Mary disrespecting Danielle’s boundaries? Is Danielle being rude to Mary by refusing to engage her directly? Is that a power play? Is Danielle disrespecting Mary’s boundaries by refusing to “join her on the high road?”

I think sometimes common sense is required. I think Mary should not have made a fuss of Danielle’s arrival. When she failed to do that, I think Danielle could have addressed her directly and said “Hi Mary. Traffic was fine, you know me, I am always late! I have no idea about Bianca, you should ask Charlotte. But please don’t do this again in future, there is no need for us to pretend. I would prefer you didn’t engage me directly if at all possible, and I will return the favour. I’m certain you understand. Enjoy your night.” Mary should not have said anything about it to Sheila and it didn’t have to make the group uncomfortable.

Boundaries are rigid, whereas life requires flexibility. There is no reason both women couldn’t engage in a group conversation, however there was also no urgent need for them to directly conversate either. People don’t stop existing when we break up with them. We probably will see them and we probably will have to be cordial when we do. However there is no need to push people to talk needlessly, as there is no need to completely ignore someone either.

Both parties have to have some level of maturity to handle this in the best interests of the group, the greater good and not themselves. If they cannot do this, perhaps the group is better off without both of them?!

Thoughts?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Sharing is Caring

Last week I spoke about remembering to be a part of a team as much as you remember to have a team of friends around you. I spoke of the importance of knowing your role, of trusting your value, and of knowing when to allow space for your friends to turn to their other team mates.

That got me thinking about my friends other people more closely. While I contemplated that they may need to spend time laughing with their funny friend, or cuddling with their affectionate one, for example, it also means that they are members of other teams. It means their other friends may call on them to be of service, taking them away from me temporarily, and from themselves somewhat too.

I have one friend who prides herself on being the helpful teammate. If you need someone to drive you to the airport at 2am, you don’t have to ask, she’ll offer. If you need a curtain rail installed, she can do that. If you need something from the shops, she’ll get it for you. If you need a babysitter, she’ll volunteer. I recognise this is her way of getting validation, helping and being useful to others. Showing off her skills. Paying for your friendship. She’s the first to say “why didn’t you ask me?” if she finds out you called a plumber for a leaky tap, or cancelled plans because you couldn’t get a sitter.

I love this about my friend. I love what a jack of all trades she is, and how helpful she truly is in her heart of hearts. I have learned to depend on her for practical things and to accept emotional things aren’t her strong point. What has been harder to accept, if I am honest, is how her usefulness keeps her so busy, and unavailable to an extent.

That sounds ungrateful, doesn’t it? When you consider how much she has done for me, it kinda is, I know! But hear me out. Sure, she’ll swing by and fix your tap and pick up your kid, then take your kid with her to grab someone else’s kid too then take them both to the hardware store to go to her other friends place to hang that curtain rail, before shooting off from there, 2 kids in tow to pick up that friend who needs a ride to the airport. Then she’ll drop your kid home, but she can’t stay, she has to drop the other one home too, then meet someone else at the park to walk the dogs!

This makes her a strange blend of dependable but somewhat unreliable. She’ll be late, undoubtedly, because if she can fit in an errand for someone else on the way to you she will. There are always people asking her for everything, and she is never the type to say no. It also means, she is never really present. Any time you’re with her, she’ll be on the phone, 100% of the time, and, often running errands. Her other team members are relentless!

But I never really stopped to think, that when she isn’t with me, I am just as relentless as they are. Everyone is pushing and pulling for a piece of her, all the time. Now feels like an appropriate time to mention that it goes both ways. Myself, and her other teammates also do things for her, and she has a long list of things she needs help with too. Some help her with yard work, or caring for the pets when she is away, or doing electrical work at her house. Personally, I’m more helpful with her day job, or grabbing things for her at the shops if she needs it, or doing those airport runs.

Being part of her team will give you the same in return as whatever you invest. It isn’t without reward. That said, it has been difficult for me to accept and understand that quality time is not something she’s really able to offer. I spent much time wondering what was so good about all the other people in her life that they got more of her than I do. It took me a long time to understand that they don’t. None of us do.

It always felt somehow, and it still does sometimes, if I am being honest, like her other team members were on some executive level I could never reach. Like mine were the only calls that went unanswered, or like I was the only one not invited to the proverbial party. Yet, she said to me the other day in casual conversation that her best male friend had been upset that he suggested plans and she was busy with me. He had remarked that I monopolised her time and kept him from her. I was honestly shocked. It never occurred to me that he saw me as any sort of competition. Or that he also felt like she was unavailable to him and was looking for someone else to blame.

We are all saying this and failing to notice the only person she never gets time for is herself!

The truth is, neither of us get as much of her as we would like. Nobody does. For whatever reason, she likes it that way. Or maybe she doesn’t, but regardless, that’s just how she is. I didn’t like the feeling that her friend felt resentment towards me. I hadn’t tried to keep her away from him, I knew how important he was to her. I long ago accepted he was somewhat more like family to her in a way I know I will never be, in a way I am not capable of being, or interested in being!

What struck me too, as I contemplated this, was that although she goes out of her way to help us all, in return all we do is make her feel like it is never enough. All she wants, deep down, I know, is to please us all. An impossible dream no matter what your friend number! So, I had to learn, sharing her is caring for her.

What this means is I ask for less. Less time, less favours, less attention. I expect and allow her other people to take up what space I do manage to create for us, or, I free her of obligation to me if I cannot tolerate their presence. I notice, for example that she made time for every other person in her world this Easter, except me. And I smile as she calls to tell me all about her adventures. I help arrange chocolate free egg hunts for the youngsters of her other people, commented her house was perfect for hosting garden parties and asked questions about how her people were.

I have to choose to see how all this brought such happiness to my friend, and be happy for her that it did. She doesn’t need more pressure to make time for me too. I know she will make time when she gets a moment, and I owe it to us to wait for my turn. For now, she needs to be around her other people… the ones who are family to her. Easter is a time for family after all. That isn’t me, and that is ok. I’ll answer when she calls to tell me how they all irritated her, just like a good friend does.

When it’s my turn, and she’s on the phone to them, I’ll smile, in awe that she takes such good care of her people and how much she takes on for everyone else, and I will tell her she is amazing. Because caring for her means sharing her, and recognising everyone on her team is equal, there is just so many of us that there isn’t much left to go around. When she isn’t tending to me, I will know that she is tending to her other people, and I will remind myself that she is a wonderful friend, to us ALL.

Sharing, as it turns out, really is caring!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx