How it feels 1 year later
This is long :(
I want to vent a little bit about a friendship that ended almost a year ago. I tried to keep things vague because including specific details makes me paranoid, but I don’t think it’s completely possible so I’m taking a bit of a risk here.
I was the one who initiated the confrontation, which I don’t usually do. The initial fight was about a situation that went like this:
She invited me to plans and said she wanted to leave at a certain time. I said okay. Next day, at the beginning of the plans, I mentioned I was tired (in a lighthearted way) and confirmed leaving at a specific time. She said okay. The time we agreed to leave rolls around. She asks to stay even longer. I say yes even though I don’t want to, and she can tell. I start looking annoyed (probably), but keep my mouth shut and wait. After a while she says we can go, and when we get outside she looks pissed off and starts ignoring me. I try telling her (calmly) that I wished she would’ve told me at the beginning of the night that she wanted to stay out later, because I would have stayed later for her/gone home earlier on my own/not come in the first place/etc. She ignored me the rest of the way back. I think she was just mad that I didn’t leave on my own. We lived together at the time, and it took 15 minutes to walk back to our apartment from the subway. I didn’t want to do that alone after midnight (it was 12:30-1 am). I don’t know. Maybe that was childish?
Here is where I kind of seek advice. Was I wrong to expect an apology for this? I guess there is more context to our friendship dynamic that can’t fully be explained here, but I still wonder about everything because of how it ended. It was not the first time she acted kind of immature/passive aggressive when things didn’t go her way, and I had never really reacted or defended myself before. I just kind of let it be.
Anyways, when I confronted her she got really upset. Not crying, just anger and defensiveness. I basically explained my confusion/frustration at first, but after she got defensive it turned into a conversation about her anger issues, which only made her more angry (she said she felt judged). She told me that friends need to let things go. And that she was just mad, initially, because I was mad. And then it turned into a conversation about how she wanted a deeper friendship, and she made hurtful unprompted judgments me as a person. Like, malicious comments, not even things that could be considered criticism. I also brought this up right before a really big thing was about to happen for her, and that upset her a lot. Overall she claimed it was bad timing, wrote me a long message the next day about how disrespectful I was, and asked for space.
To be honest, I’m not sure why I got so emotional during the initial confrontation, but I cried a lot. I’m not someone who usually cries, especially not in front of other people. She has a way of talking down to people, I guess, or making me feel small. It was strange because I am not the type of person to be so affected by things like that. I felt like I was losing my mind trying not to offend her, but at the same time I didn’t understand how she could expect me to be fine with being judged, put down, etc…even in a small way. Even the shallowest apology would’ve meant a lot. I wrote her a really long, deep apology afterward. I mean, I really did try.
She kind of just considered it over once I apologized and then admitted that she feels insecure about her friendships. And that was that. Maybe I should’ve been fine with it, I don’t know. I guess I was expecting something more, like, accountable? I don’t know how much is fair to expect from other people.
She asked me to communicate what I needed more in the future. It was very confusing, like the script was being flipped. Suddenly the story was: I was the one who didn’t communicate well, and so it was my fault.
I still feel confused if I was in the right or not. When I write it all out like this, it seems clear to me that she was playing some mind games because of her insecurities. But was it really worth ending everything over? There is more to the story that I’m not including here. But in summary, I tried confronting her again (after being asked if we were good), WAY OVERDID it in a very long message, got ignored for almost two months, finally had a conversation in person with her, finally got a real apology (“i took my anger out on you and i’m sorry”), but also got dismissive comments mixed in (“i didn’t know it was going to be such a big deal”), was blamed for being too emotional because I was “usually so stoic” (well…sure). Was asked if I was over it and if I could just go back to acting like everything was normal.
So then I pretended to be fine with her, moved out of our apartment and never initiated a conversation with her again (didn’t ignore her, just stopped initiating and eventually she got the message).
I still miss her. It all affected me a lot. I didn’t really expect her to reach out to reconnect, but it makes me sad that she hasn’t. I sent an apology to her over New Year’s, just saying that I regret how I handled things and I will always care about her, and hope to see her in the New Year. I got back: thanks for your message! it would be great to see you in the new year too.
Like we were coworkers or something. Yikes.
My (brand new) therapist thinks that she manipulated me into feeling like my reactions to her behavior were unreasonable. My friends (including those that are also friends with her) shared my confusion and frustration and told me that they were on my side…multiple times. But no one really stood up for me in a real way, or told her she was being unfair/hurtful/unreasonable directly. I guess she didn’t do anything HORRIBLE. But no one really challenged her version of reality that much. It always came down to whether I was willing to accept her as she is.
I have childhood friends who are loyal to the bone, and will continue being in my life forever. But still, losing this friend made me feel incredibly alone. I lived with her for three years, shared a lot of interests and memories and laughter. I never expected anything like this to happen. I’ve never lost a friend like this before. I thought she was more…self-aware? Accountable? Mature? I would’ve forgiven absolutely anything.
But then, maybe I was just expecting too much. I overwhelmed her. I don’t really know.
Anyways, if anyone read this far, thanks for your time and I hope that whatever sadness brought you to this subreddit, heals :)