Help me see this clearly: adult friendship, mixed signals, discard
My friend (50F) and I (48M) haven't spoken in over a month. I'm moving through the grieving process and some days I feel close to forgiveness. Some days, like today, I get lost in the weeds again and I think it might help to put it all down cleanly and see what people have to say.
We've known each other for over twenty years and always had great chemistry, and according to her I've seen her clearly in ways others didn't. Fifteen years ago, the vibe between us started edging toward romance but she set off my alarm bells. She'd be amazingly present one minute and another seemed to forget I existed. We both backed off, but stayed friends. Soon after that I met my wife.
Over the years we'd see each other and sometimes I'd feel that romantic vibe again. It wasn't always there and I didn't understand why it popped up, or why it was so dysregulating for me when it did. It's not like she's better looking, or gets me better than my wife, and I've been good friends with many very attractive women without it being a problem. I was confused and felt guilty about it. When we drifted apart it felt easier to let it stay that way.
My wife and I explored non monogamy and I discovered I could experience a much wider array of emotional connections than I'd previously allowed myself. My sense of connection with my old friend had never really gone away. It somehow felt incomplete. Then in therapy, I began working on why I give my power away with certain people and I recognized that I'd done that with her in the past. With this new capacity and new skill set, I reached out.
She was in rough shape. She was three years removed from an abusive relationship but still wrecked by the fact that the guy had left her, and she was unpacking the ways her parents had fucked her up. I told her I wanted to support her as she built herself back up. I told her that I felt a strong connection between us, that sometimes in the past it had been confusing for me, and I made it clear I just wanted a platonic friendship (I was still attracted to her but my emotions around her were already intense enough and she herself was a mess - physical intimacy was obviously not a good idea).
She was fully on board. We hung out a lot, talked on the phone for hours, all that good stuff. It was juicy and meaningful. We were really good for each other and we had a LOT of fun. I was thrilled that she was accepting of my strong feelings and reciprocated them. I discovered that what I really wanted outside my marriage was the thrill of seeing and being seen in ways that inspire both people.
At the same time, it never felt stable. I experienced euphoric highs after we'd hang out and sometimes get these strange, obsessive anxieties when she'd not text for a week. I worked on it, in therapy and on my own. I discovered attachment theory and realized that this person triggered anxious attachment in me.
I had a sense that if I stopped making all the effort or said the wrong thing the relationship would just evaporate. There was always this sense that the real, solid, reliable connection was just around the corner. She called me her best friend, she used the term "platonic life partner," she told me over and over again how important I was to her. But somehow I felt like something that could be walked away from easily. I was waiting to feel truly integrated into her life.
One night she talked about how people always ask her to do things for them and she says yes but doesn't do them. She mentioned a project she had said she'd help me with, and told me she'd never even looked at it. But I hadn't asked her to help me with that - she had offered, aggressively, talking about how easy it would be for her to just do the thing for me. I noted that she seemed to have rewritten the story so that it was me asking her, not her volunteering, but didn't comment on it at the time.
Four or five months in, my checking in with her because she needed support started to feel more like me chasing her because I needed validation - but I was aware of it and my texting was tightly controlled. I would resist the temptation to double text unless several days had gone by. I was working on my bullshit on my own, not wanting it to affect the friendship, and I wasn't overtly seeking reassurance - but I have no idea how much of that anxious energy she could sense. Around this same time, she seemed to be less available, or less interested in making an effort. I can't possibly say whether I was reacting to her behavior or if my shift came first.
Eventually I realized the energy I was putting into her felt more like a drain than an investment, so I stopped. With that, I started to see a little more clearly. I thought about all the times she'd said she'd do something for, or with me, and then just never mentioned it again. It felt less like forgetfulness and more like I wasn't a priority. On my birthday instead of just texting Happy Birthday, she said she'd "circle back." A week later she said she felt terrible about it but still planned to circle back. A week after that she invited me over and when I got there said she couldn't believe she'd missed my birthday. I was in her house and she was cooking dinner - she could have stuck a candle in the turkey burgers if she wanted to correct it. It seems so trivial typing it out, the kind of thing that shouldn't be loaded - but I was now seeing it as part of a larger trend of lip service in place of effort. She also dropped into the conversation, unprompted and out of nowhere, that sometimes she gets "bad at texting." Then she asked me how she was doing as a friend.
I still don't know what to make of all that. All piled up at once, it felt to me like she knew what she was doing and was challenging me to accept being taken for granted. I didn't call it out that way but it's still how it looks when I think back.
I said, "sometimes you say you're gonna do something and I look forward to it, and when you don't, it doesn't feel good." I gave some examples. I wasn't an angry asshole but when she didn't seem to understand what I was talking about, I did get frustrated. I told her that this behavior had hurt me years ago and made me not sure where I stood with her.
Since we reconnected, she'd been talking about wanting to change and she'd talked a lot about how when she was younger she didn't value people: so I thought she would want to know that she was falling into old patterns. She'd talked a lot about wanting to talk out problems with people she was in relationship with but no one would ever talk things out with her: so I thought for sure she'd talk things out with me. She talked about how another friend once told her it's not how we hurt our friends, it's how we make repair that matters - so I thought she'd make repair.
I'm thinking now, as I write this, that she's told me so many stories over the years of friends who got mad at her and bailed on her - and in the stories, she never understands what they wanted from her. I'm only realizing now that when she told those stories she never once mentioned her part in the conflict. I should have asked.
Anyway, she didn't talk it out, she didn't make repair, she didn't make any effort at all. She iced me out for a month, only texting if I did first, declining any invitation to hang out or talk on the phone. Finally she cancelled a plan we'd had to go to a concert (I had bought her a ticket and she did not offer to pay for it) but said that she'd like to hang out the week after. The concert was a few weeks away so this was adding another month. I think this was when I started to realize I was being discarded because around that time I started feeling grief.
I knew on some level that emotional pleas would fall on deaf ears. Trying to find the right combination of words that would make things normal again or get her to see how simple repair could be was exhausting. I decided again to stop chasing.
Neither of us texted for the next few weeks. In that time, I went to work on myself. Had I been too needy? Had I been an asshole? I went all in on attachment theory, dug into Thais Gibson's videos and courses, learned all these tools for reprogramming anxious attachment, learned how to manage emotions better, how to regulate my nervous system, learned how to figure out what I need and ask for it instead of just presenting hurt feelings and expecting the other person to fix it (it's not like I was totally incompetent at this stuff - I have a very successful 13 year marriage that is also capable of navigating the rough waters of non monogamy - but I knew I could have done better with my friend and I wanted to make sure that when we reconnected again I would).
A week or so after the concert, I texted to let her know I was working on myself, and needed a little more time. I didn't want her to think I was bailing on her. Her response came quickly and wasn't unfriendly. A couple weeks later I asked if she wanted to go for a walk, adding that I had an apology to make but could keep it brief. I wanted to say something about what I'd learned and how I'd like to show up differently. She declined, saying she didn't want to hear an apology because she wasn't offended, since I was asking for fairness and she wants to be fair. She mentioned that a place we'd talked about going together was reopening soon and that she'd found some old artwork of mine in her house. Then she said she needed space for a few weeks cuz she was going away and had to "get her head in the game."
I responded that I know we both have wounds that make close relationships hard, that I hope we can both go easy on ourselves, and that I think it's best if she starts the next conversation.
I was emotionally exhausted from trying to understand the special code to unlock her friendship and I needed to stop - leave the ball in her court while expressing empathy. But between us internet folks - why the fuck do I have to find a special code if we're already close friends? What the fuck is happening?
No response. Nothing since. That was a month ago.
The states I seem to move between are:
"I can forgive her because I understand why she does these things;"
"I fucked up when is she gonna talk to me again so I can take accountability for my actions;"
"I'm so angry, how does she not see that she's never gonna get the change she wants if she keeps making the same choices;"
and
"I don't know what I'm gonna do if she reaches out again. What if she acts like she did nothing wrong? What if she does come with accountability, remorse, and a promise of changed behavior and I still don't want to give her another chance? I promised I wouldn't abandon her!"
Which version of her is the real one? The one who prioritized me for three months or the one who took me for granted and discarded me? Does she care about me or does she not? If she texts me tomorrow with a big apology, what do I do? If I never hear from her again, can I make peace with my own imperfect behavior? AM I THE ONE WHO RUINED THIS????
I'm happy with what we did together. I had a visible, positive effect on her and for my part, I'm healing something really difficult because of her. We had a lot of fun and we shared some genuinely beautiful moments. The connection no longer feels incomplete. I'm grateful for all of it. I feel the attachment less some days. I have a deep bench of amazing people and I'm putting some energy into those connections and being reminded what it feels like when people don't make showing up for you seem like an unwanted obligation. I'm excited to go meet some new people. I'm also fucking sad.