AITAH for ending a friendship because my friend wouldn’t stop calling me impulsive?
UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your feedback.
ORIGINAL:
A few decades ago, my friend was in an abusive marriage, and she got sued by her ex-husband for slander. She said he was able to win because he comes from a powerful family.
The injustice disgusted me, and I just said as a hypothetical question, I wondered what would happen if she ever said to him you know one day when you die and you have your life review you gonna regret it how you treated your former wife? And she started panicking, thinking I was going to ask him, when I clearly wrote to her what would he do? If she asked him, I don’t even know his name or where he lives. She said she understood I was asking about her, but for some reason she felt I might just go and ask him.
Anyways, I corrected her and said no I would was not going to do that and then she started saying I was impulsive. And I said to her, can you give me some examples where I was impulsive? At first she couldn’t, but the next day she told me I was impulsive with how I handled my mom’s paralegal a few years ago.
I was surprised she called me impulsive for that. I reminded her you know the paralegal tried to pressure us to sell mom‘s house with her friend who was a real estate agent but she kept telling us we could never get over $155,000.for the house. But Mom was already working with us popular real estate agent who said the house could easily get 200,000 and the house did indeed get $195,000. I didn’t say anything at that point but when the paralegal became my mom’s power of attorney and Mom wrote her a letter asking for her just to be power of attorney at one of her banks instead of both of our banks, the paralegal started accusing me of being the one to put the idea in my mom’s head. I had nothing to do with it. The lawyer said that she could have my mom put in memory care and then nobody would be able to touch her money and only a guardian could control it. I told the paralegal that sounds like she’s being unprofessional and threatening this out of anger. When my mom asked her about this, she lied to my mom and said she never threatened to put Mom in memory care or to get mom a guardian. For the past year or two the paralegal had been saying my mom is a sharpest person at her independent elderly apartment complex, so this definitely felt like she was overstepping and doing this out of anger.
Mom was confused because the paralegal denied ever saying any of it, so I asked her boss in an email if the paralegal was discussing my mom go to memory care or get a guardian and he confirmed that she did. So I gave the email to my mom. When I talk to a paralegal association, they recommended. I report the paralegal to an attorney general so I reported her to the Attorney General. Nothing really came of it anyway anyways. But Mom did get a new power of attorney with a different elder care lawyer who has been nothing but professional.
So I asked my friend how was I impulsive in this situation? And she couldn’t exactly explain why. I told her that maybe her definition of impulsive is kind of loose and maybe what she means is I’m confrontational? I said to her impulsive generally means I take actions without thinking of the consequences, especially if emotional. So I told her if she can’t think of any examples and please stop saying I’m impulsive. And she told me she was going to double down that I’m impulsive and I said that sounds really odd if you want to keep a friendship with me. We should try to understand each other and be supportive to each other. Then she started telling me that sometimes people know you best and you should listen, I said I understand that, but you’re the only one saying I’m impulsive and you can’t give any specific examples so maybe you should stop calling me or labeling me that for now.
Anyways, she kept telling me to go reflect until I could understand what she was saying and I said I have taken time to reflect and it’s not gonna change how I feel and I didn’t think it was nice that she’s not willing to budge a little bit in her definition of impulsive, especially makes me not feel good that she keeps pushing this label on me. After days of talks, it just kept going in circles so I told her I was going to leave WhatsApp and I left. I simply deleted the app because she was the only person I talk there and every day I was reading her messages and I just felt like I was being pressured into accepting the label of impulsive.
I did let her know on Facebook. I appreciated her, but we’re just not getting along right now and should take some time. In Facebook, she wrote man. She said she will not call me and pulse up to my face, but she still believed I was impulsive and she said in fact, when I left WhatsApp, she felt that was impulsive. I felt like she’s just adding oil to a fire. Normally, she’s a really nice person, there was some other incidents where she was very pushy to me and some other relatives and they ended up cutting her off. Her two brothers and half brother also cut her off and when she went in her divorce, her father took the side of the husband saying his daughter was irrational. At the time, I thought it was absolutely ludicrous how these people could be so mean to such a sweet person. But it did make me start to wonder if maybe I was seeing some of the patterns that maybe made them feel that way.
Anyways, I told her, she knows how I feel about the word impulsive and here she is doing it again. I said when I left a WhatsApp, I took a few days to think about it, and I came to the conclusion I didn’t want to just block her because that cuts off all avenues, but that since we couldn’t stop going back-and-forth, I just was stressed out and wanted her to stop. So I deleted the app and just gave her a kind little message and Facebook so she didn’t feel all avenues were gone. Normally, we don’t talk on Facebook. But I just felt hesitant to come to WhatsApp each day just to be forced to agree that I’m impulsive. It just didn’t feel like a nice friendship.
I explained to her that this is what I’m talking about. She’s making assumptions and not realizing that thought went behind my decision and I was aware of the consequences. But it just didn’t matter to her and she said stop forcing me to accept your definition of impulsive. And I said, but I gave you a screenshot of the dictionary definition of the word impulsive. And she says you’re not going to force me to accept that as the only definition. And I said well, you don’t you can’t force me to accept you as my friend when we can’t even reach understanding on a kind way.
She told me she was getting tired of this topic and sometimes we need to accept things. We don’t want. I told her I don’t want to continue this friendship. I told her I just felt that anytime. I do something that she wouldn’t do. I’m constantly gonna be given this label of impulsive and it doesn’t make me feel good or feel very healthy. I said friends should lift each other up. I heard her the first time when she commented that she felt I was impulsive and even asked for some examples so I could reflect on it. And that was it.
I really didn’t want to write all this long thing and waste anyone’s time, but the situation made me feel a bit sad and confused and a bit angry at her.
Thank you for any feedback.