Close friendships always ending in disaster
I’m 25F and I feel like anytime I have a close friendship with another female, like best friend level, it ends in disaster. I always feel unheard and misunderstood, or like I’m giving too much, or my boundaries aren’t respected. I feel guilty that I can’t keep a close friend other than my partner whom I’ve been with for 6 years and am married to.
The problem is I am very sensitive and it seems when I try to talk about how things hurt me, people will say I’m overreacting, or that it’s something that they would never be bothered by so they can’t understand why it’s an issue for me. Most of the time I get hurt by people not understanding I have a low social battery, and get burnt out a lot and have only recently been able to up my working hours from 18 to 30. The friends I pick seem to want to hang out 2-3 times in a week and I feel guilted or hear a lot of pushback when I can only manage once a week but really I would prefer maybe once every 2-3 weeks because of my social battery. I understand you have to give both ways in order to have a friendship so calling and FaceTime are things I’m open to and love to do multiple times a week.
Recently I got into an argument with my closest friend because she said I was controlling a situation (which she never told me she only told her partner) even though I asked multiple times for her input and opinion. She never communicated with me her opinion, while I was being vocal on mine. I value open and honest communication, which is something that we have been able to do in the past. I later found out that she was extremely upset with me but I had no idea and she never communicated that she was in the moment. I found out later that she was talking poorly about me in my own house. ( her partner was the one that told me)
Anyways, this started a whole argument that also involved her partner, whom I am also close friends with. We all hang out at my house, including my husband too. I was very angry with how things played out, and their partner reached out to me, and I vented to them that I was upset with how she was acting. Immediately, she threateningly messaged me to not speak to her partner, and I do recognize that was wrong for me to do. I was angry, and I didn’t want to take my emotions and anger straight to her, so I was trying to get another’s perspective of the situation and calm down about it before I came in hot at her. I can now understand that was completely inappropriate and something that I should not have done. So I know I am not perfect in all of this, and honestly, I worry I might be manipulative or an extremely bad person. I am aware of triangulation manipulation methods, and I’m scared that it’s something that I did in this situation.
I felt threatened and triggered by the way she texted me, and it opened up my feelings lately about how I’ve been feeling like she doesn’t care about my feelings. I told her I don’t like that she was talking badly about me in my safe space, which I already feel like she is at way too much, which I’ve communicated to her before. She claims I have never set this boundary, even though I have talked about not wanting to hang out as much, and that I have a hard time saying no to things. So when I do say no, she pushes back, and I feel guilted to just go along with the plans anyways. It doesn’t help that this night I was supposed to hang out with my uncle and meet his dog, and she said “fuck uncle **** fuck his dog.” She said this jokingly, but it still made me feel guilty, and I cancelled plans with him so she could come over. Again, my fault for not sticking with my boundaries, but I can’t help but feel violated that she pushes back on them anyways when I say no or that I have other plans.
I told her maybe we should take a break from this friendship or end it if she can’t respect the way I want to communicate (she was saying she only wants to talk on the phone, while I preferred to text out my feelings first as I have a hard time communicating them unless I can reread them and make sure I’m clear with what I’m saying and not being pushed to agree or say something I don’t mean) she guilted me by saying she cannot believe I would even say that and that she would never consider taking a break from our friendship because we are bigger people than this. It felt condescending and again felt like my boundaries were being pushed and violated.
I ended up blocking her because I reminded her I don’t want to talk and I want to take a break and she said that me saying that wasn’t me setting a boundary. I made sure to send a text telling her I don’t want to talk right now and that I feel like we won’t reach a full conclusion so I am taking a break. (This was after being on FaceTime with her trying to work through everything, where I was talked over, talked to condescendingly, got halfhearted apologies by her saying “fine okay!!! It’s not your fault god!!!”, and when I would say I felt a certain way she wanted me to give her exact examples and times that she did something to make me feel that way, when I would tell her when she would tell me that she never said that or that it didn’t happen, or that I’m overreacting)
My husband and therapist both have told me I have a problem where I fall into a parenting role with my close friends. I grew up having to parent my parents and now find myself doing the same in my close friendships. Am I a bad person? Is it bad that I feel so hurt by someone pushing back on me wanting to feel respected, even if it’s something that doesn’t matter to them? I really don’t want to continue this friendship because it’s too much drama for me and I value peaceful time home with my husband and being with my cats, watching YouTube & knitting, working out, and other hobbies which I feel like I haven’t had time for since our friendship has gotten this enmeshed.
I do have other friends and I have two D&D groups I’m apart of, I’m starting to take part in more community clubs, and have been going to more group fitness classes. I don’t have any issues with friendships that are more focused on activities/hobbies/shared interest rather than talking about our emotions every day, and expecting to be hanging out all of the time and having the pressure of being a best friend. I’m thinking going forward I should just keep my friendships at this level.