I had a friend break up with me. We got really close pretty quickly (by my frigid standards for sure), and spent a ton of time together. We shared hobbies and did a load of work. Aside from one or two little quirks, the relationship was fantastic.
And then idk. It just got super fucking toxic. I’m sure I’m at fault somewhere in there, but for the majority it just felt like my friend was going off the deep end and there was nothing I was allowed to say during any conversation that wouldn’t end up in paragraphs of a text later. I spent almost an entire year of wondering what I was doing wrong, of what I could do to help… just anything.
And then I was told Christmas eve that they couldn’t handle it any more and they ghosted.
We ended up having a conversation a few months later but I was basically told I had no emotional value to them anymore. Talk about a punch to the gut.
So yeah. Fucking painful as hell. And I still don’t understand what happened, and I assume I never will. My now partner has been friends with this ex friend since childhood, so I’m concerned about future get togethers. But what can you do
Friend breakups can be so painful! I’m sorry you went through that, especially her harsh words for you later.
Not to diagnose based on a few paragraphs, but you might want to read a bit about borderline personality disorder. I had a similar experience with my most recent ex, and to make a very long story far too short, I eventually felt like I couldn’t talk to them at all without upsetting them or doing something wrong. They were just so insecure and responded excessively to everything I did, no matter how innocuous, being around them was like trying to balance on a bicycle that wasn’t moving, emotionally speaking. I had to filter literally everything through how it would make them feel. I didn’t read up on BPD much at all until after we broke up (fucking hell it was a long messy one), but when I did so many things made more sense. I know that it wasn’t their fault, they have alexithymia (difficult for them to tell what they’re feeling) and have a lot of trauma from past emotional abuse, but it felt like they didn’t even realize how shitty they were being and didn’t make any effort to correct their behavior or show they were working on it at all. They were in therapy the whole time we were together and I’m pretty sure they just presented the most rosy curated “I’m the victim” version of events to their therapist, so it never seemed to really help anything.
I was a mess of a person during my divorce. After 15 years of being forced to stay closeted and having found myself waiting on an ungrateful man in the hopes of some love being returned, I was ravenous for love and attention and fun. And when you’re a bisexual woman at the height of your sexual prowess, well, things can get messy.
I started dating a bisexual man and I helped him come out of the closet with a lot of love and acceptance. We had so much fun dating others together and exploring sexually. I also knew deep down that the relationship wasn’t going to last a long time - too many issues like knowing he dated other women even though he never found them attractive just because he wanted sex, his lack of care for having safe sex, and his alcoholism to name a few.
My own issues of actively going through a divorce and being emotionally unavailable due to that would also doom the relationship.
It felt terrible to finally break it off with him. We’re still in the same friend group and he’s spiraled a bit since our breakup. It’s always sore when a relationship fizzles out.
Currently figuring out how to “break up” with my former best friend.
I’m not going to give every detail here, but basically my former best friend (L) started dating a girl (G) that has been spreading false rumours about me and harassing me.
L has defended G’s claims and berated me about the things I supposedly did, but keeps engaging with me in a friendly manner most of the time, which is very confusing to me.
I also never asked her to choose sides, but G did, and L chose G every single time she forced her to choose. She also showed G our private messages, told her things I thought were clearly supposed to stay private…
G has chased me out of the LGBT association of our school, sent me multiple aggressive messages on purpose when I was in a very bad place emotionally (which almost pushed me over the edge to kms).
I have managed to cut contact with G almost completely, but L is in my class and we still have some projects to complete together…
I will probably have to keep this “friend” around for 3 more weeks and do my best to overlook her behaviour, but once this is over I’m so fucking done with this nonsense…
If anyone has any advice please tell me. This whole situation has been messing me up for months and the only way I have found yo deal with it is isolating myself completely from G, which has also forced me to cut ties with many people who didn’t take an active role in the harassment.
That sounds so hugely impact impactful to deal with, firstly, I’m sorry very sorry you’re going through all that, and I just want to say absolute props to your strength and resilience! You have so much strength and resilience, to be continuing on, throughout all that, and how well you’re handling it all, by minimising contact, from the harm, and no longer engaging with it. Hats off, you’re doing amazing! It’s hard, and it’s such a horrible thing to feel like you’re fighting alone. I hope you do have a few good friends you can pull close. I know it’s hard for younger people to understand that type of manipulative behaviour, so some people who are good friends of yours, might not yet have the maturity to see what g’s doing. They will eventually, if they’re healthy themselves, if they don’t, and while they don’t it is better to keep yourself around healthier minded people, and people who do see it for what it is. The thing I have learned by living through a few of these events, here and there, is those people, who side with abusers, were never true friends, they were always toxic, you just didn’t see it, and you are better off away from them. They might come to realise. But that’s their journey, not yours. You have to make choices for your journey, in this world. You owe it to yourself to show the entity that you are, the best of what’s available to you, on this brief trip in a meat suit, flying around a flaming ball, stuck to a rock, as we are. You’re already doing that, you’re already putting you and your needs first. When you get past this, sit down and look back at, and be proud of the strength and resilience you show, right now. Be so very proud. Moments like these are, sadly, the only times we get to see how truly strong we are. Appreciate it and be proud. And keep looking after yourself, you’re doing everything right. I know it’s hard right now. I promise it gets better. And there might be more rocks like this in the road further up, but you will know you’re capable of managing it, you get to see that right now, how capable you are.
It is an absolutely huge thing to deal with suicidal feelings, I am so very sorry they’re targeting you like that, it is absolutely fine to team in some help, that’s not supposed to be a one person fight, fighting off those feelings. I’ve survived suicidal attempts, myself, and I can personally attest, that therapy and support makes that fight, just a tiny bit easier to get through. So if you’re able to find a good service around you, it’s ok to look after yourself in that way, and take a little of the load off.
Spending hugs and love, friend. Here if your need. Whenever.
I spent 20 years, on and off in a, violent in every way, relationship. He made every breakup a life threatening event, or at very least there was destruction and chaos.
The hard thing about leaving an abusive relationship, is they break down your sense of self, and supplant it with fight or flight survival mechanism motivation, manipulation, to serve their needs, etc, in place of serving your own.
What that looks like is a complete Disconnection from your own emotions and needs, and service to their needs, alone, by severe threat, being held over your head, it’s insidious and built up slowly over long periods of time.
What that means is, you are manipulated by threats to serve their needs so often, that you feel like a catastrophic event is happening if you don’t, and making the decision to leave, doesn’t instantly turn off that multi year’s long brain washing, which, by design, makes it almost impossible to leave, because inherently, you feel like the world is going to end, if you don’t serve their ultra demanding needs, constantly.
Leaving feels like amputating your own arm, with a rusty knife.
But I was spiteful (a good quality, not a bad one, it means you can’t be entirely separated from your sense of self, like any emotion, it’s all about how you utilise it) and suicidal, so I would leave, in spite of that feeling that I was walking into a wall of flames.
What i wish I had known, was all about the honeymoon period. When he came back, all tearful and devoted and promising to change, I wish it had been common knowledge, that’s a part of the manipulation, it’s all a lie. I know that now. But my 20 yo self, could really have used that info. It might have helped me stop letting him back in the door. That and therapy, if therapy was available to me, back then.
My most recent breakup was my hardest by a wide margin. We’d been having major problems for months, and I had tried to end things a few times but they always rushed to try to fix things, and managed to convince me to keep trying every time. I struggle with setting and enforcing boundaries, and they seemed determined to push them or get really disappointed and hurt every time I tried. I realize if I had been more forceful with my boundaries things wouldn’t have gotten so bad…
Anyway we had talked about moving to another city together, so we took a vacation to go there and look at apartments together. I figured I would give it a try. The trip turned out to be a nightmare, and cemented my desire to end the relationship. The shitty part was they had been unemployed for months and didn’t have enough money to pay rent, so a few weeks after our shitty vacation they moved in with me. By the time they did our romantic and sexual relationship was pretty much over, so I had to endure more than 6 months living in a tiny one bedroom apartment with my emotionally unstable unemployed demanding ex while they found a job and an apartment so they could finally leave.
I’ve never been trapped in such a fucked up high stress situation before. I dreaded going home after work. I dreaded going to bed at night (they slept in the same room in a separate bed). I dreaded waking up in the morning and seeing them. I dreaded the next hours long fight, the next stupid fucking thing they would demand we change about my apartment for their comfort. I dreaded the next time they would have an emotional breakdown and coerce me into supporting them emotionally. I could never be alone because they were just always there, and they could never understand how much I needed to be alone, to just not fucking hear them or have to deal with their fucking needs like it was my job. I couldn’t even take refuge in the bathroom, in the shower, the one fucking place people expect some privacy, because they had to pee like every hour and would bang on the door if I took too long. I swear to god I was literally going crazy with them there.
I know they took advantage of my empathy and compassion. I would never push them out on the street. That’s where they would have wound up if I had forced them to leave. Eventually they found a place and left, but we wound up having one last big fight right at the end. I blocked them everywhere I could, and haven’t had any contact for months. Honestly I don’t know if I’ll be able to trust a partner enough to move in with them again, but I hope I will.
I’m so glad you aren’t going through that anymore, and I’m so sorry that happened to you. A home you dread going to isn’t much of a home, and everyone should have a safe place to retreat to.
I hope your currently situation is way more peaceful and that you can get all the rest you deserve after that <3
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