filed in Daily Life
Yesterday Will Be Better
18 months ago, one of my closest friends disappeared from my life. With barely any warning or explanation, someone who I’d spoken to almost every day for years, suddenly withdrew. I fervently tried to get in touch, but he didn’t respond. It was unbelievably painful. We’d had great fun during our 15-year friendship, travelling to Europe and Asia together many times, spending holiday weekends at each other’s homes. We’d shared so many experiences. It wrenched my heart, almost like a death. For that first year, I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t think about him. But just today, I realized it doesn’t hurt anymore.
Art by Anatol Knotek
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FIRST PERSON SINGULAR is a guide to surviving, thriving and sometimes just getting through a single day. Created by Wendy Braitman (more…)
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The slow recovery from a heart ache….It’s good to be reminded that we heal. I still feel for your loss. I wonder if we stop hurting or find a way to integrate it. Maybe there isn’t a difference. Anyway, big kudos for moving through this one.
I think we do a little of both, Jules. Integrating and letting go.
Forgot to say that this artwork is very special and deeply touched me.
Thanks. I’d like to have this on my wall. But it would also be a perfect pillow for a therapist’s office.
Absolutely!
It’s a bitter sweet feeling, that day you wake up and realize you are going to be ok. It is over. A week ago it was 5 months ago “the love of my life” broke up with me. After 3 years together. It was he or nobody. I know that. I am 43. I will have other boyfriends perhaps. But he was the one. 5 days before Christmas I called an old friend to wish him a happy Christmas. Now I have a great new job, will move “back home to my home town”. I Have a new hairstyle, had facial. More fit than ever. career going. Friends calling. And that bitter sweet feeling. That I know am going to be ok. This too did pass. There is drop of sadness in that feeling, of being ok. It means it is really, truly, over. and that life is good again. //J
So glad to hear your success story, Jessica. It’s inspiring.
I’ve recently had that experience. I probably should not have become friends with my former branch chief, but I guess I needed some female guidance so far away from my sisters. I always kept work separate from my friendship with her and I thought everything was fine until she just flat out stopped talking to me. Ran into her once in the hallway and our conversation was short and cold. So be it, I told myself. It hurts, but I let go. I wasn’t going to drive myself insane trying to figure out the reason why she just stopped being a friend.
I’ve never had a friend walk out on me before. It’s shocking, really. Ah, life.
Wow, this brings back a memory that I’ve buried but stings so much. My senior year in college roommate Mike and I were absolute best friends. Finish each other’s sentences type. He has a big extended family (I don’t) so I became fast friends with 6 of his cousins, visited various of them in Savannah and Knoxville, TN. A big annual Fish Party at a local, “Cheers”-type establishment in Clifton, NJ. We traveled on vacation together. We’ve debated the worth-fits of each other’s girl friends. But, over time, he started to, there’s no other way to say it, divorce me. Sure, he got into a live-in relationship with a woman (whom I really like) so his time was challenged…but this was much more standoffish than a relationship-type-of-distancing. Our in person interactions dwindled and those we shared were bloody uncomfortable. The only thing that lessened the blow of this was that it seemed he started pulling away from everyone from college and even his HS friends (with whom he was also super-close). Eventually he got married to the long-time girlfriend (small wedding in Jamaica so I wasn’t invited–not even an issue). Then a kid came along about 3 years ago. We spoke the day the baby came home. Very uncomfortable. Then I offered to come over and see the baby by voice- and e-mail. Never heard back. I did go to his mom’s wake and saw the very cute baby but the whole thing was so forced. That was about 1.5 years ago. Haven’t spoken since, even with another kid now walking the planet. We’re divorced. It’s a big loss, one I could never have imagined, say, 5 years ago. But that’s life.
It’s so weird, Lew. I always thought we were friends for life. Heartbreaking. But somehow, we move on.
Yep, that’s how it works. OTOH I am blessed with a group of great friends, some dating back as far as 1st grade. Mike is the only one of those core friends who divorced me so I’ll consider myself lucky :).
I didn’t realize friends could get divorced. I suppose that makes me lucky too.
And the thing is, I don’t know the grounds for said divorced. As they say in Italian, “allora!” (oh well, in this context)
Sometimes all you can say is, “allora.”
Wendy, I am so sorry this happened to you. The pain of not knowing can be almost unbearable. It’s a terribly cruel and disempowering thing to do to another human being with whom you’re having an Actual Relationship. When someone goes MIA, not only do they leave you holding your own bag of grief, they leave you holding theirs as well. It’s disorienting.
My father did this to me. A man I was seeing last year did this to me. Because it was such a primary wound, it took far longer to get over than he was even worth. I was devastated. It seems to be an almost exclusively male pattern of behavior to leave a relationship like this.
Yes, eventually we do move on…life has a way of doing that. I’m glad the pain has lifted and that even if the gnawing wondering and shock have passed, perhaps one day you will get a clear explanation. Thank you for sharing this here.
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
Thanks, Annie. The not knowing why was the hardest part. Maybe one day I’ll hear the reason. But as of now, I don’t need to. And it feels really good to have moved on.
I lost a long-time close friend last year, and unfortunately, I know exactly why. She decided that she’d like to have my boyfriend for herself, and she got him. It hurt like hell that he cheated on me, but it hurt even more that she would actually consciously make that decision to do something so hurtful to me – I’d always thought that the friends that I had chosen had been people that would hold themselves up to a higher standard than that, so there’s a little bit of self-flagellation for not seeing that potential in her mixed in there, too. I don’t know if it hurts more to know the reasons why someone is now out of our lives or not. But I do take comfort in hearing from you that eventually, the hurt does go away. I’m thankful to know that I’m a lot closer to that now than I was a year ago, because while it does still hurt now, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did then.
So sorry to hear this Stacey. Your ex-friend’s colors true colors came out in the worst of ways.
Stacey, that sounds like a whole lot of pain. Glad to hear that you’re moving through it, day by day.
This kind of reminds me of a wituation I had. I was friends with a woman in college and after college we kept in touch via phone and mail for years.
I would whine to her about my dating life and she would talk about her work and her dating life as well. Well I just stopped hearing from her and I stopped calling as well. Anyway about a year later she sent me an Xmas card and letter informing me that she had gotten married. I was hurt because she did not even tell me she had gotten engaged or even invited me to the wedding. I did not ask her why….
I also have to admit I was jealous that she got married and I was/am still single. we just wouuld talk.Wow,is he ok?
of course over time I have gotten over it. We live a far distance away and friendships fade especially at that distance. We probably had very litte in common and I may have been using her as a sounding board to whine. Probably did not realize we did not have a stong friendship anyway.
As for your friend are you sure he is ok could there be another innocent explanation for his absence?
In my experience, bad news travels fast. If something was wrong, I would’ve heard about it.
Wendy, so sorry that happened to you. What a cruel thing to do to someone. And you can’t deny or suppress that grieving process, which includes a myriad of emotions, all of which must run their course. Thank you for sharing, and confirming that things eventually do become a little easier. All the stories here have been encouraging.
This friend is a photographer, and I have 2 of his photos on my wall. It used to be hard for me to look at them. But now, I’m happy to have the art.
Sometimes it’s a friend breakup, and sometimes it’s something else. I’m incredibly lucky that my friends realized it was something else. I was having a rough time, and it got bad enough that I pulled away. The friends who saw it for what it was dragged me back, and while they saw the worst of me during that time (short temper, lots of crying, and being needier than I ever wanted to be), they basically saved me. Now that I’ve come through the other side, we’re closer than ever. Sure, some friends decided that it was too much work and I was a lost cause. But those who stood beside me and dragged me back up have a great friend who would (and would *have,* before) gone to the ends of the earth to help them.
We need people to have our back, through good times and bad. That’s what makes them real friends.