I Demand a Friendship Divorce!

Self-helpy AF!

Sometimes friendships end and we simply must walk away from the bear fight! Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

Welome to an advice column by me, Sara Benincasa, a person with opinions. This column will not diagnose anything. Send questions to me via email at saratoninnewsletter@gmail.com. If I use your question, I’ll change your name and details to protect your privacy as the next vice president of these United States.

Dear Sara,

I have grown to despise my friend of over three decades. It’s an ugly thing to say and I’m not proud of it. I’m overwhelmed by how angry and resentful I feel.

It is my fault for letting this drag out so long. I noticed little problems over the years but excused them or tried to ignore them. It only got worse. If I met her now, I would never befriend her. But our lives are intertwined and I feel stuck.

I used to tell myself she’d get over certain terrible ideas she’d adopted as her own, which I blamed on her husband and his family. I’ve realized I misplaced that blame. She made these choices.

I feel bad about myself and who I’ve become. I have attempted open and honest conversations in the past and they never worked. We live in a small town and it is inevitable that I will run into her. Our social lives and even our family holiday traditions are so intertwined that I don’t know how to get out. What should I do?

— Angrier At Myself Than At Anyone Else

Dear AAMTAAE,

There is a difference between being nice and being kind. Like many of us, you have chosen niceness at the cost of your own mental health and happiness. This is our programming, so I get it. As American women, regardless of how upfront our families teach us to be, the powerful overculture demands sweetness, pleasant smiles, and an aversion to conflict.

Even when we are bold and unafraid of disagreements in the public sphere or in our professional lives, we often put up with bullshit in our personal lives. We think we are supposed to because that’s just what love is. That is not, in fact, what love is.

A lot of us experience physical pain as the result of stress caused by keeping all the feelings stuffed down and smiling smiling smiling. Unclenching can be uncomfortable at first, and there may always be some phantom pain, but it gets better with time. We do heal and move forward, even with regrets.

The kind thing to do, for ourselves and others, is to keep company with those we love and respect. The kind thing to do is to stick to healthy relationships. The kind thing to do is to remove ourselves from the lives of those we cannot stand, to the degree that this is even possible. They don’t need fake friends, and we don’t need to be fake.

The kind thing to do is rarely the easy thing to do.

Your question is a version of a pretty common one. You are not alone in this. Personally, I can relate to the desire to just stay quiet, hoping things will get better or somehow turn into my dream friendship/romantic relationship/professional situation/family dynamic. But now here you are, thirty years in, feeling trapped. You need to make a change.

First, though, allow yourself to calm down. It’s much better to let the heart rate slow, the blood pressure subside, and the breathing return to a normal pace. I say you need to act, and I believe you do, but you do not need to act in haste.

The good news is that you’re not trapped. There are many ways to conclude this relationship, and none of them requires her agreement, acceptance, or understanding. You can break up with her in a brief but firm phone call, email, letter, text, or face-to-face conversation. You can fade away. You can cut her off entirely. You can make a pledge to yourself to only engage with her under certain circumstances, and then stick to that pledge.

Understand that you have no control over how she reacts, as her feelings are her own. You do get to choose how you proceed.

I suggest the following first steps:

1. Read Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People by Lindsay Gibson and/or Codependent No More by Melody Beattie and/or BIFF by Bill Eddy.

2. Talk to your shrink, if you have one. Or get one, if you can.

3. If there is a spiritual and/or meditative practice that sustains you, stay close to it during this time of reflection and planning. Make space for it every day. This can include running or yoga or whatever physical activity helps you stay sane, too.

You can do this. It doesn’t have to happen all at once. It doesn’t need to take the rest of your life, either. Make a plan, consult with a therapist (or, if need be, a trusted friend who does not know this other person at all), do some research, and take good care of yourself.