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Friendships are a lot like marriages in that some are healthy and some are toxic, or unhealthy. But you sound pretty ridiculous explaining to people why you are sad: “Man, I just broke up with a friend, and it’s really painful.” But that is, in essence, what you are doing, and it needs to be treated the same way as a romantic relationship or marriage ending: with a lot of support and nurturing. As friendships develop and evolve, some don’t have all the right ingredients to last. So it’s right and natural that some break. But that period after the split is so awkward, for both people: the breaker-upper, or the breaker-uppee. I’ve sat in both seats.I love the way Anne Morrow Lindbergh talks about friendships in her classic, “Gift from the Sea.” She writes:
I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere.
I love that. Because I’m trying to be more sincere in my relationships. And as I do that I’m finding that some aren’t as healthy as I thought. The only requirement lately that I’ve been asking myself is this: Do I feel empowered by this relationship? Or do I feel deflated? After having coffee or lunch with this person, do I feel better about myself? Does this person build me up? Or do I feel worse about myself? Does this person in some way take away from me?
When I ask that question it reveals to me whether the relationship is toxic or healthy.
Yesterday I was having a discussion with one of my friends about a friendship with which I’m frustrated, and she made a point that helped me understand why some of my relationships can’t be healthy. She said, “It’s hard to be in a true, loving, mutual friendship with a person who is so wounded that they can’t reciprocate the love and the support.”
Understood in that perspective, I feel less jaded, less hurt, by the person. I just know that she or he is so wounded that they can’t act in any other way. It’s not possible for them to be in a mutual loving relationship. Their wounds get in the way.
I’m going to close by reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s excerpt again, because I find it so empowering:
I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere.
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I want to know exactly what your message is trying to say. I know this person that I actually like is a good way to put it. But I just found out that they have lost a loved one. I want to be friends with this person, and hope that all is not lost. I want to have hope that at sometime that this person and I might actually become closer. But I do that this person is not wanting to have a relationship for fear of loosing someone again. please help
This is another good post – it’s food for some thought.
The catch is that – for any of us who have had battles with depression, or who have been “wounded” – we have all also been in tha place where we COULDN’T respond because of our own wounds. I am thankful for people who didn’t write me off and who gave me the opportunity to build – or rebuild – relationships. Without their forebearance and patience, I would have been truly bereft.
On the other side, I have continued some relationships too long, and denied my gut feelings, and squelched my real thoughts. Some I have snuck out on – never telling the person that I was uncomfortable. But then, what do you say that won’t wound others more? If the relationship is damaging you, then it is toxic and requires action. It requires some self-examination to see wha
I’d argue that “complete honesty” is rather a mirage anyway, since we all have our biases which are subject to change. (Sometimes honesty is a weapon!) And that compassion should take precedence,
especially if the person has really been a friend.
Disclosure – as an “adult child” I still have very little idea of what’s healthy!