have I become that overbearing needy friend?

[MalibuBarbieDreamHouse]

I need a good unbiased opinion here…

Little backstory, I've always had good friends, but a few years ago, I unexpectedly made a friend through work with whom I clicked. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after. Given her limited family and close friends, our friendship became incredibly close, and I provided daily support.

Thankfully, she's now in the clear and doing much better. However, our friendship seems to be fraying. Today, she mentioned that our closeness only happened because of her illness, which I agreed with, but I don't understand why things have to change now that she's better.

For me, our friendship is incredibly supportive and genuine, like a true sisterhood, that neither of us ever had. We spoke openly, enjoyed each other's company, and leaned on each other outside of marriage. Today, she suggested cutting back on our interactions, which hurts.

Our friendship was intense—we spoke daily, planned meeting up at least once a week, and shared everything. We roughly knew each other’s weekly schedules and I knew about every appointment. Now, she's less forthcoming about her appointments, which feels like a rejection.

I feel almost heartbroken. While my husband believes she used me, our friendship is incredibly precious to me. It's like mourning a loss, and the thought of seeing her less frequently feels like I’ll be reopening a wound every time. She believes our friendship will stay the same, but I'm unsure how that's possible. I've grown accustomed to a certain level of closeness. It still feels natural to want to give her a quick call on my way home or drop a text, as she often did for me, but now I can’t.

Am I wrong to feel this way, or am I overreacting?"

Are you able to tell us her exact wording op? That might help figure out what’s goinf on.

I can understand why you’re upset but I actually think it’s nice she gave you a boundary. It’s not like she ghosted you. It sounds like she just wants some space. Please respect her wishes and maybe in time things will shift back to the way you’d prefer.

What did she actually say when she suggested cutting back interactions?

I am sorry you are going through this, but good for her to be setting boundaries

it is not uncommon for this scenario to happen, I have seen it a few times. When a friend or family member gets cancer, a new-ish friend steps in and becomes this persons closest ally/confidante/supporter

it is important to acknowledge honestly that it is and was a two way relationship, yes you supported her, but you got a lot out of it too (feeling needed, appreciated, important). Now the situation has changed, and the relationship changes too

it is normal and I have seen it often

but it can leave the supportive friend feel bad. But that is because they did not realise they needed the relationship as much (or more) than the sick friend. The world sees the supportive friend as the “giver”, the “selfless person”, but really this person got a lot out of this relationship too and maybe it is a good idea to see what it’s missing in your life and your relationship and why you needed what you needed from her so much, if that makes sense

I supported an ex-friend through cancer, looking after her kids, making food for her etc. After recovery, she distanced herself from me. It was incredibly painful at the time but I've now moved on. As PPs have said, sometimes people want to distance themselves from the whole experience and that can include you. It hurts but it won't always hurt. Xx

It sounds like to have a relationship rather than a friendship - maybe she is mindful of this. I would be asking how your relationship is with your husband if you communicate this much with her - has she being filling an emotional gap for you?
there is also the Question has she developed romantic feelings for you and realises she needs to cut back

I think you sound very intense, both in your expectations and the language used. You see this woman as your significant other which is unusual in a platonic friendship where the parties also have partners. Your friends cancer created an unusual circumstances of high vulnerability on her part where she likely leaned on you more than is in character for her. People do act differently in extremis. (My boss hugged me when my mum died, but that doesn't nean we have an ongoing physically affectionate relationship, for example)
You are not 'wrong' to develop strong feelings for another person and to want this level of intimacy, but if its not reciprocal, then it's not on offer, and you need to accept that and decide if what your friend is offering is enough, or if you won't be able to adjust and are better moving on.

Didn’t want to read and run. You sound like a lovely, supportive friend and I’m sorry you’re going through this.

I’m someone who is lucky enough to have a couple of really close female friends - one of whom I communicate with pretty much daily. We have known each other for 40 years though! I think it’s important to remember that people behave differently in friendships. One good friend of mine was very intense when we met about a decade ago. We saw each other a lot, went on holiday together, became very close very quickly - this was all more instigated by her, but after a couple of years there seemed to be a bit of a cooling. She started spending all her time with another new friend…and has since done that again!
We are still close but it’s obviously how she operates - gets excited by one person at a particular time in her life but then moves on a bit. I think it’s a bit odd/fickle but I’ve come to accept that is just her.

Also - ‘she mentioned that our closeness only happened because of her illness’ - this sounds very clumsy and strange. What exactly did she say?

The fact she's spoken to you about needing more space shows she values and respects you.

But feeling heartbroken? Wounded? Sounds WAY too intense 😬

Do you have feelings for her?

It's not wrong for you to feel upset - feelings can't be 'wrong', they're how you feel.

But this is how ot reads from my perspective.

You made a friend at work which became very close and very intense due to her illness. At that time, she needed that support and welcomed it. She was going through a very difficult time and your friendship and suppprt was important to her.

It may be that she was uncomfortable with the intensity at the time (daily messages, a phone call on the way home, knowing details of each other's schedules - I'd find that overwhelming tbh) but didn't have the strength, capacity or headsapce to address it then. She clearly didn't have that level of closeness or intensity in her pre existing friendships or she'd have leant on those rather than a very new work based friend. Some people don't like, need or want that level of intense sister type friendship generally

However, she needed that type of friendship at the time and you were willing to provide it because, presumably, it wasn't completely altruistic and you got something from it too.

Now she has no need for that level of intensity (which was only dictated by her health) and she is trying to put some boundaries in place to get the friendship to a level that she is more comfortable with.

I can really see this. When my marriage broke down, I leant heavily on a friendship I had with a couple. Once I was in a better place, we were still friends but, as I 'needed' them less, the friendship.pattern fell into one both parties were (probably) more comfortable with.

If they had tried to be the friends to me that they were during the break up indefinitely, I would have found that very stifling and, tbh, their marriage would have suffered!

Because you hadn't been friends for a long time prior to her illness, your intense friendship was all it had ever been so this feels like a huge shift to you rather than just reverting back to the previous friendship dynamic.

I don't think she used you. I think she had a need at that time, very understandably, that you fulfilled and were happy to do so becaise it met a need in you too. But she isn't ill anymore and needs her life to return to some sort of normality for herself rather than to continue in the pattern it was when she was very ill.

You are perceiving this as a rejection.

I don't have friends that I see every week. I don't have friends that I see once a month and I did have to let a friend go a couple of years ago because they expected it to look as you describe - meeting every week, constant contact and updates, knowing each other's weekly schedule etc. It's just too much.

I’d actually planned on giving my unborn daughter her name as a middle name, to honour her

To honour her?

It would make me very uncomfortable if someone wanted to do that!

Way, way too much!

Its also a possibility OP that your friendship and its intensity feels like its keeping her trapped in a place she no longer wants to be. She is recovering and quite possibly wants to shake off the 'sick role' and all that went with it and move forward. Unfortunately for you, you might feel like a major part of that to her, as may the unbalanced nature of your friendship and her reliance on you. She may want to kick her period of illness out of sight now and not have to respond to messages about her appointments and be the recipient of your care and attention, and just be a 'normal' friend. Personally I'd back off and give plenty of space and see what she is offering now and whether you want that.

What was the situation like in the run up to her telling you she wanted a less intense friendship? I think that friendships naturally ebb and flow over time. Maybe yours’ was reaching a natural plateau and you were trying to ramp it back up at a stage at which she was trying to reconnect with others. I have friendships that were intense in the way you describe e.g through divorce or illness then go back to messaging a few times a month and meet ups every few months. I don’t have time/ headspace to sustain that everyday chatting and weekly meet-ups with a job, family, husband, parents etc and I would feel unable to sustain a friendship with someone who didn’t understand that. I would also be very hurt to be thought of as a user.

I agree. Sounds a bit intense.

I am currently going through cancer treatment and I think you really find out who your friends are when you are ill. I have wonderful friends who have been a great support to me but we were friends before I was ill and some were around the first time i had cancer 12 years ago. You sound lovely, Op but very intense. It's an unusual situation because you did only become friends due to her illness. It sounds quite hurtful how explicit she has been in redefining your friendship but it may have started feeling suffocating to her. Does she have a dh and dc?

I think this may well the case, OP. She may well view daily calls etc as a reminder of that bad time in her life and wants a re-set, as it were.

I don’t communicate daily with friends - aside from people at work- I can see how this could be seen as too intense.

If you value the friendship, I’d try to accept her wishes with good grace and step it back a bit.

Your closeness is too much for her and she wants to be free to live her life as she pleases. You have a husband and if you do care for her you will want her to be happy. You can still see her but the constant contact is too much for her now - best to just accept that.

I can see why you’re hurt 😢 you felt , quite rightly and based on the relationship you had, that you were fully trusting of each other and more of a family than a normal
friendship.
However, I do feel like this is the end. For her to chat and bring it up is a big deal and like you said , something she must have been thinking about for sometime.
I would mourn the friendship , and try and move forward without her in your life. I can understand that ringing every day etc is too much but it’s the relationship both of you established together and it was not one sided. Her comments to you feel like a betrayal and a massive knife to you as you trusted her to not hurt you.
Im not needy or have needy friends as I can’t cope with that intensity but it sounds like
this wasn’t intentional to be that way and it’s more of how your relationship grew- so don’t feel bad about that- it was a 2 way thing.
I do however think you need to move on and protect yourself. Throw yourself into a hobby or something and take time to heal .

Good post. The ‘giver’ also gets something from the relationship. It’s good that she’s been frank with you and wants to continue the friendship on a new footing, OP. Friendships formed in extreme circumstances need to change once those circumstances no longer apply, or they break down.

Let yourself mourn, as this is clearly a type of ending for you, but do reread @MyFirstLittlePony and @Harara’s posts, which I think are insightful. Neither of you is wrong.

OP, I think it’s very normal and reasonable to have times in a friendship when things are more intense because one of you is going through something like your friend’s illness - but I also think it would be odd, and probably quite unhealthy, to expect that intensity to continue forever. A desire to scale back doesn’t mean anyone is being used. It simply means that life is going on and people are getting past a bad time. That’s normal. I’ve got friends who I’ve spoken to pretty much daily when they’ve been going through a breakup or a health problem or a crisis. But I would never in a million years expect to continue that level of contact once they’re in a better place because it’s not necessary. Sometimes mates need more support and sometimes they need less. That’s standard. It doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful.

One thing that jumps out at me is that you feel rejected because she know longer shares the details of all her medical appointments with you. Why does that bother you? She is now mentally in a place where she can regain her independence. That is a positive thing and you should be pleased for her, not feeling rejected or upset. If any of my friends felt rejected because I didn’t share the details of my personal medical appointments with them, I would feel extremely suffocated and I would absolutely be taking a massive step back. I’d also be freaked out if someone wanted to name their child after me ‘to honour me’. It’s just… a lot.

When your friend says that she thinks your extreme closeness only really came about because of her illness, I wonder if perhaps she has the slight feeling that you were feeding off it a little bit. Sometimes people do give the impression of enjoying being needed, and of actually slightly enjoying the drama and the dynamic of someone else’s traumatic experience, and that can be very unsettling. I had a friend who I had to ease off from when it became clear to me that their ‘support’ was evolving into intrusion, and that they were gaining enjoyment and status from positioning themselves as the supportive, selfless one and were getting a little bit obsessive about what I was going through. She also became quite upset when I started to keep things a bit more private, and found it very hard to accept that I was managing perfectly well without support.

Your feelings for your friend are obviously very strong - your posts sound almost like someone talking about a romantic partner rather than a friend. It’s also clear that you are quite dependent on this friendship for your happiness. That, to your friend, might feel like a huge burden. If you know that your seemingly small actions (like not calling someone every day or keeping your calendar private) have a strong emotional significance to another person, that is honestly really bloody stressful. Knowing that someone would be upset if I didn’t tell them when I had a doctor’s appointment would feel to me like they were making me responsible for their feelings when frankly, I had enough to worry about already without the additional concern of upsetting a friend just by wanting a normal level of privacy.

Similar experience here - for 4 years I informally fostered a friend’s 2 kids - 3 nights a week after school, often sleeping over, plus 8-10 weeks a year when traveled with work and her mum was ill/died in France. Messy divorce, lost her house, Ex was bancrupt/jobless etc. I was their legal contact for school/Gp etc when she was overseas. Never asked for a penny but welcomed a bottle of wine when she was back.

She said if it was ever too difficult she’d speak to her boss. After 4 years it became difficult as I had an older teen with MH issues (ASD, ADHD, ODD, ROGD, suicidal ideation) so felt it was unfair on my DC (and DH) as well as her own kids. She flipped out. Then we went into lock down. I never heard from her again. Not one single effing text to check on how DC was doing, let alone how were we doing in lock down. Never got an invite to the house she bought etc. was completely dropped once I was of no use.

I feel stupid, angry, bitter (it was a huge imposition on my family having two more teens living with us, and paid for by my husband, running them to sports, supervising homework, laundry and buying home ec ingredients etc).

Most of all, I am hurt and my self-esteem is decimated - how unlikeable must I be to be worth no contact or consideration after all I did (and was happy to do) for my friend and her DCs? I have let most of my pre-covid friendships fall away an only have 3 friends now, all busy with ailing parents/dying relatives/trying to get their own dcs into work/uni so not really around for drinks/walks/etc. I just don’t trust anyone and now feel paranoid that noone likes me anyway.

I’ve finally joined a local orchestra and signed up to a few apps to meet other ‘women of my age’ (empty nesters, new to the area etc) but am so wary of ever letting anyone in again. My DH is so angry on my behalf, but even typing this just makes me cry.

This. I also think she wanted the friendship when it suited her. That's bollocks. X

I agree with a lot of posters here.

I think she's scaling it back to a less time-consuming and intimate friendship as a natural course in her recovery.

She has suggested cutting back on your interactions because the frequency and intimacy is more akin to that of an immediate family member. She may not feel it's appropriate for a friendship and feels obliged and stifled by it. Not you personally, but the daily dynamic.

I don't have any friends who know my schedule and who I have contact with daily. I know some people do this...but the majority of independent adults don't have a pal as a daily fixture whether in person or contact via messages.

Sorry you're feeling so hurt by this but maybe you are a little too overinvested in her and she feels you both need space to breathe.

Exactly this.

In my experience certain needy people are all or nothing. They can’t seem to find a middle ground where you just meet up once or twice a year. To them friendship means the other person being on call 24/7 to service them. This obviously becomes overwhelming so ties are cut