To struggle forgiving a friend who wasn’t there when I really needed them?

[MyCosyHare]

I’m not talking about small stuff. I mean a genuinely hard period where I could have used support and they disappeared. Now they want to carry on like normal. I’m torn between keeping the peace and feeling like something fundamental shifted. How do you move past that or do you?

This.

I must admit I tend to avoid being friends with anyone too needy now. In the past I’ve had supportive friends and been a supportive friend myself, often at the expense of my mental and physical health. I can still be supportive when I can and want to to be, but I now put myself and my immediate family (son and husband) first as that’s all I’ve got the energy for. I agree with the sentiment that no one owes you anything in life and if you give expecting reciprocation you’re probably going to be disappointed. Decide your boundaries, stick to them, change them if you want to. Based on my experience when younger, if you help lots of people it’s generally returned, not always by the same people though. The universe is weird that way.

Some people really are takers, op.

Ive expected this multiple times with friends who call me out out of the blue in a crisis and want support.

IME they are the people who are always on transmit and never received. Then people on this thread shrug it off as ‘how dare you expect support?’

If it’s not a mutually supportive friendship then call time on it.

Some posters on this thread seem furious at the idea of a friend ‘demanding’ support. But relationships need to be reciprocal. A part of being a friend is sometimes supporting, sometimes being supported. Maybe your friend is a taker OP, or maybe they are absorbed with their own unknown struggles. But your feelings are completely natural.

With regards to the poster who understood her friend couldn’t be there for her due to her own issues and bereavement - she had all the information and could make an informed judgement. The OP’s situation is different.

I think we've all had someone close disappear when we're at our lowest point, having stuck by them through theirs, and it stinks.

As the saying goes, when you're laughing the world laughs with you, but when you cry, you cry alone.

I get that sometimes people are dealing with their own shit, but when I had a life altering brain injury at the age of 34, most of my friends from my "before" life scarpered pretty quickly.

To be fair I didn't try that hard to hold on to those friendships as it was hard to see others continuing to live the life that I had lost.

However I have made new friends on my journey, people who aren't just around for the good times, and I hope you will do too, whether or not you keep the person who's let you down in your life.

@LoughNaFooJust wanted to agree with a PP your post was exceptionally sensible and thoughtful. My best wishes to you.

A friend in need is a friend indeed....she clearly ain't a true friend if she left you when you most needed her.
You need to tell her how it made you feel and that you don't see her in the same way as you used to.

Playing devil's advocate: do you know what was going on in her life when she didn't show up for you? I spent a period of time being a crap friend, well no, I just went massively off radar for quite a long time, because I had a series of stressful, grief fuelled things, and young DC although on the outside I put on a decent show of it all being fine. I suspect some of my friends felt let down by me in that time but Ive also not felt able to open up beyond DH about all of it because it felt so bleak.

I think only you can decide.
There could be a 100 reasons why they pulled back: they couldn't cope, they felt they couldn't support you, they become overwhelmed.
You learn some people are good in some situations and some arnt.

Was it an illness, a breakup or a financial crisis?

Some people never let finances interact with any relationship.
Some people are the opposite of a nurse - they can not tolerate hospitals or the thought of death.
Some people have a low capacity for battling anything extra because they expel all of their energy on merely coping with their own life.

Did you ask, outright, for assistance? For example did you ask friend to please pickup her child from the same school as your child and take him home one night per week? Specifics make a difference. Asking directly sometimes helps a friend know that they can help in small ways.

Otherwise, people will judge what you need by what they think they would need. I know I would want to be left alone. Thus, me giving my troubled friends space could be misunderstood.

OP, a best friend just vanishing without a word is not something you have to accept, especially the presumption that she can just pick up again.
She has shown you that she is a fairweather friend and you have every right to put her into a box of fairweather friends.
You don't need to cut her off, but you certainly don't need to be particularly available.

One of my sons closest friends mother had cancer years ago and her two cloest friends vanished.
Others stepped up and thank god she made a great recovery.
She remarked to me that it was quite extraordinary who gave her support.

Within 2 years one of those friends left a message very upset at having been diagnosed and wanting to meet up for advice etc.
She never answered the call, but sent her a 'best wishes for the future message' but she was not free to meet.
I felt she made a fair decision. Shd had no wish to reconnect with someone who she hadn't seen in 4 years, purely because they now needed support. She had no wish to revisit this time and be dragged into reliving a painful period in her life.
If a good friend has very difficult stuff going on themselves it is one thing, but to just disappear whilst saying nothing at all?
No thanks, I have zero interest in reconnecting with that.

Its a very personal decision.
Good luck.

@LongDarkTeatime did you ever regret not telling her and just saying you were busy? I can understand why she walked away after that TBH because it sounds very flippant, though I totally understand why you didn't have the mental energy for a detailed discussion. I am sorry tor what you went through. The trouble is if we don't share our problems, at least a little bit, then people will think we are selfish or uncaring or whatever. That might be fine with some people who you don't much care about the relationship you have with them. But with a close friend I would probably have replied I'd love to support them and keen to hear what they need but I have some serious problems of my own at the moment I'm grappling with and struggling to stay afloat right now. It's easy to say though I guess when you're not in the darkest hours.

I feel incredibly lucky that the dynamic of the friendship between me and my two very closest friends works on the basis that we aren’t in constant communication with each other, and there are no set expectations around how we “show up” as friends. Instead we all know that, when the chips are down, we will be there to help and support each other through any situation - whether that support is practical (lifts to places, babysitting young kids at short notice etc) or emotional.

We each understand and respect that how that support manifests, and which of us is doing the lion’s share of it, will naturally ebb and flow depending on what we each have going on in our lives, but over our almost 20 year friendship, the individual effort made has broadly evened out across our trio, meaning no one is left either feeling taken advantage of or feeling guilty.

That said, not all of my current or former friendships have been like this and, as someone who has often been the person putting in most of the effort and often not having it reciprocated, I do understand why you may be struggling with whether you can continue with the friendship, either in the same vein or with some new parameters/boundaries in place.

My advice would be to not rush into making any decisions when you’re feeling the worst of the “sting” from her rejection/disinterest. If you are in a bad place anyway and therefore under a lot of stress, it’s unlikely to be the optimal circumstance for you to make any big decisions on the future of a significant relationship. Give yourself a bit of time to reflect. It maybe that the space confirms that your instincts were right and you walk away. Equally, your friend may realise you’ve felt let down and respond in a positive way that allows you both to reconnect and the friendship to rebuild.

I'm sorry. I know how you feel. I can't move past that sort of thing and now I have no friends because everyone always lets you down.

If you lose this friend, do you have others to fall back on? When they let you down, will you move on from them too?

There is no right or wrong, only learning about yourself and what you can put up with.

I've seen posts on here from people who want to pull back from friends who need support because it's draining them, they often get a lot of support from posters and told they shouldn't have to deal with if and need boundaries. Then you see posts like this which could be the friend of one of them posters and people say they shouldn't put up with bad friends. So, I supose context is pretty key. You say you told them you needed support, how often did you tell them? What support did you want? Were you still interested in them and how their life was? Did they have space to share what was going on for them? What was going on in their life? Maybe they were already at full capacity and just genuinely didn't have it in them to support you. Or maybe they are just the kind of people who always take but never give.

It depends how much your friend knew.

I do know some people find it very difficult to cope with problems of others. They will seek and accept help for their own but find other people's overwhelming. That is just a fact.

We have to accept people as they are. It's up to you whether or not to pick up the friendship again. Personally, I'd just be casual about it.

It depends on how clear you were about exactly what help you needed and whether she had the time and emotional energy to offer that support at the time. She maybe had things going on too. Some people are just poor at being supportive and caring. If you don’t want her as a friend stop seeing her or just reduce the friendship level to fun friend rather than best friend. Things don’t have to be all or nothing or you end up with no friends.

Christ, what a depressing world we live in if it’s now entitled and unreasonable to expect your friends might support you if you’re having a rough time. That’s a pretty basic fundamental of friendship in my book.

We don’t have to accept people as friends though if they don’t meet our expectations of what friends are. I certainly wouldn’t be friends with someone who accepted support when they needed it but offered none back.

I had a 'friend' who said she couldnt support me through a really painful bereavement as she "didn't do death". This was after years of support from me.
I was so hurt I cut her off. I don't regret it

You're right, they're not obliged to do anything. But should they decide not to do anything when you're genuinely in need, that gives you a strong indication of how much of a friend they really think you are, and you're within your rights to act accordingly.

As they say: when someone shows you who they are, believe them

I disagree. A good friend finds the time and energy.
When I was in a difficult spot a few years back, one of the main people who regularly called, texted, checked in to see how I was, was someone with a catalogue of debilitating health issues that they're dealing with day-to-day.
If they can find it in themselves to offer support, anyone can if they really want to.

I think it depends on the situation, what kind of support you were expecting/asking for, how often has she supported vs you supporting her and what was going on in her own life at the time this occurred.

I have had to pull back from two friends myself who always seemed to be in need of lots of support because the friendships had become unbalanced and it was taking from me more than I could give as I had my own stuff going on too. One friend ended the friendship over it which made my life easier as the relationship was so draining. The other didn’t seem to mind but the relationship became more distant and more of a see you when I see you kind of thing. With no context, it’s impossible to tell what the dynamics are here.

I had this, it was really painful as I really considered her my best friend. For a long time I didn’t speak to her but then I just realised she was never the friend I thought she was and I forgave her. She can still make me laugh and I’ll catch up with her over dinner sometimes but I don’t think of her in the same way at all. Maybe you could reframe/reclassify your relationship?

You are valid for how you feel. You always remember the friends who show up for you when you’re having a hard time, or need people to show up for you.

personally I stepped back from a lot of things last year as I had a lot going on, after years of being a people pleaser who did anything for anyone, and the friends who stepped forward to fill that gap really showed me who cares. Now I have more capacity, I’m absolutely nurturing those relationships and not those that did not make an effort.