Friends shutting you down when you mention your breakup/divorce.

[rosabug]

I am now 60. My 25 year relationship broke up very traumatically 5.5 years ago. It took me a long time to recover. Not sure I ever will fully tbh - I'm just growing around the trauma.

Anyway, over the years I have noticed peculiar responses to this from friends and acquaintances. From a kind of subtle distaste, caused no doubt by fear and awkwardness, to shutting me down before I finish a sentence.

This happened to me today, which is why I'm asking if anyone knows what I mean. I was round my good friends (a couple) and we were having a bit of a melancholy conversation about things and I just said that I wish I had split from my ex much earlier and my friend just said "lets not go there". This is not the first time I felt I have been shut down in this way. It's tough because it's still a big part of me and sometimes I just want to be free to say things about it, generally I do try and not talk about it too much. I'm sure my friend thought she was trying to head me off from pain, but I also actually feel it's more about an unspoken hierarchy of trauma. Death, illness etc will always be respected as primary trauma - of course, but messy emotional breakups are somehow distasteful or shameful and should (after a sensible amount of time) be buried.

Does anyone know what I mean?

You're doing exactly what you accuse your friends of doing and shutting down conversation because it's not what you want to hear.

Yup. Oh, the irony.

The way your describe friends as ‘going round and round in circles’ over things that are ‘less’ than your suffering doesn’t really sound as though you’re full of empathy. It’s not the Suffering Olympics and who suffers the most isn’t a completion you want to win.

I think it’s very likely your perception of yourself and your behaviour is not quite accurate.

@rosabug

I think maybe go talk to a therapist as people don't get it. It sounds when you mention it they just keep dismissing you it's not nice.

Maybe write down your feelings in a book. Any thoughts that may trigger you remember that break up.

I don't want it to make you depressed that you can't talk about the break up because your just airing a part of your past and it's an experience you talk about.

The thing is if you keep getting shut down please don't just shut down go into yourself and keep it bottled up. Then if one day your feel bad people ask why your quiet and you say about it yes people will say not this again. It's horrible having people around you like this.

I actually feel for you even you writing a post on here no one actually gets it either.

I’m sorry but if an acquaintance who you bumped into 2 years after the divorce asked how you were and instead of saying ‘fine’ you said that you were having a bad day because of something that happened 2 years ago, this is definitely not a normal response. I can see why your friends are running out of patience! I get being upset initially but I never understand people who are upset years after a split. Surely someone treating you like shit and not wanting to be with you makes you go off them?

I guess your friends don’t want to talk about it anymore with you which does suggest that they politely have had enough talking about it. Yes good friends should help us through the tough times but it sounds like they don’t want to constantly go back there and a professional counsellor is a better option for talking about how you feel. The break up has clearly hit you hard and there’s nothing shameful in that, but I’d keep conversations with friends on the future and not the past and seek some professional help to talk through your feelings. You don’t want to become ‘that friend’ that people avoid because they tire of the same conversations

I learned this too. I don’t talk about anything too personal now. Dd (17) started speaking to her much older ex who mistreated her after months of love bombing- within the first week he had mistreated her so he is now blocked, deleted abd thinking of a restraining order. Her friends’ reaction was “what did you expect?”

Well after months of promising he had changed, she expected that!!

Tbh if you're someone who can compare their divorce to the loss of a child then I'm not surprised you lack the awareness to see that you're continually dumping on your friends and they're over it.
And of course there's a fucking hierarchy of trauma. Don't be jealous because your trauma isn't high enough up the ladder.

Charming. You got a lot to learn my friend - or maybe you are just one of those people who understand nothing much beyond the surface of things and quite like feeling triumphant when tiny opportunities come your way.