What's stopping you from making amends with a friend/family member?

[justanothermanicmonday1]

Just that really.

I had a big falling out with a friend of 30 years and we recently had lunch and oh how I wish I reached out sooner. We've both been through so much and missed so much of each others lives and both regret it massively

Have you had a big falling out with someone or over the years and wish you could go back in time and handle things differently?

If so, what's stopping you from reaching out?

Do you ever see yourself making amends with this person?

If you believe a friendship is worth saving, but your pride is getting in the way, please please just go for it.

For 3 years I wanted nothing more than to fix things with my mother, but my only VISION of how that could be fixed was that she listen to me. And her only vision of how it be fixed was that I collapse in to her narrative that she is perfect and I'm crazy.

It's been incredibly upsetting but after three years of silent treatment and then being told that it was just my perception that she was giving me the silent treatment, I EXPLODED AT HER. So all hope of getting through to her has gone and that has given me some relief.

The way she treats me should have been thrashed through decades ago, but I was not raised to express anger, so a 1-7 on the anger scale gets suppressed and then I explode at her and then she has the proof she wants that I'm crazy.

In conclusion though, after all the hurt it's caused me, it's not worth it to keep trying. Sometimes you have to learn to accept that the person is not capable of self-reflection and that they will hurt you for their own comfort. You're not really real to them, your role was to reflect back their rosy view of themselves and if you challenge that to save yourself, you're the bad person. It can't be fixed unless you collapse in to the 'yes I'm bad'' role and that's not good for a person.

I did lose friends in my teens and 20s though, because I had no conflict resolutions practice, I just cut them off. I did learn along the way and I am better now.

The school friend I fell out with, I wouldn't want to reach out to her!! She used me and I allowed it for years, feeling low level anger, but sucking it up, then when she was hounding me for a favour, I felt like level NINE RAGE and I exploded at her, so I suspect she would be the one to be more certain things could never be fixed. I wonder if she ever reflects on how she used me. Unlikely. But that tolerating users was my price ticket for having friends when I was younger. I never said, hey, you abandoned me in the niteclub for three hours while you were snogging that randomer and then you found me just in time to cadge a lift home from my dad. I never said ''look, I'm not going if you are going to disappear off with some bloke, can you restrain yourself or not, if not, we won't be going''. I destroyed any chance of putting the friendship on a more equal footing by exploding level TEN

Realising that life is so much calmer and nicer without them in it.

Not all people in the world are nice. Sometimes you end up related to a person through blood or marriage that you would never choose to spend time with otherwise.

Precious time is wasted spent with people out of duty or obligation, regardless of their awful behaviour and then one day they do something so hideous that you step away from them and realise how beautiful your world is without them in and that stops you ever contacting them again.

I would love to have a active relationship with my brother and two sisters. We were separated at a very early age and put in to care. Our mother suffered with schizophrenia and would also drink to much. After remarrying she was able to get the older brother & sister back but not me. Long story short I've reached out numerous times to them as an adult but their limp response has always been disappointing. I'm now at the stage where I'm done with trying! Their loss and mine.

Fell out with my best friend before they moved to Australia. I have heard through mutuals that they have had it really tough since going over there and I have been so close to reaching out a few times over the last 10 years but i just figured It would likely get thrown back in my face so bottled it each time. Sometimes I wonder if they ever thought about contacting me and bottled it the same. Guess we will never know now. I am not even mad about how we left things.. just sad.

Realizing it wasn’t a quality relationship in the first place. It was a friend who I feel betrayed me and later I realized they were just not healthy anyway and the relationship was not good for me.

On a different note, I’d reconcile with my neighbor just to be on casual friendly terms if she would just say “Sorry, I understand why my behavior upset you.” But she won’t because she’s nuts. It’s ok, I never see her anyway and they are gone most of the time. It’s kind of her loss because the rest of the neighbors enjoy a friendly relationship.

I haven't spoken to my mother for 15 years and it's been utterly blissful.

She's a complete narcissist, who was emotionally and physically abusive towards me as a child and younger teen, as well as neglectful, kicking me out at 15 with nowhere to go and yet saying to the social services that I was more than welcome home as long as I complied with her rules. To this day I still have no idea what I did wrong, and she claims her behaviour was in response to mine, WHEN I WAS A CHILD 😐

To this day she wails on to anyone who will listen how we are estranged for "reasons unbeknownst to her" because she could never contemplate she would ever be at fault.

She's never met her grandchild, and never will because hell will freeze over before I let her near my precious DC.

Not quite your scenario OP. But you did ask...

She's (MIL) never apologised or even shown a modicum of remorse for the shit she pulled over 2 decades ago. She will, even now, make a comment/threat to DH (who will occasionally speak to her on the phone) that reinforces our opinion that she hasn't changed at all.

I do not have room in my life for people that treat me and my family like crap, and I'm certainly not getting sucked back into her life just for my own mental health to go down the toilet.

It's self preservation.

An unreserved apology and a genuine acknowledgement of the hurt they caused me. Even then it would never be the same.

Someone who claimed to be my closest friend and 'loved me so much' ghosted me, literally moved house, didn't give me the address or her new phone number or her email. Three years later she wrote a nice letter so I wrote a nice letter back aaaaaand she ghosted me again. A few years after that she was trying to get my details to get back in touch with me. Fortunately our sensible mutual friend asked me if it was OK for her to pass on the details. I thought about it for a few seconds and said 'But what would be the point?'.

I am not being put through the emotional ringer over and over again because she's got some stuff going on that's given her the habit of cutting people off.

They bring nothing but drama and chaos when they crash into my life, it's less stressful to just avoid them

I wrote and apologised for my part in our falling out. It was ignored. I keep the same mobile number and email address in case she relents. Even after nine years I really miss her.

I haven’t spoken to my sister in 3 years, no I will never forgive her what’s stopping me? She called social services on me with a malicious report then blamed someone else. No I can never forgive that, it depends what the person has done surely?!

Ok there are two people one a best friend from school and the other my half sister. Both times when I fell out with them they treated me appallingly though they both may feel like I was the one who overreacted or in the wrong.

My sister, I did actually speak to her by phone after our brother intervened and we were sort of getting on well and I suggested maybe meeting up. She then said she was scared of my reaction or didn’t want to do this. This is someone who once screamed in my face at a police station telling me how stupid I’d been when I’d been pickpocketed at a carnival. The police officer had to tell her to calm
down and couldn’t believe she was my sister. She probably guessed or knew that I’d have a go at her after various things happened when we’d last met. I suppose she could’ve been immature and me too and the way I/we handled it at the time wasn’t the best. So, after I told her why I’d got upset with her we exchanged emails and a phone call where she screamed down the phone at me with loads of abuse and wouldn’t let up. I suddenly realised I didn’t need to take this from her but also wanted to disengage with her, which I did.

My ex best friend we fell out in our mid 20s after she accused me and another best friend of regretting her, didn’t happen or at least not on my part. I was very shocked she’d accuse me and her if this. So we ended friendship and then in our mid to late 30s she visits my mum’s house uninvited out of the blue unexpectedly one Christmas when I was staying there and when parents were out for the day. I answered the door, big shock and basically told her to F off. She then about a year or so later friends me and messages me on FB we chat, I sort of am rude to her but we’re still in contact even though she thinks she has the moral upper hand. We then stay in contact over lockdown and her DM dies then. Of course as she lives far away and I’ve got a new life I don’t text as much and once when I texted her she was surprised at me “ignoring her”. I decided from then on, we’ve not fallen out but I don’t want her to have my new address, don’t want to be in contact but I don’t really want to see her.

Do both these examples make sense?

If a friend or relative or even me if in the wrong sincerely apologises and shows by words and actions and gestures that they are truly sorry (or I do) then I’ll consider a second chance. But I’m still very guarded.

DH's StepM would slag off her daughters constantly. Say her GC were ungrateful etc. Said she loved my DD because she had manners and was kind. She helped me with childcare when DD was small, and would help out in other ways. I honestly thought she was ok.

Then DFiL died, she filled up the funeral car with her daughters and their hangers on, who didn't like Dfil, whilst her stepsons had to drive themselves and their kids to the funeral. The funeral didn't reflect DFil really, only the eulogy that I wrote, instead she'd asked the celebrant to talk about their holidays together, and she had his first wife's (stepson's mums) name taken out. It was mostly about her, not much about his blood family at all.

Soon after she moved away. She's in her 70s and rings me and her stepson (my DH) complaining that she's lonely and it's hard to make friends. She had a support system in her old life, and she gave it all up to get a house near the sea, thinking life will be marvellous, when she's made a big mistake. Her friends in her old street are annoyed with her to for buggering off. They did a huge amount for her when DFil was ill and after he died. I can't be arsed to deal with her two-faced narcissistic ways. I am low contact with her now, as is DH, and BiL is beyond even that, cutting her off altogether.

As @AndrewPreview has so succinctly put:

“I do not have room in my life for people that treat me and my family like crap, and I'm certainly not getting sucked back into her life just for my own mental health to go down the toilet.
It's self preservation.”

Sadly this is how I feel about my brother. I don’t miss him.

My sister hasn’t spoken to me in years - I spoke to her last in 2020 when I texted and reached out to her. She spent two hours talking about herself. She didn’t ask me one questions. I haven’t bothered since.

My ex best friend I went very LC with as the relationship was balanced entirely on her and her dramas etc I relented and Christmas and texted her - she said she would ring on Boxing Day - I still waiting 😂no great loss

My mother - because she is an emotionless void that cared more about her animals than her children. My father because he thinks the sun shines out of her arse and she can do no wrong.
They will spend their older years relatively alone as my sibling doesn't see them either, they don't have a large family.
I don't miss them at all.

5 years on, I do feel I was a bit hasty stepping away / ending some friendships, simply in the case that I seem to have less friends and I'm a bit bored now my youngest is in secondary! In stepping away from one (and by that I had to delete Facebook as we had so many mutual friends) I lost contact with scores of friends / aquaintences. They've reached out via another friend but that was almost 2 years ago and I said no as I don't think the dynamics have changed and the drama would start again.

When does the bliss of being no contact with your mother kick in? @Treacletoots 3 years and 2 months so far, it started with a silent treatment she gave me and has descended after three years of me going mad trying to be heard having finally given up, so although she doesn't know it yet, I'm done, forever.
I know she has pathologised me, shamed me, blamed me smeared me, portrayed herself as the victim of me 😡 but I don't feel bliss. I feel invalidated, wronged, scapegoated and... sad.

Alone but not depleted. Maybe stronger, because my inner child knows that my functional adult stood firm in my interpretation of events. She did her level best to gaslight me but I did not doubt what had happened. But, it is not "bliss".

Hoping the joy and so on comes later. I need a year.

My old best friend from school, I'd do anything to have her back in my life. We never parted on bad terms and still send the odd message every few years but I'd love our friendship back. Just feels awkward.

That said I'm NC with my SIL and no amount of money or things would convince me to forgive her.

One relative behaved exactly like my father and flounced. I'm not dealing with that shit again, so they can stay flounced.

One SIL has always treated me like a cross between an imbecile and a doormat, and now wonders why I CBA with her. She has been v rude to DH both in general and about me, and frankly I want nothing further to do with her.

These are two people who will never change and dealing with them will just make me miserable. I have plenty of other, nicer people in my life who I have known for decades, so I'll stick with them.

Kind of the reverse for me. I regret tolerating people who were supposed to love me for so many years.

I cut contact when I was 100% sure I didn't want them in my life. No regrets. No going back.

I had a fallout with my best friend about 8 years ago. I have been through loads if difficulties since then and a couple of times I have missed her advice and her way of looking at things. Plus if I'm honest her company.

Pride is probably the main thing that stops me reaching out but she has also moved house and I don't know where. I deleted her numbers too.
She could have contacted me too.

Lots. My best friend mainly. Friends for 30 years. Had a 2nd baby and she didn't like it as she was child free by choice. Ghosted me. She was quite a stress person and would often call me about a large utility bill that she couldn't pay and cry and never even ask how I was. It was quite draining