It’s a long one, so buckle in!! My friendship with this lady ended coming up 5 years ago - around the time I met my partner - when we were both in our early 20’s.
We had been friends since preschool. We lived together over lockdown. We knew everything about each other. We were incredibly close; to the point I think people questioned if we were in a relationship with the amount of time we spent together! She truly was my best friend. We never had any level of falling out before this one disagreement, which resulted in the end of the friendship (in quite a horrible, blunt way IMO).
She’d always had quite poor luck with partners, but was very keen to settle down, so - IMO - tolerated a lot of poor treatment and unhealthy situations. I wasn’t looking for a relationship and - if I ever was seeing anyone - the slightest hint of BS they got removed from my life.
Whilst she was still single, I met my now-partner, who is just wonderful in every way. Usually it was always her in relationships (or “situationships”), which is where the issues began. I think she was partly jealous of how lovely my partner is, but primarily felt like my partner had taken me away from her.
When they met, she was incredibly rude to him, and I saw a completely new side to her. One I’d never seen before and was not keen on. I met up with her to flag this to her, and this is where we had a huge falling out.
I was trying to understand where she was coming from. I have EUPD myself so I am very understanding to ‘abandonment issues’. She said I wasn’t replying to her messages and hadn’t seen her in several days. In terms of the not replying to messages, I had explained (as I’m sure we’re all familiar with) it is incredibly rude to sit on your phone messaging whilst you’re on a date. When I did reply, she would then ignore my texts?
In terms of the not seeing her, unlucky for me my engine blew up (typical MINI!!) and my car was a complete write off, so I had no transport. I was still seeing my partner, as he was picking me up and taking me out and to his house (which, at the time was over a hours round trip for the lad, which further demonstrates his character and could’ve exacerbated the jealousy). At this point, she lived 10 mins up the road from me, so could absolutely have come to see me (if she would’ve replied to my messages). I’ve just remembered (as I’m writing this) I also came down with a nasty illness, so I was also poorly!!
I had tried to explain all of this to her - and call her out on how she spoke to my partner - however she told me (and I still remeber this 5 years later like a movie) “I am an all or nothing friend, and if you can’t be there for me 24/7 I don’t want the friendship”. As you can imagine, this flawed me. I have always supported her looking for a relationship, and encouraged her to go out on dates, even if it meant we weren’t ’hanging out’ that night. I’ve always thought it’s important that we found ‘our person’ as we’re not going to buy a house together, start a family together, get married to each other etc. How do you expect the other person to find that, if you demand their attention 24/7?
We’d left the conversation on the “I’m an all or nothing friend” comment, which was a shame as I was hoping to clear the air before her 21st birthday that I’d spent months planning (which is the thing that hurt me the most).
I planned a surprise party, with all her female family & friends. Booked exclusive use of a private spa and bought her 21 presents for her 21st. After the discussion the other day, I decided to not go (in hindsight, maybe I should’ve done, but I did not want to cause an atmosphere and spoil it for her). I still delivered her presents to the venue via her mum.
The next day, when I was heading out, all the presents were sat on my doorstep and I was blocked on everything. I was absolutely gutted and really hurt; because how can you bin 20+ years of friendship over one disagreement?
She continued to watch my posts on an old pet account so I removed it as a follower.
Fast forward 5 years to today, I’m very happy with the same partner. We’ve bought a house together and got a dog. She’s engaged with a baby. I’m not sure when, but she has unblocked me on several social medias. She congratulated me when we bought our house and did wish me a happy birthday. I did the same with her baby&engagement.
Now we’re in completely different life stages to 5 years ago, I don’t know whether I want to reach out and try rekindle a friendship, knowing it would be different with how are lives are now. She won’t have time to be an “all or nothing” friend now she has her own little family. It really hurts I feel like we’ve missed out on each other’s huge milestones.
One one hand, I miss the friendship we had. I appreciate it would never be like that again, nor would I want it to, as I couldn’t be there “24/7”. However, this is what makes me think we could have a healthy friendship.
On the other, I don’t know if I can get over how dirty she did me when the friendship ended. As my mum reminded me, she was very nasty to me (and my partner) and it was incredibly cutthroat. I did speak to my partner and he would support me with whatever I want to do, just so long as I cut it off if it became toxic again.
My partner reckons I know what I want to do, so to just do it (think he’s hinting at me getting back in touch), but I just don’t know if it’s the right thing.
What would you do?