The friendship with one of my (40M) oldest friends and (former) love interest (41F) is in a terrible place. How do I manage things?

[Oblivion83]

TLDR – Over the past few years, in large part due to my own behaviour, I appear to have lost the trust of one of my oldest and dearest friends (and former love interest). I’m struggling to move on and am not even sure if there’s a future for our friendship. Please advise.

 

About me – 40 year old male with a chronic history of physical, emotional and verbal abuse from my mom which started in childhood and carried into adulthood. Dad was absent, both physically and emotionally. This trauma has resulted in significant interpersonal issues that are only now being resolved via therapy (5 months in).

 

About her and our history – 41 year old female, divorced with 2 kids. We met in school and I had actually fallen in love with her without realising it as this was a new experience of me. I basically had no clue what I was feeling for her until about 4 years later, when we were both young adults. She was attracted to me as well and even proposed a relationship with a view to marriage. However, the way she did this was rather indirect and resulted in a massive miscommunication that lead her to believe that I was not interested. So she commits to someone else (whom she later marries). When we finally clear the air about our feelings, it was too late for both of us as she has already committed to someone else and I have to try and move on from this heartbreak. This was about 18 years ago. She goes on to marry this guy and we lose contact with each other.

 

Present day – During the tail-end of the pandemic, I was unemployed and had been for almost 2 years. Mentally, I was in a terrible place and had even contemplated suicide a few months before. No attempt was made and I have never gone back to that black place since.

We reconnect during this period and I learn she’d divorced the guy after he cheated on her nearly all throughout their marriage. At this point, I tell myself NOT to fall in love again.

I told her one day of my employment status and she helps by giving me two job opportunities in my town (we live about 3.5 hours apart), neither of which pan out. But I am grateful. Maybe a little too grateful. This whole time, I had been controlling my feelings as best I could but failed and end up confessing to her one night on the phone that I had never stopped loving her (this is true, but I realise now that it needn’t have been said out loud). She tends to ghost when she’s uncomfortable with a conversation and did so again after my confession. A week later, she tells me that she wants to have a chat soon to “set some things right”. I know what’s coming (i.e. “no relationship”) and am ready for the talk. Except it never happens. We move on like nothing happened, and she even lets me speak to one of her kids. This is where things go sideways.

 

She seeks some medical advice from me. At this point, I had just started working a new, albeit insanely high-pressure job in the healthcare sector and an unable to handle expectations well. My emotional dysregulation from work results in me speaking to her in a very condescending way about the medical issue she was facing at the time. We end up arguing and don’t speak for a bit. Communication is strained from here onwards as she starts to respond very coldly and bluntly towards me. Still dysregulated, I make the biggest mistake of our friendship – I send a very nasty voicemail questioning the authenticity of our friendship and how come we always appear to take 1 step forward but 2 steps back (e.g. – she would occasionally propose to meet in person but then flake at the last minute). We barely speak after this message and I am overwhelmed with regret.

 

I send a couple of texts to her over the next year or so. She always responds abruptly with no warmth and the moment I try to apologize for my actions, she stops responding. If she didn't want to speak to me (judging by her willingness to break contact), why not just delete/block my number? Why even respond to my texts until I start apologising? This is all very confusing.

On the 3rd attempt (which was earlier this year), she finally responds properly once I convince her that I only wanted to repair our friendship. She claimed that she broke contact with me because she believed (incorrectly) that if she mended things, it would give the wrong impression that I had a chance to date her. At this point, I had no more feelings for her and only wanted to be friends again.

 

Around this time, I had started therapy to deal with my childhood trauma (which continued well into the present day) and was going through a challenging period emotionally. When I learned that she had intentionally broke contact not because of the apology, but because she didn’t trust me and made an assumption without ever talking to me about it, I became hurt. We had another argument. I realise things had gone to far when she said that sometimes she feels a little afraid of me. No one has EVER told me they’re afraid of me. I take a week to cool off and gather my thoughts, deciding to apologise and admit that I still need to do a lot of work. She responds by encouraging me to overcome my trauma. This was a few months ago.

 

I have made huge progress in therapy and have gone some way to healing my trauma wounds. I’ve learned about dysregulation and how the trauma has resulted in my lack of emotional control which in turn lead to anger, attachment and boundary issues as well as limerence (another way of saying love addiction). I believe this girl was a limerent object. The friendship we had was real, but a fully-regulated me should’ve never had feelings for her. I’ve managed to learn a few tricks to re-regulate myself when spiralling quickly and have begun to reap the rewards of my new-found control. I feel lighter, happier, and it’s even started to affect my physical appearance.

 

In light of these improvements, I sent her another text today – a short update on how I’m doing along with best wishes for her and the family. I got no response. She may be busy, or she may not want to speak to me.

Therapy has been a game-changer. Learning about limerence has been a huge blessing for me as I have had a terrible love life. The benefits of re-regulation have been nothing short of empowering. I feel more confident, but with none of the arrogance that characterized my dysregulated self. But with this empowerment came the realisation that said dysregulation resulted in the loss of many amazing friendships, the value of which was lost to me previously. I’d like to save this friendship with her if I can, but I don’t know how. Unlike my other issues, I’m at sea about how to manage this one.

 

How do I cope with the situation?

Is there a friendship to be saved?

Really appreciate advice on how to deal with things.

[ExpatInItaly]

1 hour ago, Oblivion83 said:

Is there a friendship to be saved?

If she's unresponsive, then no, there isn't.

She might still reply to you, but understand that even with the improvements you've made, she still might not want to be friends any longer. Sometimes the damage can't be undone. It would be her prerogative to let you go if that's what she chooses. 

And it sounds like that may in fact be her choice. All you can do is respect that and not contact her anymore. 

[Oblivion83]

17 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

If she's unresponsive, then no, there isn't.

She might still reply to you, but understand that even with the improvements you've made, she still might not want to be friends any longer. Sometimes the damage can't be undone. It would be her prerogative to let you go if that's what she chooses. 

And it sounds like that may in fact be her choice. All you can do is respect that and not contact her anymore. 

Thanks Expat. I was reflecting as I typed that out, and now that the dust has settled and I've calmed down, it did seem to me that the friendship was over.

Underneath all the smiles, laughter and even flirtations with a relationship, ours was a friendship that has always been fraught with misunderstandings. I always believed we could overcome them with a good, open conversation but I guess that is something that will never happen now. She's the avoidant type - prefers flight over sitting down and talking things out. I'm more of a problem-solver that prefers dialogue over escapism. Between our respective traumas and coping methods, this was probably the most likely outcome

[flitzanu]

On 8/22/2024 at 6:15 AM, Oblivion83 said:

 

On the 3rd attempt (which was earlier this year), she finally responds properly once I convince her that I only wanted to repair our friendship. She claimed that she broke contact with me because she believed (incorrectly) that if she mended things, it would give the wrong impression that I had a chance to date her. At this point, I had no more feelings for her and only wanted to be friends again.

 

 

this is the reason why the friendship is a constant struggle.  whether or not you want to date her "now" she knows you did, and she's afraid to be friendly because she's worried it will give you hope that something will happen.

maybe it's time to find some new friends.

[jasonblackheart01]

Clearly there is no friendship to be saved,

That thing has long set sail 

The issue is in you forcing yourself so called friendship to her.

Clearly she doesn't want to contact you anymore

Either way, its time to move on. Just cherish the memories of the past and let go.