Mitsy's Story

My story is about a former best friend. I find that after months (no, really years) of us having a one-sided friendship (me doing most of the work), I am still working through the grief process of letting her go.

We have been co-workers at our part-time retail job for 15+ years. We used to be neighbors and we grew very close over the past several years through illness (her having cancer & later surgery, disappointments, and just generally sharing w/each other personal things that we didn’t share with others. My friend has been married a number of times and I have not. We have different backgrounds & her connection to her parents was/is much less close than mine. Nevertheless, I didn’t judge her on her past or our differences and we remained close until I started seeing some major changes in her this past summer.

She’s been dating a guy for over 5 years and while I suspected he was a player, I never voiced any concerns about him to her. Our friendship remained strong even during the first years of their relationship. But, I continued to try to keep our friendship going, all the while realizing that her boyfriend was controlling her more & more. She even made comments that confirmed my belief that he didn’t want her to spend time with her kids or anyone else for that matter.

I tried talking to her about her behavior which was becoming angry towards me, coworkers and life in general. But, it wasn’t other people that were her problem, it was/is her controlling guy. I put up with months of her hot/cold behavior and grew to dread the nights we worked together. I think a supervisor eventually talked to her about her attitude because she’s been a whole lot better towards co-workers (including me) since the first of the year. But, I also decided that Jan. 1 was a new beginning for myself. I had put in way too much time & energy into this friendship. Even if the blame can be placed on a manipulative (emotionally & verbally abusive) boyfriend, it is still HER choice to remain with this man. I distanced myself from her and her issues and no longer call her just to chat like I used to. She has called me a few times but I think she knows there’s a difference now. Whether she will realize she has few friends now is up to her because she has caused her own problems with others.

I’m now in the process of making new friendships or cultivating existing acquaintances into friendships because my hurt & disappointment with my former friend was simply too hard to continue to deal with. I still hurt at times from knowing that things will never be the same between us, but there are some women who have to have a man in their life at all times. My former friend is one of those people. Sadly, those kinds of women don’t make for good friendships because they see more value in having a guy (even a bad one) than cherishing their friendships with others.

In the end, I feel like I’ve made the right choice in this as I’d be a fool to believe she would change without therapy & she isn’t ready to seek that. So, narcissistic traits truly exist in friendships as well as dating relationships. Thanks for letting me share my story.