Losing friends and moving on
April 6, 2020 7:55 AM   Subscribe

I officially ended my 12 year friendship with my ex-best friend on the day before yesterday. It was upsetting, but overwhelmingly, I feel relieved. But now I'm navigating the delicate situation of keeping our mutual friends. Just because I leave my best friend, that doesn't mean I have to leave our mutual friends...right?

For Background:

https://ask.metafilter.com/338713/I-dated-my-best-friend-and-now-were-not-friends-anymore

**How it happened: **

After our last encounter, we ended up not really speaking to each other directly for about two months because he needed space. We both still remained in our group chats with our mutual friends and encountered each other there, but otherwise did not speak. I reached out to him directly around the two month mark to ask if he was ready to talk.

First, I asked him to confirm that the things he had posted on social media about how "the past can be slaughtered like any animal" were about me. He said "well it wasn't about YOU so much as it was about the situation...I would never say that about you. And that other thing about how I can revoke my presence at any time and for any reason, that wasn't about you, that's just an affirmation I use to make myself feel better."

I expressed to him that it was very hurtful and that it felt like he planned to discard our friendship and brag about how easy it was to do. He apologized for his actions.

I asked him why he pushed me away like that, and he said "I never pushed you away, and we agreed that I needed space and I'm not sorry for taking that space."

I recapped the events for him: "You said you were in love with me for years. I wanted to go on a date, you said you weren't ready and that it wasn't going to work out and we should go our separate ways. We go our separate ways, and then when you come to visit you say you're heartbroken that I wanted to bury my feelings for you. We jump into romance and kissing for a few days and you say you feel seen and that this is a great place for us to jump in. Then two weeks later when I ask what you wanted, you say you're not ready, it's not going to work out, and you need space. Now we're here."

He says: "That's not how I remember things at all; I remember you saying those things. You said you weren't ready. You said I had to kill my feelings for you."

At this point, I felt it was another setup to another 10 hour long conversation in which he denies something or hones in on one thing I said, and doubles down on the idea that I'm calling him difficult, oppressive, abusive, whatever, and after going back and forth for literally 10-12 hours, he finally goes back and reads the messages and says "oh. I'm sorry, I think I've jumped the gun."

It was two days before Christmas. I didn't want to do it. We went back and forth about what happened, and agreed to disagree. I just wanted my friend back.

We agreed to work on rebuilding our friendship.

But when I would reach out to him, he seemed very lackluster. The conversations were short, they fizzled out. Not much happened. And after a while I started to question what exactly I was fighting for. Why is it down to me to dedicate hours of my day, sometimes days in a row to convincing a person to be reasonable? Why do things fall apart when I'm not doing that work? Why am I the one reaching out and trying to salvage things, having anxiety attacks about how he's doing, being so so careful about what I say on social media in case something can be misinterpreted, and yet he feels so comfortable jumping up and bragging about how easy it is to cut me off? Why does he get to be so comfortable discarding our friendship while I burn myself out trying to keep the peace? I deserve much, much better than this.

I slowly began to realize all the ways in which this thing and even this friendship was built to serve him, shield him, protect him, but didn't really do the same for me. He kept using this word transactional to describe how we dealt with each other, and I didn't get it. It wasn't transactional to me, and I wasn't looking for much in return, so I didn't notice that things were one-sided in that way.

On the day before yesterday, I sent him a message:

"Hi there,

I hope you're staying safe with all this going on.

We talked about maintaining our friendship, but I'm having some trouble doing that. It was simply too hurtful, and there's too much damage done for me to get past this. You said you felt like I was turning things around on you, and I still disagree with that. You're free to read our text messages, but you've also said that you don't want to re-experience that, and I understand.

However, until we're able to have a real and honest conversation about what happened, there is no way we can have anything approaching a real friendship."

He said he thought we should spend time on our own before trying to find a friendship with each other.

I thanked him and that was it.

**What I think actually happened**

Despite never needing this with anyone else he dated, he absolutely needed me to agree to us exploring sexually with other people in the relationship. He didn't believe in monogamy (with me), because limiting himself that way would be like "having sugar and then never having never having it again." At first I was upset about it, but then I thought about it myself; this is a great opportunity to explore my own sexuality in (what I thought was) a safe environment with someone I could trust. The idea grew on me. Plus, I hadn't fully explored my own bisexuality, so it was a pretty sweet deal as far as trying new things.

So one day, shortly after his visit, where we had flipped back to romance and he felt "seen", I said "I'm glad we're getting off to a great start. Y'know, I was actually thinking, you had mentioned this thing about exploring our sexuality and how we're not exclusive or ready for a relationship right now. I was thinking of doing some exploring of my own while we figure this thing out. This is new territory though, and I don't want to do anything that will make you uncomfortable, so I thought I'd check in. How do you feel about it?"

He said: "I don't really have a say in the matter. You should do what's best for you."

So I thought everything was cool. But that week he was very upset. His mood tanked, he's snapping at everybody, the whole nine. I asked him what was up (I hadn't yet connected the dots and thought it was me venting one too many times about my own issues. I thought I was being a debbie downer.) He said: "It's not your fault, I can't blame you for something you can't help."

So I left it there and said I was here if he needed to talk.

Then about a week later, we're talking about relationships and what we want and I realize I'm doing all the talking, so I said "I'm talking a lot about what I want, but what do you want?"

And that's where he says he doesn't think it's going to work out, and he needs space. (see the link above for more details)

**Keeping Mutual Friends:**

We'd been best friends for over a decade, and we have a group of mutual friends that we're in contact with pretty much daily, who I met through him, who now also consider me to be one of their best friends too. I don't want to lose my friends. I'm comfortable remaining in these groups and avoiding ex-best-friend. It's been about 6 months now, and I'm finally at a point where I can move on and deal with bigger things, like keeping myself and my family safe in a worldwide pandemic.

But is that okay? What if he tries to turn everyone against me? Do I have to lose my closest friends--who are by and large way healthier than he is, and are not at all the same sort of drama-filled person he's been--just because I'm done with ex-best-friend?
posted by Socolime to Human Relations (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: You can't control what your mutual friends think and feel. That said, if it were me, I'd make it a point to have a conversation with the ones who are important to you, and tell them they're important to you, and you don't want to lose their friendship just because you're not friends with your ex-best-friend anymore. If he tells lies about you or spins the truth and your mutual friends believe him without talking to you, I'd suggest that they aren't very good friends.
posted by nosila at 8:05 AM on April 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


Best answer: What if he tries to turn everyone against me?

He might, he seems like an incredibly manipulative person. But those other people have agency here, and may very well already see him pretty clearly and be uninterested in his bids to do this. It's up to them how they react.

I agree that you might reach out to the people you feel especially close to, though, but don't do it in a dramamongering way. I'm not even sure you need to explicitly address whatever this thing was that happened, especially if it wasn't an official status-change at any point, just open up a backchannel with them. Maybe start by reaching out privately to see if they're doing okay in a pandemic sense and if they need anything, and just keep that line open.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:26 AM on April 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Best answer: You know the part where he said he didn’t want to be monogamous and wanted to explore things with other people? He meant that for him, not you. HE wanted to be the one sleeping with multiple people, while you sat there and waited, all virtuous like, for him to come back.

Once he realised that not only would you also be getting the freedom to do this but most likely would actually follow through and be much more successful at getting multiple sexual partners while he had to watch on the sidelines, it quite likely completely changed the game for him and destroyed his ego. This man is no loss as a partner and no loss as a friend. Hopefully he won’t, but if he does turn your friends against you, try taking them aside and explaining what’s actually going on.

So far as giving this man space, if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to get enough space from him, so do that with pleasure.
posted by Jubey at 6:17 PM on April 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


Best answer: My experience in various friend groups where two people have either a falling-out or a breakup is that, absent something egregious like abuse or assault, people generally stay friends with the person who makes it easier to stay friends with both people. If that's both of you, awesome - you both get to stay friends with everyone! But if one person is making it easy and the other is making it hard, people usually stop hanging out with the one who's making their lives more difficult. So, what does that mean for you? If you can, try to mostly talk about him with non-mutual friends. Your mutuals don't need this whole story - if they ask you what happened say something short "never try to date your friends" and then move on. If you want to avoid him at gatherings (once there are gatherings again), make sure you're making that your own responsibility and not everyone else's; in other words, you may both be invited to the same thing, and it's up to you to decide what to do about that, not up to your friends to decide which one of you they want to invite to a thing.

If you don't want to come to an event because he's going, that's cool! One thing that will go a long way is to reach out to the person who invited you and say "hey, I'm not really up for seeing X right now, but how about we [SPECIFIC OTHER THING YOU CAN DO]"

It's fine to ask your friends to limit how much they mention him in front of you, but it's not fine to make them pretend he doesn't exist. And it's definitely not fine to get mad at your friends for spending time with him (well, it's fine to get mad, but don't yell at them).

Can you tell that I've been through this with people in my friend groups a bunch? Basically, make this your own problem, not the problem of your whole friend group. If you do that, and he behaves the way it sounds like he's going to behave, I suspect that you'll be the one left with most of these friends when all is said and done.
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:10 AM on April 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


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