AskPolly: “I don’t regret walking away. I do regret not telling her more about why: that I didn’t like the way she was treating me after her breakup. And I’m angry. I’m angry for feeling like my friend is the queen and I am her butler”
I recently ended the closest friendship I’ve ever had. It was mutual — my friend believed I was in the wrong; I feel I’m doing what’s best for me. At a stalemate, we stopped talking. We live in the same neighborhood, and I share a building with mutual friends, who are nice to me in person but secretly believe I am a bad friend, according to other friends.
When they broke up this time, I happened to be in a very bad place in my life. Aside from my breakup, I was unemployed and unable to pay my rent, and depressed to the point of feeling suicidal. Her boyfriend’s betrayal did seem like a more acute problem, so I tried to avoid talking about any of my issues and offer as much support as I could. She knew about my relationship ending and my job situation. She did not know about my bank account or the depth of my depression.
We’re probably both feeling some of the same things: anger, hurt, and deep down, sometimes, missing one another. I don’t think we can talk this through. She’s often at my building with our mutual friends, and well, to be clear: literally hanging out at my doorstep. She pretends not to see me, though they say hello. I’m also a little uncomfortable about these friends, my neighbors, thinking I’m a jerk.
It’s time to move past that now. You did your best with your friend under terrible conditions, and it wasn’t good enough. She knows that now. She’s heard directly from you that your reaction was formed from your depression and stress at the time. You say “I do regret not telling her more about why,” but it sounds like you told her everything. Moreover, it sounds like she’s never been that interested in what’s going on with you in the first place.
There is nothing to fix here. You need to stop imagining what she’s saying to these friends and acquaintances. You need to stop imagining what she thinks of you, and what they think of you. You need to stop picturing their reaction to how you act when you see them, after you walk away. Every time you think about asking a mutual friend what someone else thinks, stop yourself. Every time you think, “But if I do x, she’ll think y and they’ll think z,” stop yourself.
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