The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Summary

Strained friendships can be heartbreaking, especially when a best friend chooses your enemy over you. In this episode, we explore friendship problems, betrayal, and how to cope with losing a friend. Learn how to set healthy boundaries, deal with rejection, and find healing after conflict. Whether you?re facing toxic friendships or struggling with letting go, this episode offers practical friendship advice and emotional support.



Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com, Kristen,

hello, hi, Kristen, hi, hi. You're having trouble with a good friend that moved away. Yeah, yeah, tell me what happened.

Yeah, tell me what happened.

Okay, well, she actually lived here with me for a while. You know, we lived in the same town, and she actually helped me through a very difficult time in my life. Then she moved quite a far distance away, and we mainly just contact each other through email or, like, social network and things of that nature. Well, we had a few?we had a few, like, differences, like kind of tiffs here and there over the years, but she recently kind of cut off all, like, ties with me. And, you know, I kept trying to contact her and ask her why, like through friends and other means. And finally she told me. She said, "Listen." She said, "I can't?I can't keep talking to you on the social network," she said, "like I normally do. You know, I had to cut you off because," she said, "my friends, some mutual friends of ours," she said, "don't like you." And I said, "Well, why?" And she refuses to tell me why. She says she does know, but she can't tell me, and they won't talk to me, and everything is just this, like, huge mess or something. Because, you understand, like, she's been my best friend for years. And she pretty much said to me, "Well, if I had to choose between them and you, I would choose them, because I grew up with them, and that's just the way it is." And she pretty much said, "You do it my way or the highway, or I won't speak." And this has really hurt. I mean, seeing that, it's coming from my best friend, and I'm not really sure what to do. That kind of severed the ties. I mean, she's someone dear to me. I don't want to lose her.

Yeah, what sense do you make of it?

It really makes no sense to me, except for, obviously, I angered her and her friends somehow. But if I'm not sure what I've done, I can't really right it. So I'm basically just asking them, you know, for some way to right things. But if people aren't willing to give that, how do you, you know, move on through this? And she apparently seems okay or comfortable with this arrangement, like I'm just kind of talking on the sly and not say anything. But it's right. I sense our relationship's not, you know, what it was, and I don't feel comfortable with this either.

I certainly wouldn't. Okay, let me tell you. What I'm hearing is that she has left you with a nightmare. She is not saying, "Listen, you lied about X, Y, or Z, or you cheated, or you stole something, or you caused a breakup in a marriage or something, you know, you had an affair with so and so, and therefore I am leaving you as a friend." If she gave you some concrete reason as to why she's turned away from you, then you could sit and say, "Okay, is it true or not?" If it's true?if you, you know, caused the breakup of a marriage deliberately and, you know, with mal intent, then that's one thing. If you didn't do that at all, then you'd say, "Well, she's got erroneous information," and at least you could evaluate it, but she's left you with, from what you've said, nothing, right?

I mean, we will be kind of falling out somewhat prior to this, but we talked it out among ourselves and we worked it out, and she assured me, you know, I'm not mad at you, and, you know, that was the way it was. And she just kind of cut me off. And I'm thinking, maybe she still is mad. Then she told me, yeah, not mad at you. And I'll talk to you on the sly, but it's my friends are mad at you. And I'm thinking, "Oh, why are your friends?" They don't know anything about this. Like, there's no reason. I'm not sure if she said something to them, and that's why they're mad. And I'm not?like, I don't honestly know what to go on. See, it's very confusing.

Okay, so she's willing to keep a relationship with you on the sly, but it makes it feel a little sly, sleazy, or something like?like you're second fiddle to her. So, so if she confided in the friends and told them something, what was the falling out about? Do you just, in essence?I don't need the gray.

Well, I feel like there's been many, like, failed expectations over the years. I mean, she told me she would do a lot of things, and she never followed through.

Yeah, give me an example.

Hey, I gotta interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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She told me she would do a lot of things, and she never followed through. She always has excuses for reasons why, you know, something didn't happen. And finally, this last time, she promised me something, and she told me, "Oh well, I promised someone else something." Like, I kind of overbooked myself. And I obviously became upset at the time, and I said, "Well, that's not right, because you've been promising me, like, certain things for a while, and I don't understand why you made this decision. I don't even see why it's important."

Really? Okay. What did she promise? What did she promise you that she?well, because she lives quite a long, far distance away, she promised me many times I could come and see her, you know, or she would come see me. And, I mean, I went so far as, like, buy a plane ticket, like out there. And after I bought the plane ticket?she knew that it was nonrefundable, I made this very clear?and then she tells me, "Oh, I'm sorry, I overbooked something, and I'm going to?"

Is she trying to hide something? Was this a partnership you had with her or just a best friend relationship?

Oh, she's been my best friend for several years, and this is the way?I kind of feel that she?then she's telling me, and these particular friends of hers, I mean, that she claims that grew up with?they hurt her very deeply. And there was a time when one of these particular friends, she told me, "I never want to speak to her again. I mean, she hurt me so badly. You know, she turned her back on me in the time of need, you know, when I needed her, and told me, 'Well, it's your bed. Now, go lie.'" And, I mean, this is during a very difficult, like, divorce or something in her life, and I understood why she felt that way. And, you know, I never done anything to betray her trust or anything of that nature. And this is what the blowup is about. And she felt like I?and I got really upset, you know, when she told me that I couldn't come see her, and I didn't know the girl that she said, you know, she was going to go see. But I said?well, I told her specifically, I said, "I'm going to talk to this girl, because I want to know what's going on. Why?why she needs you, like, to help her. Is there some kind of problem here?" Yeah, and I offered to help, and she says?and she wouldn't give me anything. So I went and talked to this girl, and I told her, so it wasn't behind her back. I went and talked to the girl, and I said, "Look, this is my friend, and do you understand, like, what was going on here? Why I want to see her. I haven't seen her in several years, and I don't know what happened," but apparently word got back to my friend that, you know, I spoke to her, even though I told my friend prior. That?my friend got really mad and said, "Well, you shouldn't have done that," you know.

Okay, so she felt like it was outside her control, that she confided in you, you took it in your own hands and did something, and she's really hurting about that, about the trust issue with you now, right?

About that she forgave me and everything was fine between, yeah, but, you know, friends?

Okay, yeah, but she can forgive you, but she can still like you, but still not value you as much. I mean, that did damage to a relationship, and so that gives you a little inkling she also may be enjoying the other people more, which always hurts sometimes. I don't know when you were little kids, but we would have friendships, and then they would break up because somebody likes so and so better. In grade school, that happens with adults, too, with all of us, that somebody just floats and they want a new experience with new people. There?what you can do is not beat up on yourself. Number one, you can own responsibility for maybe having done something that you, in reflecting, wish you hadn't done.

Yeah, in this?in a sense, I wish I hadn't said anything to her friend. I mean, I just trying to prove my point, like I'm really angry, and I don't think you're understanding why I'm so upset.

Yeah, yeah, okay, but you can?you can do that, but then don't beat up on yourself anymore. I once had a whole schoolyard turn against me and decide not to be my friend, and they never told me why. Man, that carried through for so long. Don't make it an identity issue. Don't beat up on yourself, Kristen. Own responsibility just for what you did, and no more. Don't think that you're an awful person because of this. And I would look for better friendships. I mean, it doesn't seem like she's a good friend to you.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad.

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