Saving vs. Letting a relationship go

[Yellow]

How do you decide if a certain relationship is worth working on and sticking around for or letting go?

I recently broke off with a friend. She was a source of quite a bit of stress for me for more than a year. Actually, stuff had been going on ever since I got to know her (6 years ago) and with time it just kept getting worse and I didn't pay that much attention to it, or got over it until about 2 years ago.

She is very caring of the people she is close to. We were supposedly close friends. I know she cared about me and I did too. But I did not feel very close to her because of the way she interacted. I could trust her with almost anything, she isn't the kind to disappoint you.

However, she always wanted to have the control of every situation. Even things like when I introduce MY boyfriend to my friends when she doesn't want to introduce her boyfriend to friends until she is sure the guy is the one. I am not a dominating person but I can not stand someone trying to dominate me. She is also very sarcastic and witty to the extent that I felt insulted. She is one of those people who know what to say to shut the other person up or just turn the discussions/fights around to blame the other person. She also is very judgmental and once she thinks of something, it is not easy to change her opinion. It was fun when that came with half-accurate information that she based her wrong assumptions on, about me. Then, she failed to listen to me while I tried to explain what actually was going on. And to top it all, it was always difficult talking to her heart-to-heart because she always protects herself against situations where people could talk to her like that, except for a few people and I am not one of those.

Anyways, I know that if I weren't as angry at the way things were and if her ego did not take over her ability to understand what I was saying about MY life and why it was so bad a while ago, we could have saved this friendship. We broke off while trying to discuss why I stopped talking to her. I was angry in the beginning because of her sarcastic comments. Then we both calmed down and then things took a downward turn. She said some things that I am extremely angry about and can not get over, just yet.

I want to know where you guys draw the line between saving a relationship and letting it go. The way I see it, I know I could have saved it. However, I have no wishes to do that anymore. Where should the line be drawn, anyway?

I guess I am ok if you guys tell me what you think I might have done wrong. The people who know about this know it through me and know about her through me, so they are all biased. And the one person who is in between us (poor her) can't really do that just yet, neither am I ready to hear that from her.

One last point, I am learning to be a bit more assertive. So, all of this feels good. I feel good about taking this stance. I AM working on my life to change it around and I am doing better. But I could be using that assertiveness as aggression. May be I need to practice it enough to find the right balance.

Thanks for reading

[Ak47]

Indeed, pay attention to and try to balance being assertive and being aggressive. People get the two mixed up very often.

I think whatever you feel is right is what you should do. If you feel that a continued friendship with her would not be worth overcoming the current boundaries, and perhaps having to deal with more difficult situations in the future... then forget it. If you think she is a good friend, then maybe take a week or two longer to think aobut it an then decide. Taking a break could be effective in letting both of your anger drain a bit (though i know this is less the case with females for some reason; many females tend to hold extended grudges when there are problems with same-sex friends, so i've observed).

Personally, i'd just leave her. I don't doubt that there are many people out there who could be just as much, if not more valuable as a friend... while causing less problems in the meantime as well.

[Yellow]

What I am thinking is, if I had been less aggressive and more, for lack of a better word, mature and understanding of the entire situation, it might have gone somewhere. She did say that she doesn't "sugar-coat" the "truths" that is, dont tell the other person they might be doing something wrong [according to her] in their lives, politely. And she said that she doesn't feel the need to do it with the people she is close to.

I feel like, if we really tried, we could have probably both understood the problem and made changes.

But then that requires us BOTH trying... She clearly didn't try that hard because she started attacking me and stopped listening.

WHY the HELL do I care!!

[Ak47]

If you want my personal opinion, once again... someone who really knows you, and cares about you... should care about you enough to at least try to express things to you in a friendly, or polite manner before coming out with what i like to call, "dangerous honesty."

Candy coating is one thing, but everyone knows people can be exceptionally sensitive. How much harder is it to politely point something out even one time before going into "dangerous honesty." It seems to me she took your feelings for granted, and i don't think that's a good quality of a friend.

Perhaps you were aggressive, and it's good you realize that you may have been. Either way, i suppose you could say this was a learning experience.

Probably the best thing you can do is take some time for yourself to gather your thoughts. Then, ask her what she thinks about what happened. Perhaps she does just speak her mind, but still cares about you. Asking her what she thinks about the issue you've had before you express your opinion could give you a lot of insight into how she really feels about you. Once you've got that info, you can probably make a more educated decision (i say this because i don't know the girl in the first place).

[Parthon]

You care because you are human.

It sounds like you care about her because she's a good person deep down, just as you are. you also want to save the relationship, because if you didn't you wouldn't be posting here. The thing to do is get into her world, find out why she so sarcastic, controlling and nasty compared to her normal caring self. There has to be a reason why she's like that, and it's not because she's strong. Strong people don't need to control a situation using sarcasm and nastiness, so there's something going on that's making her weak.

Assertiveness is being emotionally strong in the face of everything people throw at you, having so much respect for yourself and other people that you can stand up for yourself and what's really important. Use your personal strength to call her our on her bullshit. Tell her that she's not "honest" she's just nasty. Tell her that she's judgemental and a bigot. Then ask her why? Ask her, "I know you are a nice friendly person at heart, so why are you so sarcastic and nasty some the time?"

As for when to break it off, it's never the situation that breaks up a relationship, it's always the attitude and long running behaviour that does it. It all comes down to respect. When a person has no respect for another, there can be no honest relationship there because there's no foundation for trust, mutual sharing or meaningful interaction. There's no point being in a relationship without respect. So you have to ask yourself, does she respect you? Then use that to decide. In the end, it's up to you.

For myself, I've only broken a friendship with one person. He kept aggressively pressing an issue I was having in my life and judging me for it to the point of condemning me for something I couldn't immediately change. He threatened me and said many disrespectful things, at it was at this point when I realised he was more invested in judging me rather than having a friendship with me. It was then I politely turned around and asked him not to be my friend any more. It was not a pretty scene after that, but it didn't start off pretty either. Since then, some our mutual friends have stayed friends with him and the stories they tell means he hasn't changed. I definately don't regret that choice, it was definately the right thing to do.

[Yellow]

Originally Posted by Parthon

You care because you are human.

It sounds like you care about her because she's a good person deep down, just as you are. you also want to save the relationship, because if you didn't you wouldn't be posting here. The thing to do is get into her world, find out why she so sarcastic, controlling and nasty compared to her normal caring self. There has to be a reason why she's like that, and it's not because she's strong. Strong people don't need to control a situation using sarcasm and nastiness, so there's something going on that's making her weak.

Assertiveness is being emotionally strong in the face of everything people throw at you, having so much respect for yourself and other people that you can stand up for yourself and what's really important. Use your personal strength to call her our on her bullshit. Tell her that she's not "honest" she's just nasty. Tell her that she's judgemental and a bigot. Then ask her why? Ask her, "I know you are a nice friendly person at heart, so why are you so sarcastic and nasty some the time?"

As for when to break it off, it's never the situation that breaks up a relationship, it's always the attitude and long running behaviour that does it. It all comes down to respect. When a person has no respect for another, there can be no honest relationship there because there's no foundation for trust, mutual sharing or meaningful interaction. There's no point being in a relationship without respect. So you have to ask yourself, does she respect you? Then use that to decide. In the end, it's up to you.

For myself, I've only broken a friendship with one person. He kept aggressively pressing an issue I was having in my life and judging me for it to the point of condemning me for something I couldn't immediately change. He threatened me and said many disrespectful things, at it was at this point when I realised he was more invested in judging me rather than having a friendship with me. It was then I politely turned around and asked him not to be my friend any more. It was not a pretty scene after that, but it didn't start off pretty either. Since then, some our mutual friends have stayed friends with him and the stories they tell means he hasn't changed. I definately don't regret that choice, it was definately the right thing to do.

I am aware of why she does that. Well, I don't know what caused it, what events in her life as such. But she is very paranoid as a person. Things that most people won't care about much, get her extremely worked up. But then she is also not very close to me to share that with me. This one friend is both of ours best friend (ya, bad for her, Friend B), she told me how there is stuff about her she knows that helps her tolerate her behaviour more. Friend A won't want to tell me until we are on good grounds.

I feel so angry talking about it because the reason I wanted to talk to her was to point out the things she does that annoys me but it ended up being all about how I have been handling my life for past year. And she conveniently blamed my boyfriend for some of the stuff because that's when I started my relationship. Not just that, HAHA, she told me that I have hurt our mutual friend A LOT and I am the worst of the friend among the 3 of us . Ok, that sounds VERY middle-schoolish but she did say that.

The reason I am bouncing back and forth is because I know she is a good person. I don't know why I am doing this though. I had make up my mind before this conversation that if she is being her usual self, I will NOT put up with it. And I didn't but now I am wondering. UGH!

I also think she needs to apologize to me for all the crap she said.

Last year has been very difficult for me. I went through some problems that have changed me A LOT now. Haha, funniest was how easily she turned all of my problems into a bad case of SAD because according to her I was doing a lot better during the Summer months last year and getting better again. All that she knows about me is through Friend B who was telling her stuff about me and even she didn't know everything.

UGH!!

Ok, in her defense, she was feeling sick and got veryy irritated. What Friend B told me.

I'm angry and I know I am going on and on blabbering. She had a BILLION wrong assumptions about me. Just because my family is worried about me doesn't mean I can't have any problems with them. Or if they are worried, I'll drop my problems with them and act like everything is fine.

I feel like writing her an angry email.