The last two days have been terrible for me. I have lost basically three maybe more friendships because my friends made a decision to "have concerns" over my relationship. They think I am making some kind of mistake and they think I can't handle the truth. That's their side. Here is mine.
I haven't seen most of these friends for a handful of times in the last 7 months. I haven't spent any time with any of them since April, really. That is long before my new relationship started. Some of that is my fault. I was sad and depressed and didn't want to be around anyone. Some of that is because I felt like I was being excluded by them. They would check in at places 5-10 minutes from my house for a "Girls Night Out" of dinner and movies and I wasn't ever invited. 3-4 of them would get together from all over town right down the street from me and I was sitting at home alone. It was really hard not to take that personally. I should have talked to them about it, but I didn't. I have cried more tears over these relationships than just the last 2 days. It goes back months.
Eventually, I started hanging out with other friends more. I started hanging out with other friends one of whom basically introduced me to J, well she and Twitter.
But I digress. My friends were around some. They gave me a wonderful birthday dinner in August and made me feel very special. I will love every one of them for that even though I don't know how to trust several of them, now.
I started dating J the next week. We had some tough issues to work through and because I literally put my friends through HELL the summer before when I was trying to make a bad 'relationship' work, I didn't include them in any of the things we were going through. It was never a matter of picking them over him. I was trying to protect them. I didn't want to drag them down so J and I fought the battle together. It made us really close. We can tell each other anything. We don't always agree and we don't always understand each other but we are learning to communicate pretty well with each other and we truly love each other.
Timing isn't always perfect and when J and I met, he had just ended something. One of my friends confronted me and told me basically, what I was doing was wrong and I should wait and if J and I were truly In love, that shouldn't be a problem, in his opinion. Well, maybe he was right but maybe I was too. I am 43, J is 46. We knew the truth about what was going on and he didn't...because I had shared very little. I felt very judged and I handled it poorly but I tried to reach out to him. I texted him in November. I never heard from him.
Another friend wrote a blog about me. I called her. I invited her to dinner. I tried to talk to her. I thought she understood but lately I got the distinct feeling, I was wrong.
It became clear to me over time that many of our "mutual" friends had begun to treat me differently. Some stopped talking to me on Twitter. Some stopped texting me. A few of our mutual friends reached out to me to tell me they could tell how happy I was with J and that they were happy for me. For that I was really grateful. Sadly, the three friends I was closest to virtually stopped communicating with me, it seemed. I couldn't bring J up without someone's face turning hard or turning away. My friend stopped looking me in the eyes when we talked.
Sadly the worst part of this is, none of these friends ever met him. My mom met him and she loves him. Her comment "I wasn't expecting you to fall in love with someone so much like your brother." My friend Trish and her boyfriend had dinner with us last week and her comment was "He is very entertaining. We liked him." She also added, be careful and don't move too fast...because she is my friend and she cares. My neighbors love J. The rest of my family meets him on Thanksgiving and I will be meeting his family.
I am realistic. I know what I am doing. I am not moving too quickly. I haven't made any mistakes. I haven't done anything that is wrong and J and I are happy. His friends have all met me and they love me and they are thrilled that he has finally met someone that is good to him. I am sad. Really sad, that my friends never gave he and I a CHANCE. The truth is, that was their choice. I tried to make it right. I guess sometimes things can't be fixed.
That's my side. Just know, there are two sides to a story and no side is all right. If you only heard one side, you don't know the truth, obviously. However to say that the reason 3 friends walked out of my life is because they were honest about how they felt about my relationship is naive at best.
Simply,
Laura
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
OF COURSE there are two sides to every story. In situations like this, everyone is hurt by miscommunication and misperception. It's hard to avoid those things when emotions are running high. I hate it for you and for Rachel and Khrystal and Chance. I know nothing about J, but I sincerely hope that it's a good situation for you and that it works out and y'all live happily ever after.
ReplyDeleteTrust me, nobody is more upset than I am. I just don't know how to fix it at this point. We are really happy together and we are taking it slow. There are more people than he and I to worry about and we both know that for the little ones, we have a bigger reaponsibility. Slow from here out.
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