When a friendship ends in silence, a chasm of unanswered questions can be left at the bottom.
Questions such as, ‘Was it something I did or said perhaps didn’t do, or say?’
These questions can remain unanswered. Sadly a lot of friendships die in the graveyard of passive aggressiveness where neither side gets the answers they were looking for. According as we mature, grow and evolve into the individual we are meant to be, we learn how to speak our truth, and we learn how to set healthy boundaries with those around us. Sadly, this can mean we regret how we left certain unresolved situations in our past that we did not have the intellectual or emotional capabilities at the time in order to correctly and maturely resolve the issues. It is too easy to vilify and victimise. Victimise yourself, and put yourself in the role of the bleedingheart Martyr whose friendship was smashed into smithereens, across the rocks of betrayal. Friendships can end due to betrayal and lies and no friendship can survive its foundations being cracked by unresolved issues of trust, which shatters the foundations of a friendship. In order to fully move on there needs to be a discussion in terms of what happened, what went wrong and ownership taken.
If there is potential to recover the friendship, it needs to be discussed openly and maturely. This may lead to a new chapter. A friendship that can be restored and resolved. We can heap too much shame and guilt onto relationships, and as the years go, it becomes more and more difficult to reconnect. It is much easier to vilify the person and heap the entire blame of the breakdown of the friendship onto them. I am generalising as of course, there are circumstances which mitigate the ending of a friendship. However, in the cases, where, as you look back over the years and realise How sad it was to end a friendship over what seemed so insignificant now, as compared to the time. Usually there is a buildup of other factors which have led to the collapse of a friendship. This can usually be an inability to define healthy boundaries, or speak your truth in a friendship, for fear of insulting the friend. Jealousy can play a very large role in the destruction of a friendship.
Feeling resentful for a friend, wealth, opportunity , relationship or pregnancy can lead to the friend, becoming more and more distant and inability to express how they feel for fear of being judged, judged or shown as being petty or not happy for their friends, success. Emotional immaturity has an awful influence in terms of not wishing to own up to your shadow side.
Jealousy can teach us a lot about ourselves.
It can shine a light on areas of our lives that we wish to aspire to, and feel we are failing at, or simply not stepping up to the plate in terms of her own personal Ambitions. When are when a close friend achieves these ambitions in our eyes we immediately feel happy for them, but at the same time it can be mixed with feelings of jealousy and resentment. It’s difficult to express these shadow feelings to your friend, as the political correct feeling is to be one of joy and success for your friends happiness. Unfortunately, if these feelings aren’t given words and we’re not able to work through these issues or acknowledge the shadow aspects we tend to turn into. We tend to project this on to the friend, as if they didn’t deserve their success or that we avoid ultimately end up, avoiding them as hearing of their success, only exacerbates our feelings of hopelessness and failure. in this particular area of our lives. One of the more recent examples of this was a client I was reading for, her friend had become pregnant by accident. My client had been on an IVF journey for seven years. Her friend‘s surprise Pregnancy came as a massive blow to her confidence.
She sadly wasn’t able to feel gratitude or joy for her friend and found herself avoiding her at all costs. She felt absolutely awful for feeling this way, but couldn’t help it as she was at the end of her tether with regards her fertility journey,
Also everyone else had found out about the pregnancy before her as her friend didn’t know how to find the words to tell her that she was pregnant.
A breakdown in communication occurred. You can look at this story and see both sides of it. You can appreciate the friends side of things and you can also appreciate the lady on the fertility journey side of things. However, a conversation could’ve very easily smooth it over ruffled feathers by texting the lady on the journey, telling her she was pregnant and asking her, and when would it be okay to talk about it? If she wanted to talk about it, but giving her the option to respond when she was ready to?
We need to possess the emotional maturity to be able to deal with things. A breakdown in communication occurs and neither side get the emotional support that they both want.