Should I move on?

Hi Nicky

I am a newbie to these forums and just noticed your last post above but haven't had a chance to read your others about your friends. However, I have had experience of this of late. My hubbie and I have (or had?) one particular friend who we have known for the past 10 year and who was our 'best' friend. I worked with him for 10 years and he also rented a room in our house for 5 years before we moved to Australia 4 years ago. He also moved to Aus at the same time.

However, in the past couple of years everytime we see him it has had to be on his terms, dates and times. He would do activities with other people that he wouldn't do with us - I never could figure this one out and then he met his girlfriend about 18 months ago. Since then it only got worse up until about 6 months ago when he would see us only on a Saturday for lunch plus a couple of hours afterwards when his girlfriend would be busy doing something else.

We have done many things for him and helped him out when it didn't suit us over the past 10 years but his inflexibility to us still always bothered us but we have always worked around it up until Xmas this year where he made no attempt to arrange anything over the holiday period. We are all in Aus on our own and have no real family or friends to think of so assumed we would at least be arranging a couple of nights out/in but no phone call came.

In the end although we cannot figure out why we have just decided to move on without seeing him and haven't done so for 6 months. In fact I emailed him last week to ask him if he had a couple of our DVDs which he had borrowed and could he post them back but didn't even get a reply - they just turned up in the post a few days later. My hubbie called and emailed to thank him but still no response. Anyway, to get back to the point I think there is only so much you can do with people, if they are sending out the signals or reacting in a certain way which is negative then give it a couple more tries but if it were me (and in my opnion only) I would move on.

It is very sad and a shame when friends (especially long standing ones) act this way but you can only try so much without losing all dignity and self respect. You don't say whether her behaviour started when she met her boyfriend (ours wasn't but things did worsen when our friend moved in with his girlfriend) but things go both ways and if she valued your friendship long term I think she would make more of an effort to keep it. Obviously you can appreciate that she wants to spend time with him but not at the total expense of your frienship whom she had beforehand.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts.

You might try to just let it rest... not make a final decision, and in the meantime, try to meet some new people, nurture another friendship or just see how solitude feels (solitude, not isolation) for a little while anyway. Sometimes time and distance heals a strainded relationship or lets you see clearly that it is time to move on.

I have had a friend for years... but more and more distance has become between us. She ignores my emails, but then sends my wife, who could care less, an ecard for Mothers Day... BUT not one to me for Fathers day... cant figure this one out... but I just keep sending her love, and if she continues to ignore me, then I will just let go of it.

hope this helps a little.....

I'm going to see if we can talk about it and what happened but I don't think she wants to make it work.  She usually gets mad at me when i say something can you give me some ideas about what to say to her....please.

Obviously there are more details to this, but in general, I agree with the others above - don't make any rash decision. First, does it really matter if you are in contact with this person regularly? You don't have to cut off the friendship forever just because it's a tough time for you. My wife has had a problem keeping long-term friends and marvels at the number of friends that I have. I explained to her that it's a matter of effort. I had to make a decision as to whether or not each friendship was worth keeping. If the answer to my question is yes, I make the effort to keep the friendship going. That means making calls, sending an Email here or there, remembering birthdays, etc. There are times when a particular friend doesn't respond to messages or Emails and it could easily be interpreted as them not wanting to be a friend anymore.

I've found that sometimes people just have too much going on in their lives to be the person taking care of the relationship at that time. No problem. You just have to be patient. Communicate to your friend by writing a letter or Email and keep sarcasm and finger pointing out of it. Just let them know that you are there for them if they need you and that you understand that they have a lot going on right now. Keep it short and simple and as nice (and supportive) as possible. Then just keep in touch with a phone call or Email here and there over the next whatever amount of weeks and see what happens.

If this is a phase your friend is going through, you may be surprised to find that your friend will eventually appreciate your support at this time and reach out for your friendship. On the other hand, they may not be a good friend after all and you'll lose touch. Either way, you did your best and were a friend to them. Sometimes friendships work out and sometimes they don't. That's just the way it is in life.

Hope that helps a little bit.

Rick...

I'm just afraid of what I may do if her boyfriend breaks up with her and she needs someone.  It just makes me so mad.  She was really the only good friend I had.  She doesn't even want to talk about it.  Like I have tried to keep the relationship alive but she doesn't put any input so i feel like I'm the only one that wants it to work.  I'm fed up with it!!!!!