Breaking up with a friend

Just over a year ago, a person who I thought was one of my best friends betrayed me horribly. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say it escalated from her doing something really wrong to me to her blackmailing and threatening me. 

It took me a long time to get over it. There was definitely a grieving process; denial "How could she do this to me? It will blow over", to anger, "How could the bitch do that to me, after all I did for her", to, eventually, acceptance "She was always crazy, I'm better off without her". 

In fact, the anger I felt towards her only left me a few months ago - I had stopped having those conversations you have in your head, in case you ever bump into them again, had stopped fuming at the injustice of it all. But although it was out of my conscious mind, it was still burrowed deep in my subconscious, like an evil stinking worm.

I would have horrific and violent dreams about her, I’d scream at her until my head exploded. It was pretty screwed up. That’s gone now though and as the anger and hurt faded, reflection took their place.

As I thought back on our friendship, I realised that I had always made excuses for her, because I thought she was vulnerable. She had gone through a terrible break-up with her partner and I was the one who propped her up, the one who brought her back into the world, the one who stuck by her and listened when everyone else had given up. She’d even asked me to have her children for her if anything happened to her. So when she turned on me, it had really hurt.

But there were things she had done that I realised had always been totally unacceptable, but I’d let her get away with them, because I accepted that she was a bit unstable, a bit vulnerable. She had no filter on what she said, and to whom. Including me. 

I thought about all the parties I’d invited her to, when I’d had to warn other friends who had not met her yet about her. She’d sit down and start raving on to people she’d never met before about the size of her latest man’s penis, or how she could barely walk that day because of what she’d been doing the night before. This would be played out a kid’s party. That is no joke. She did it in front of my mum once, who practically faints at the mention of the word S.E.X. It was awful, I had to leave the room, when I should have stopped her there and then.

She though everyone fancied her, man, woman, whatever. 17 or 70, it didn’t matter, everyone was after her. It was quite funny until she came to me and said, 1) My boyfriend had been flirting with her, 2) My dad had been flirting with her at school pick-up. It makes me feel sick even thinking about it now, not because it was true, but because I know for a fact she was deluded. I won’t say what they said when I told them, but she should have been under no illusion. I should have stopped her there and then.

She badgered friends of mine with long texts about her sexploits. She’d talk loudly and derogatorily about her ex in front of her teenage son while his face burned.

As I reflected on all this, I thought “What the hell have I been doing? I should have stopped all this a long time ago”. But when she was being a good friend, she had been the kindest, loveliest person, which is why I probably stuck it out. I thought I was the stronger one, so I laughed off her weirdness, but when she turned on me so quickly, the scales fell from my eyes.

And with that falling away, I also realised that during the years of our friendship, from time to time, I’d had to take a break from her. To withdraw because her behaviour, frankly, did my head in. Then I could come back to the friendship refreshed. She never really noticed because she was so self-obsessed; if I wasn’t around, she’d just talk to a stranger at the school gate about her latest conquest.

So I’ve let it go now. It doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t eat me up with anger. I have wonderful friends and I’ll stick with them. With the people who support me, that I support, and we have an equal love and respect for each other, not some dangerously balanced minefield of a friendship.

I should have stopped her then, but it’s stopped now, and she was the one who brought it about. As with all bad experiences, now I’m out the other side I’m grateful for what it’s taught me.