How should you manage complicated friendships?
I've had a fading friendship with my best friend for a few years now and we've distanced but i think it's time to leave it behind. But in small towns with friends from teenage years i feel like we'll always come around. We only hang out a few times a year and text once or twice a month. I think it's ego and pride we both want the other around to brag about how much better we are doing while we both dismiss what the other has done. I'm probably less honest about my sbortfalls but I'm way more modest about my peaks.
I've changed my life and improved a lot over the last year and a half and i never talk about or post anything online about my rewards. I wear my walmart/old navy clothes when we hang out i only wear the expensive stuff out of town i don't tell people when i travel or go places. So my best friend doesn't even know these things and i wouldn't be comfortable talking about it because they stil have really rough times they're a business owner and I'm proud of what they've done but when i didn't quit my job to help it ruined the friendship that was probably built on usury for both of us.
I think the more self esteem and confidence i gain the less i seek approval. And when this friendship started all i wanted was friends and to be accepted once i gave myself those things other people naturally did as well but things stayed the same with this friend for a few years before i realized i was afraid to change with them because i wanted to stay friends. Now that I'm knocking on 30 i don't value that kind of friendship anymore. I also feel like I'll always want to be around this friend i waz extremely close with their first child the second one barely knows me and the first has distanced a lot since I'm barely around.
We had a lot of bonding experiences we were the only people that could live out in nature so we spent most of our late teens and early 20's camping in our state park partying and eventually got into rock climbing and other crazy stuff. When i was around 22 i moved in with their family for over two months. When they didn't have a car on more than one occasion in their esrly 20's i was their driver day and night, but once the partying stopped things were never the same. And the friendship basically ended when i stopped jumping through hoops to gain approval.
Should things end or shoukd a tough conversation happen that end up causes all ties to be up if they don't like how the conversation goes. We've always been a forget it happen kind of people. They're on my mind everyday and i don't know how to handle this i want to be close again but a part of me doesn't think it can ever get back to that because it was all fake and that is probably a hard truth
I've changed my life and improved a lot over the last year and a half and i never talk about or post anything online about my rewards. I wear my walmart/old navy clothes when we hang out i only wear the expensive stuff out of town i don't tell people when i travel or go places. So my best friend doesn't even know these things and i wouldn't be comfortable talking about it because they stil have really rough times they're a business owner and I'm proud of what they've done but when i didn't quit my job to help it ruined the friendship that was probably built on usury for both of us.
I think the more self esteem and confidence i gain the less i seek approval. And when this friendship started all i wanted was friends and to be accepted once i gave myself those things other people naturally did as well but things stayed the same with this friend for a few years before i realized i was afraid to change with them because i wanted to stay friends. Now that I'm knocking on 30 i don't value that kind of friendship anymore. I also feel like I'll always want to be around this friend i waz extremely close with their first child the second one barely knows me and the first has distanced a lot since I'm barely around.
We had a lot of bonding experiences we were the only people that could live out in nature so we spent most of our late teens and early 20's camping in our state park partying and eventually got into rock climbing and other crazy stuff. When i was around 22 i moved in with their family for over two months. When they didn't have a car on more than one occasion in their esrly 20's i was their driver day and night, but once the partying stopped things were never the same. And the friendship basically ended when i stopped jumping through hoops to gain approval.
Should things end or shoukd a tough conversation happen that end up causes all ties to be up if they don't like how the conversation goes. We've always been a forget it happen kind of people. They're on my mind everyday and i don't know how to handle this i want to be close again but a part of me doesn't think it can ever get back to that because it was all fake and that is probably a hard truth
26-30, F
