So my BFF are in a fight. The friendship has been one sided for a long time as she is quite dependent emotionally on myself and those around her. I started going through some depression/anxiety/health problems and put up some internal boundaries. She asked me why and we had a huge blow up
She deals with conflict by shutting me out totally, which is really hurtful to me. I was emotionally abandoned by my parents and I relive those feelings every time she shuts me out after a conflict. I tried texting, calling, emailing.
The problem is that our families are very close. I just don’t know if I can have a friendship where I get shut out every time there is a conflict because conflict is inevitable. This stress plus the season change has triggered a major depression and lots of anxiety. I texted again today.
What do y’all think of this shutting out/ silent treatment after a conflict? Am i overreacting??
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BlueBelle06
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I think the silent treatment is the worse response. My Mother has done this numerous times and it is extremely hurtful and not productive. Is there anyway you can talk to her when things calm down and ask her to work with you to develop a new to respond to your conflicts in the future??
Thank you for replying. That’s my hope. I had written off the friendship because i thought it was over. my husband has been talking to her because i think he wants it to work out. So if she replies to my text about talking, I’ll have to let her know how i feel about it. It just feels awful to me to be ignored
I'm sorry this is happening to you, but honestly, what kind of a friend uses the one thing to hurt you that she knows would...abandonment....it's cruel and controlling....it sounds like they need to be left to their own devices for a while and you do what you need to do and take care of getting on with your life without this person manipulating the relationship. They are to self absorbed to be there for you, and any good friendship is a two way street. As painful as it is to move off from an unhealthy relationship with someone....we have to make ourselves do it or we just keep getting used and abused. I'm sure you have love for your friend and can have some kind of relationship down the line possibly, but at this point it's not very healthy for you...and I do understand abandonment issues, I never had a father and my mother was a sociopath....I was on my own and very sad. It took years to find a therapist that explained it all to me as to why I kept holding onto unhealthy relationships and kept getting into them.....if you have a therapist...I would talk to them about emotional abandonment and how to cope and manage it. Best wishes....
Thank you. I was emotionally alone too. I had both parents but my mother is a narcissist and i wasn’t allowed to express my emotions and my dad was always protecting her. I learned to depend on myself pretty young. Do you find that emotionally dependent people are drawn to you? I feel like a magnet.
yes...we can be a magnet for dysfunctional relationships till we get a handle on it. I would find out as much as you can and start learning how to avoid those that come at you too quickly and you have not had at least a year or two to get to know them. I also learned that when things are happening too quickly, that's a red flag too...so go slow with the flow, enjoy your time getting to know someone. And if you do go to therapy, i would start learning more about how to live with the emotional abandonment and how to make good choices and how to set the right boundaries...Best wishes to you
Follow up- We finally talked because she was talking to my husband a lot and I wanted him to get out of the middle. the conversations didn't go well. She did a lot of blaming, I did a lot of apologizing. emotionally charged. I sent her a follow up email. She then sent me an email ending the friendship and it was a pretty nice email. I was initially angry because I she never took any responsibility for what went wrong in our friendship. But then I felt an immediate sense of relief like a huge burden has been lifted off of me. I had already grieved the friendship.
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How would other people act in this situation? Not sure whether to ditch this friend.
I only have 1 friend and she isn't that great of a friend 
Losing my best friend
