I broke up with a friend

From Our Reader:

Hi,

This is in regards to friendship break ups. I had a friend a really good friend of about 14 years and we have broken up.

I am a female and he is male. he was like a brother even godfather to my daughter. very close friend to my entire family.

he began to like a girl whom was so clearly using him. I never said anything unless he would ask for my opinion. I thought it best for me not to be involved and that he is smart enough to see it, eventually. One day he calls me bawling, i thought his mother had passed but this girl had posted that she was in a relationship on one of those social sites. hearing his pain I contacted the girl and said why would you play with a fragile heart like his. she told him I contacted her, he was so hurt and angry that to this day he has yet to talk to me again. this was in January of this year.

How can one deal/cope with a friendship breakup? please advise.

BUS Responds:

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We truly appreciate your question, because it is essentially what our site is all about: dealing and coping with a breakup. While your situation appears complex and we are not certain that this breakup has to be permanent, salvaging the relationship would require a great deal from you.

Your friend suffered a significant loss, even if – considering what you think of her – you believed it was what was best for him. Your response to his situation could be considered insensitive and selfish, as it appeared to put your needs before his. How, you ask? Calling this woman was, without a doubt, the absolute worst thing you could have done to your friend, as it demonstrated your belief that he needed someone to protect him (thus, behaving more like a parent than a friend), Despite your conviction about the health of the relationship, your call to this woman essentially eliminated any chance for its success, as he was now seen as a hapless and undesirable eunuch by this woman (at least in his mind – that’s just how men think).

If you wanted to speak with your ex-friend again it should start with an apology for the call – not because the woman didn’t have it coming, but because you had no business inserting yourself in this manner. Friends – especially truly close friends – are supportive even in disagreement; they are not supportive with the stipulation that you “need to be able to give her a piece of my mind”, so to speak. This cuts to the core of what might really be going wrong in this friendship: that call was not for your friend but for you, and it reflects a heirarchy in your friendship, one that is unhealthy. So, let him know it was wrong, and that you would never again be so arrogant as to think something like that would be appropriate in the future.

That said, how do you cope? At BUS.com we believe the best way to cope is self-reflection and self-renewal, so that you are not doomed to repeat past mistakes. Therefore, we suggest you reflect on what made you a good friend to this person in the first place? What sustained the friendship? It sounds like he was a bit of a third wheel and when he finally started to get a life for himself you started to see problems; is that possible? Regardless, the goal is to determine what it is that you can do to be a better friend. This is a more self-satisfying thing then you might think. The key to friendship (and life for that matter) is giving to others; it is just much more fulfilling than taking. Please think about your existing friendships and make every attempt to be the giver and not the taker, and this will undoubtedly put you on the road to recovery from the current breakup; it may even help you to reconnect with your ex-friend.