'Why is my friend shutting me out?'

Perhaps you're just in the market for some new friends.

Perhaps you're just in the market for some new friends.

Published Jun 4, 2015

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QUESTION: I have a friend who I’ve known for a long time.

She’s never allowed me to get really close, but we go back a long way and I see her about once every three months or so.

But about six months ago, she discovered that her husband was having an affair and she rang me in floods of tears. I rushed round and consoled her, and she seemed very grateful for my support.

But since then I’ve been almost shut out. I don’t get replies to emails, and can’t make a date to meet. I know I was a help to her – but what has happened to our friendship? Why is she behaving like this?

Yours sincerely,

Nancy

 

ANSWER: Other people! Aren't they weird? I suppose some people think we're weird, too, but occasionally I'm baffled by people's extraordinary behaviour.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that, having confided in you so closely, your friendship would be deepened and been given an extra dimension rather than broken. But the syndrome you describe is so common that sometimes, if a friend breaks down and confides in me in an uncharacteristic way, I feel like saying, before she can get going: “Stop there! Are you sure you really want me to hear this? Go and confide in someone else! Our friendship may be at risk!”

But obviously one can't - and you couldn't - do that. One goes ahead, sympathises and consoles, and hopes that this particular person isn't One of Those.

It seems that what happens is that these once-in-a-lifetime confiders feel immensely threatened by having shown you the fragile side of themselves, the side they've so successfully concealed for years. They feel they're like a Ming vase, palming themselves off perfectly successfully as valuable works of art, until they suddenly they reveal to you a terrible, but ingeniously disguised, crack that will render the vase valueless.

They see their emotional breakdown as a weakness rather than simply a sign of perfectly normal humanity. They're ashamed of themselves. Rather than thinking, “I was understandably upset and my friend was very kind to me”, they think more along the lines of, “I committed a murder and revealed it to my friend and now not only will she think I'm an evil person, but she's got a terrible hold over me. I can't afford to see her again.”

Now, you could have it out with your friend and explain that you feel that the rift between you has something to do with this uncharacteristically emotional moment. You could say that you have meltdowns all the time, that it's normal and nothing to be ashamed of. But I suspect that you'll never get back on the old footing. It may be that she was always told as a child that her weeping or getting upset was absolutely disgraceful. It may be that her entire image of self-worth depends on her ability to cope like a soldier at all times, 24 hours a day.

But I fear that her feelings of being threatened by revealing herself to you are something too fundamental ever to be rationalised away, unless she is particularly good on self-knowledge. If you ask among your friends, you'll not only find that they've had similar experiences, but perhaps that some of them have experienced exactly the same situation with the same friend.

In the meantime, all you can say to yourself is that you've done nothing wrong. You were there when you were needed and you were helpful and consoling. You, at least, were a real friend.

The Independent

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