March 28, 2024 • 28 mins
This week, our caller has complaints about a friend who seems to have a reactive personality, and tends to make being around them quiet arduous. Nedra explains how we can keep seemingly difficult people around when words don't seem to do the trick.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm not your glover to wob
and you need to hear this. Do you believe that
relationships can be easy? I mean, have you ever experienced that?
Like you have this long term friendship and it's just
we get along so well. We don't have a lot
of arguments. We you know, we understand each other. So
(00:25):
we're very respectful of each person's need for space or
this person's need for this or that. Like, have you
had some friendships that feel easy? They don't feel like work.
It feels, you know, very organic, and you know, things
typically work, you know. I think sometimes we think that
(00:49):
relationships have to be tough. We have been so this
idea that relationships should be tough, even friendships, you know,
like you have your ups and downs, you have communication issues,
And I think that is the case sometimes when we
have to notice when it is always the case. Are
all of our friendships characterized by the same type of ending?
(01:13):
Do we have the same ending? If so, we are
writing the same book. Are we having the same type
of dispute? Every time I have a friend we fight
about this? How is it that we get ourselves into
the same situations over and over again? I'll tell you
how we're not learning anything new and we're not implementing
(01:37):
anything different. When we do the same things, we have
the same problems in our relationships. I think that one
thing about friendship is we are meeting people where they are.
What does that mean. If you have a friend who
doesn't like to work out with you, you don't work
(01:59):
out with that person. You find another friend or another
person in your life to feel that need. If your
friends share some information with you and you disagree with it,
you have to figure out is this the sort of
person that appreciates honesty or is this the sort of
(02:20):
person where I have to zip it up. Sometimes we're
not asking ourselves those questions, and we are just giving
people stuff and we're just making requirements of them, and
it impacts our friendships. It causes lots of issues, either
on their side or our side. Sometimes we are overgiving.
(02:42):
Sometimes we are saying yes to things that we need
to say no to. So on both sides, we have
to respect who the person is, not who we want
them to be. It isn't build a friend, it's have
a friendship. And sometimes we're trying to like build a
friend and if I am truly your friend. That might
(03:04):
come with some you know, limitations in our relationship, and
I can pick that up with other friends. I don't
have to stick beside you as if you're the only
person in the world. Perhaps there are other people. The
other thing I noticed with our friendships is we let
things go on for too long. Usually when we end
a friendship, it's been ending for a very long time.
(03:26):
We've been having this issue for a very long time.
You know, I was in your wedding. You didn't want
to be in my wedding. I won't say anything about it.
You could do whatever you want to do. But eight
years later, oh my gosh, I'm so mad at your
tea party. I bring up this thing. Right, having those
conversations pretty close to the time of the impacting event
(03:49):
is really important. Eight years later, people don't even remember
this thing because it wasn't a big thing to them.
So having those conversations around the time of the offense
could be key to repairing and being able to move
forward in those relationships. So if you have not thought about, like,
(04:12):
oh my gosh, I'm having this issue with this person,
how do I have this hard conversation? You might have
to sit with that for a very long time, and
the person may not change. They will continue to be
themselves and you will be stuck with being mad at
them and them having no idea. Let's get into today's call,
(04:33):
which you've guessed it. It's about friendship. It's about a
long term friendship field with ups and downs. So let's
see how we can help.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Hi, Nindra, I love your podcast, and I have a
couple of questions that relate to long term friendships and
navigating conflict. So I've been friends with someone, a woman,
for over ten years, and we're part of a friend
group that's been close for the same amount of time.
So this friendship with this person has been filled with
a lot of ups and downs, a lot of you know, arguments, disagreements,
(05:11):
and quite a bit of drama since we became friends
over ten years ago. A bit about me. I've struggled
with communication in various relationships, so romantic friendships, et cetera,
such as like, you know, communicating my needs, what works
for me, what doesn't, my boundaries, et cetera. It's something
I've been actively working on and it's something over the
(05:32):
past five years that I've really put in a lot
of effort for and since I've started to communicate my
needs and my boundary is a bit better. Over the years,
I've noticed that this friendship, it's been struggling quite a
bit lately. I won't go into details without some of
the issues, but a couple of years ago, there was
a lot of drama around one of our friend's wedding
(05:53):
who's also in the group, And there's just been other
issues that have come up, kind of about different issues,
but a lot of them centering around this person's reactivity.
So this person tends to react really quickly and somebody's
quite harshly. When something sets them, they then disappear or
ghost me or our group for periods of time, So
it could be like days, weeks, or even months. And
(06:14):
then either it's myself or someone else in me a group,
or maybe this person. She will just reach out when
she feels like making contact, and then she acts like
nothing's happened.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Addressing ghosting can be really hard, right, but I think
the way that you address this is you talk about
how it made you feel to be out of contact
with that person when you didn't answer my cause I
felt really sad because I thought we were close and
we could talk about things. And I understand you're upset,
but at least give me a simple response so that
(06:51):
I know what's going on. I hear that your communication
challenges in all types of relationships have stopped you from,
you know, communicating well. And in this situation, it sounds
like you haven't said anything about this person sort of
having these dramatic moments with people and then ghosting, maybe
(07:14):
even before he or she can be confronted. So here's
the thing. There are some people in our lives who
are high drama. Do we want to pull them into
every situation with us? I think we have to be
careful about what spaces we share with the high drama people.
Maybe keeping them away from our other people is good.
(07:37):
So if this friend is going to be in your wedding,
I would expect some drama. You know. It's not like, ugh,
she's not this sort of person. It's a one off.
It sounds like this is a typical response for this person.
And I understand for you know, some of us, that's
really hard to accept that this person is just being
(07:59):
them sales. When they have an opinion about something, they
harshly express it. And so if you don't want your
guests or your other friends to be offended. You may
need to exclude this person from this group stuff when
they're having this moment. You might have to be the
person to stand up and diffuse it. Hey hey, hey, hey, hey,
(08:22):
I see that this is getting out of hand. Let's
change the topic because this is getting really heated. You
have to really own the interactions when this person is
present if you want them to be there. And I
know you know with communication challenges, that can be really
hard because you're communicating, you are owning the space. You
(08:44):
are saying, I am the authority here, I am the facilitator.
This can and this cannot happen. So we will talk
more about how to communicate after the break.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I have let this behavior go on for years with
not being addressed, and so have other people in the group.
It is only really being more recently that I've been
working on addressing it as I find this behavior really hurtful.
So more recently, there was a time this past summer
where I and some others in the group also let
(09:20):
this friend down. We all handled it differently, but of
course it's complex because we're a group and it's a
group dynamic so I did apologize for my role. She
apologized for my role, and then I tried to figure
out how we could move forward with our friendship and
the situation. But this friend, she, while she had to apologized,
she was not ready to move on, which I understand,
(09:42):
but she was just, you know, kind of going in circles,
blaming me and blaming others in the friend group. So,
you know, on the one hand, I understand that she
was upset and she tied a process. She wanted to
keep talking about it, but I also didn't want to
hear these not nice things about me and about our
other friends of the group. It just wasn't a conversation
(10:05):
that I could continue engaging with. So of course, I
know friendship group dynamics can be really tricky, and I've
really struggled over the past five years or so, you know,
setting boundaries and communicating my needs with people, and specifically
with this person. So you know, after this summer incident,
I knew I need some time in space from her.
(10:25):
I told her she wouldn't hear from me for a while,
as I wasn't sure if or how we could be
friends in the future, you know, and I'm finding that
since I haven't communicated clearly throughout most of the friendship
that I just have so much resentment and anger towards
this person, which is really a result of my own
lack of action. So it's impacting, you know, how I
(10:47):
show up in the friendship and how I showed up
in that conversation, And I guess I just need some
time to figure out how or if I can be
friends with this person.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Again, we may focused on the worst case scenario when
ending a relationship, like oh, people will ask about them,
they won't be at this thing, I'll miss them. It
might be to our benefit to look at the positives
(11:14):
around not being in relationships with certain people. For example,
I will have less anxiety, I will feel more comfortable
in group settings. I will have easier friendships. I will
have more time to spend with people I love who
(11:34):
are healthy for me. There could be some positives that
we're overlooking because we're thinking about like, oh, I have
to say this, I have to do this, but you know,
in this caller's case, it sounds like you've already said it,
so I wonder, how do you commit to it if
that's what you want to do. We don't have to be,
(11:57):
you know, friends with people because we've been friends with
them for ten years. Like you know, the average friendship
is around seven years, and ten is pretty good. You know.
I have some friends who, thankfully, you know, we've been
friends twenty plus years, twenty five plus years, and that
is beautiful. But guess what. I've had some friends we
(12:22):
were friends for one year. I have some friends we
were friends for six months. I have some we were
friends for ten years. You know, So everybody isn't going
to be on the life long journey. Those friendships I've
had for you know, the long haul so far easy,
(12:44):
Oh my gosh, so easy. I could take them around anyone,
and they almost steal my other friends. And you know,
I'll say, like, don't steal my friend. I don't want
to see her at your stuff. You know, it's like,
that's my friend. I only hang out with good people.
Of course you would like, of course she's wonderful. But
we have to think about what our friends are representing
(13:10):
while we have them with other people. What am I
reflecting as a part of me? You know, I love
it when people love my other friends. I have one
friend right now, and he is just he's so fun
and everybody is like, why didn't you bring him? Where
(13:30):
is he? I went to a concert recently and he
was there with some other friends, and all of my
friends they were like, you know, he's here. It was
it's like, okay, okay, guys, he is a great person.
And you know, it's really great when you have those
situations where it's like that's how it could be that
(13:51):
you're around people who are excited to be around each other,
not like, oh my gosh, here she come. She's I
know she's going to get into a fight with someone.
Perhaps we've adopted like this Housewives way of friendship, like
this stuff is now normal to have fights and then
(14:12):
meet up again. I think it's the oddest thing that
we feel we have to be in those relationships that
are chaotic. We have a choice, and that choice could
be not to deal with all of this high drama conflict,
you know, and if you're going to deal with it,
(14:33):
go join the cast of the housewives, Go join married
to medicine or something like, you know, make a job
out of it. Don't invite this stuff into your real life.
I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot to be
an adult with so many other pools in your life.
You know, when I think about making dentis appointments, cooking dinner,
(14:57):
folding my clothes, working, being a daughter, doing this, doing that,
do we actually have space for people to just take
up and waste? Do we have space to you know,
you only get four hours after work to hang out,
and you go hang out and it's arguing and fighting
(15:19):
the whole time. Is that what we're making space for.
We have to prioritize our life overall and how this
person fits into it. It could be that this friendship
(15:41):
is paused. It could be that this friendship is outside
of this group dynamic. It could be that there are
a lot of difficult conversations had because you want to
improve it. And I'm not talking about from her side,
I'm talking about from your side. You will see me
(16:05):
doing these things differently based on some of the things
that have occurred in our dynamic. She may not change,
but you can, you know, you can say, you know,
I'm gonna start being a little more assertive. So when
I see a conversation, you know, getting a bit heated,
I may just loudly say let's change the topic. Or
(16:27):
I may say, hey, step outside with me. You will
notice me doing these things because I'm trying to change
the rhythm of this group. If you truly have an
issue with setting boundaries communicating with people in general, this
could be an opportunity for you to improve that. You know,
(16:49):
set boundaries, find pieces of book you could read. We
Need to Talk is another great book, but there are
so many great books about how to communicate and most importantly,
finding resources that help you communicate when communicating is hard.
You know, it's not an easy thing, and I often
(17:12):
think that we assume that people who communicate find it
to be really easy, and it could be just the opposite.
Like I sometimes will communicate because I have to because
I don't want to be uncomfortable. I want to sleep
without having these ruminating thoughts about what happened with us.
(17:33):
I want to be able to have a good day.
So I have to say this thing to you. It's
not that I want to. I don't want to say this,
but I have to say it because if I don't,
I'm going to be up all night. If I don't
say it, I'm going to be upset. If I don't
say it. When I see you, I'm going to be
giving you a little bit of side eye, and so
(17:55):
if I really want to be authentic, I have to
speak up. If I don't speak up, I'm suffering. I'm suffering.
Let's keep listening.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So basically, to sum up my questions, are, you know,
how do I move forward here? How do I decide
if I want to be friends with this person? You know,
is it possible to mend a relationship or friendship where
one person has been brushing things under the rug for
so long? Is there just a point where it's just
too late and there's nothing left to salvage? I guess.
My other question is how can we navigate conflict effectively
(18:32):
in long term friendships and in group dynamics? And you know,
how do we determine if friendship is salvagable or you know,
is it time to just move on and kind of
give up on the friendship? So I know those are
a lot of questions, but I really would love to
hear your thoughts on the on the topic, and I
look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I want to respond question by question. So here's the
first question, how do I move forward? When we have
some disruption or dysfunction in a relationship, it is important
that we use some repair skills. Some of us are
moving forward without repairing, and what happens is we find ourselves,
(19:13):
usually pretty quickly, back in the same situation. We all
know what happens when we don't repair something, it gets worse.
It's like a little hole in a knitted sweater. You know,
if you don't mend that little tiny hole, it gets
bigger and bigger and bigger. So we have to repair.
(19:33):
So how do I move forward? You repair? You have
a conversation about what happened and how things can be differently.
You explore her feelings, you explore your feelings, You let
it out. That's how you move forward. The next question,
how do I decide if I want to be friends
with this person? A pro and commas is always good
(19:55):
for friendship, for deciding if we want to take a job,
move to a new city. What is the reason for
wanting to do this? And what is the reason that
we may not want to do this? So pros this
person is fun to hang around, They're a great dancer,
(20:16):
they have an infectious laugh. Cons they are chaotic. Whenever
we're in a group setting, when you bring up anything
to them, they cut you off. You know, pros and
cons make a list. Next question, is it possible to
mend a relationship or friendship where one person has been
brushing things under the rug for so long? Absolutely? Yes,
(20:39):
you know, when we think about family relationships, that's typically
the case, right, like you've been letting something go for
a really long time. And yes, it could happen in
friendships and you know, dating relationships, all sorts of things.
And as long as you're willing to talk about it today,
there is still hope, you know, if that person is
(20:59):
will to hear you out, there is still hope. Not
everyone gets upset that you say, you know, I've been
having this issue for five years. It's hopeful for the
other person to know. There are some people will be like,
oh my gosh, this has been the problem, and then
there are lots of people who will say, okay, let's
address it. Next question, is there just a point where
(21:20):
it's too late and there's nothing left to salvage? Hmmm?
You know, I'd like to believe as long as people
have breath, you know, there's this possibility that we can
salvage and repair things. However, I think it is okay
(21:41):
to leave things, things that we really once loved. I
had a teeth thermis for Oh my gosh, maybe about
fifteen years, maybe about fifteen years, I had this teeth thermist.
I think I got it for my twentieth birthday, maybe
(22:02):
my nineteenth or twentieth birthday or something. I had this
thing for a really long time, and I meant it.
It had taken falls, falls, a little dentse and a
sipping part, but I love this cup. Oh hot temperature
all a day for my tea. The mouth spout was
just perfect, loved it. Dropped it, bottom fell off, dropped
(22:23):
it again, and you know, the handle was cracked. So
it became a point where could I glue this? Could
I find some And I don't even know who you
find to fix a thing that you can that's not replaceable, right? Like?
Is there someone who can put new rubber on the bottle? Like?
I don't know. But for me, it was not salvageable
(22:44):
because it was broken in ways where I couldn't even
use it anymore. So I wonder, what are you trying
to save? When we are trying to salvage something, it's
really important to think about what am I trying to save?
Am I trying to save a thermis with half a
handle and no bottom. No, I'm not trying to save that. Now.
(23:06):
I need to go to TJ Max and Marshalls and
do a little cup hunt to find, you know, maybe
a similar you know, mouth spout, and I need to
go on a hunt. But what I don't need to
do is hunt for all these ways to repair something
that's broken. Next question, how can we navigate conflict effectively
(23:28):
and long term friendships and group dynamics. We have to
be honest with people. We have to bring up topics.
You know the other day when we met, here was
the problem. We don't need to let things go for
too long, because once we let them go for too long,
people think we didn't have an issue with it, or
they forgot about it, or we forgot parts of the story.
(23:50):
So if you want to effectively communicate in a long
term friendship, it's important to bring up the stuff. And
sometimes that stuff might hurt the person's feelings and it
still needs to be said. You know, from hearing your voice,
it doesn't sound like you would be mean or you
would be aggressive, And I think that's the fear sometimes
(24:11):
that if I say this, it's going to be so mean. Well,
tone matters sometimes we have to say hard stuff, but
if you said in your soft voice, I think it'll
be kind and clear. Here is the last question. Is
it time to just move on and kind of give
up on this friendship? M I cannot answer that for you.
(24:37):
You know, we all stay in relationships up until the
point that we can't tolerate them anymore. Sometimes people will say,
oh my gosh, that's too long. I can't believe you've
been in that situation for so long, and it may
feel like it hasn't been long enough for us. It
is really hard to leave relationships even when we should.
(25:02):
So it's not always. You know, if people are mistreating you,
you'll just get out of there. Yeah, if they do
it the first day. But if you've been in a
relationship with someone for you know, ten plus years, it's
a lot harder. You are intertwined into their life, you
know their family, you have these things you do together.
It can be quite challenging. But this is a question
(25:25):
for you to answer. Has the damage been so big
that you no longer want to be in this relationship?
And I don't want you to think of so big
as this person has committed a crime against you, or
there is you know, some really major thing. So big
is whenever I bring an issue to you, you stop
(25:48):
talking to me. That could be your so big. So
is that something that you would be able to live
with continuing in a friendship because it might not be
that this person stops it can have all these conversations
and they say okay, yes, sure, mmmm mm hm, and
they do the thing again. So is that something that
(26:08):
you can tolerate in a friendship going forward, because that
might be a part of it. You need to hear this.
One of the biggest ways that we change our relationships
with other people is changing the way that we engage
in those relationships. If you improve the way that you communicate,
(26:33):
the communication and the relationship shifts. If you improve your attitude,
the mood of the relationship is changed. Now I'm not
saying this other person has to do nothing, but there
are a lot of times when we can do some
(26:55):
you know, pretty significant changes on our own and those
things really do reflect in the relationship. If we are
more disciplined with some things, you know, every time this
person does this thing, I'm going to do that, we
can extinguish their behavior. But sometimes we'll you know, change
our behavior once and they don't do it the next
time and we just give up. So when you are
(27:18):
having a relationship challenge, it could be wise for you
to consider what do I need to change here? You
need to hear This is an iHeart production hosted by
Mendra Glover to wab Our. Executive producer is Joel Bardique.
(27:41):
Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send
us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and
relationships at You need to Hear This at iHeartMedia dot com.
Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen
to it and share this episode with someone who needs
to hear this. Talk to you next time, m HM
Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm not your glover to wob
and you need to hear this. Do you believe that
relationships can be easy? I mean, have you ever experienced that?
Like you have this long term friendship and it's just
we get along so well. We don't have a lot
of arguments. We you know, we understand each other. So
(00:25):
we're very respectful of each person's need for space or
this person's need for this or that. Like, have you
had some friendships that feel easy? They don't feel like work.
It feels, you know, very organic, and you know, things
typically work, you know. I think sometimes we think that
(00:49):
relationships have to be tough. We have been so this
idea that relationships should be tough, even friendships, you know,
like you have your ups and downs, you have communication issues,
And I think that is the case sometimes when we
have to notice when it is always the case. Are
all of our friendships characterized by the same type of ending?
(01:13):
Do we have the same ending? If so, we are
writing the same book. Are we having the same type
of dispute? Every time I have a friend we fight
about this? How is it that we get ourselves into
the same situations over and over again? I'll tell you
how we're not learning anything new and we're not implementing
(01:37):
anything different. When we do the same things, we have
the same problems in our relationships. I think that one
thing about friendship is we are meeting people where they are.
What does that mean. If you have a friend who
doesn't like to work out with you, you don't work
(01:59):
out with that person. You find another friend or another
person in your life to feel that need. If your
friends share some information with you and you disagree with it,
you have to figure out is this the sort of
person that appreciates honesty or is this the sort of
(02:20):
person where I have to zip it up. Sometimes we're
not asking ourselves those questions, and we are just giving
people stuff and we're just making requirements of them, and
it impacts our friendships. It causes lots of issues, either
on their side or our side. Sometimes we are overgiving.
(02:42):
Sometimes we are saying yes to things that we need
to say no to. So on both sides, we have
to respect who the person is, not who we want
them to be. It isn't build a friend, it's have
a friendship. And sometimes we're trying to like build a
friend and if I am truly your friend. That might
(03:04):
come with some you know, limitations in our relationship, and
I can pick that up with other friends. I don't
have to stick beside you as if you're the only
person in the world. Perhaps there are other people. The
other thing I noticed with our friendships is we let
things go on for too long. Usually when we end
a friendship, it's been ending for a very long time.
(03:26):
We've been having this issue for a very long time.
You know, I was in your wedding. You didn't want
to be in my wedding. I won't say anything about it.
You could do whatever you want to do. But eight
years later, oh my gosh, I'm so mad at your
tea party. I bring up this thing. Right, having those
conversations pretty close to the time of the impacting event
(03:49):
is really important. Eight years later, people don't even remember
this thing because it wasn't a big thing to them.
So having those conversations around the time of the offense
could be key to repairing and being able to move
forward in those relationships. So if you have not thought about, like,
(04:12):
oh my gosh, I'm having this issue with this person,
how do I have this hard conversation? You might have
to sit with that for a very long time, and
the person may not change. They will continue to be
themselves and you will be stuck with being mad at
them and them having no idea. Let's get into today's call,
(04:33):
which you've guessed it. It's about friendship. It's about a
long term friendship field with ups and downs. So let's
see how we can help.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Hi, Nindra, I love your podcast, and I have a
couple of questions that relate to long term friendships and
navigating conflict. So I've been friends with someone, a woman,
for over ten years, and we're part of a friend
group that's been close for the same amount of time.
So this friendship with this person has been filled with
a lot of ups and downs, a lot of you know, arguments, disagreements,
(05:11):
and quite a bit of drama since we became friends
over ten years ago. A bit about me. I've struggled
with communication in various relationships, so romantic friendships, et cetera,
such as like, you know, communicating my needs, what works
for me, what doesn't, my boundaries, et cetera. It's something
I've been actively working on and it's something over the
(05:32):
past five years that I've really put in a lot
of effort for and since I've started to communicate my
needs and my boundary is a bit better. Over the years,
I've noticed that this friendship, it's been struggling quite a
bit lately. I won't go into details without some of
the issues, but a couple of years ago, there was
a lot of drama around one of our friend's wedding
(05:53):
who's also in the group, And there's just been other
issues that have come up, kind of about different issues,
but a lot of them centering around this person's reactivity.
So this person tends to react really quickly and somebody's
quite harshly. When something sets them, they then disappear or
ghost me or our group for periods of time, So
it could be like days, weeks, or even months. And
(06:14):
then either it's myself or someone else in me a group,
or maybe this person. She will just reach out when
she feels like making contact, and then she acts like
nothing's happened.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Addressing ghosting can be really hard, right, but I think
the way that you address this is you talk about
how it made you feel to be out of contact
with that person when you didn't answer my cause I
felt really sad because I thought we were close and
we could talk about things. And I understand you're upset,
but at least give me a simple response so that
(06:51):
I know what's going on. I hear that your communication
challenges in all types of relationships have stopped you from,
you know, communicating well. And in this situation, it sounds
like you haven't said anything about this person sort of
having these dramatic moments with people and then ghosting, maybe
(07:14):
even before he or she can be confronted. So here's
the thing. There are some people in our lives who
are high drama. Do we want to pull them into
every situation with us? I think we have to be
careful about what spaces we share with the high drama people.
Maybe keeping them away from our other people is good.
(07:37):
So if this friend is going to be in your wedding,
I would expect some drama. You know. It's not like, ugh,
she's not this sort of person. It's a one off.
It sounds like this is a typical response for this person.
And I understand for you know, some of us, that's
really hard to accept that this person is just being
(07:59):
them sales. When they have an opinion about something, they
harshly express it. And so if you don't want your
guests or your other friends to be offended. You may
need to exclude this person from this group stuff when
they're having this moment. You might have to be the
person to stand up and diffuse it. Hey hey, hey, hey, hey,
(08:22):
I see that this is getting out of hand. Let's
change the topic because this is getting really heated. You
have to really own the interactions when this person is
present if you want them to be there. And I
know you know with communication challenges, that can be really
hard because you're communicating, you are owning the space. You
(08:44):
are saying, I am the authority here, I am the facilitator.
This can and this cannot happen. So we will talk
more about how to communicate after the break.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I have let this behavior go on for years with
not being addressed, and so have other people in the group.
It is only really being more recently that I've been
working on addressing it as I find this behavior really hurtful.
So more recently, there was a time this past summer
where I and some others in the group also let
(09:20):
this friend down. We all handled it differently, but of
course it's complex because we're a group and it's a
group dynamic so I did apologize for my role. She
apologized for my role, and then I tried to figure
out how we could move forward with our friendship and
the situation. But this friend, she, while she had to apologized,
she was not ready to move on, which I understand,
(09:42):
but she was just, you know, kind of going in circles,
blaming me and blaming others in the friend group. So,
you know, on the one hand, I understand that she
was upset and she tied a process. She wanted to
keep talking about it, but I also didn't want to
hear these not nice things about me and about our
other friends of the group. It just wasn't a conversation
(10:05):
that I could continue engaging with. So of course, I
know friendship group dynamics can be really tricky, and I've
really struggled over the past five years or so, you know,
setting boundaries and communicating my needs with people, and specifically
with this person. So you know, after this summer incident,
I knew I need some time in space from her.
(10:25):
I told her she wouldn't hear from me for a while,
as I wasn't sure if or how we could be
friends in the future, you know, and I'm finding that
since I haven't communicated clearly throughout most of the friendship
that I just have so much resentment and anger towards
this person, which is really a result of my own
lack of action. So it's impacting, you know, how I
(10:47):
show up in the friendship and how I showed up
in that conversation, And I guess I just need some
time to figure out how or if I can be
friends with this person.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Again, we may focused on the worst case scenario when
ending a relationship, like oh, people will ask about them,
they won't be at this thing, I'll miss them. It
might be to our benefit to look at the positives
(11:14):
around not being in relationships with certain people. For example,
I will have less anxiety, I will feel more comfortable
in group settings. I will have easier friendships. I will
have more time to spend with people I love who
(11:34):
are healthy for me. There could be some positives that
we're overlooking because we're thinking about like, oh, I have
to say this, I have to do this, but you know,
in this caller's case, it sounds like you've already said it,
so I wonder, how do you commit to it if
that's what you want to do. We don't have to be,
(11:57):
you know, friends with people because we've been friends with
them for ten years. Like you know, the average friendship
is around seven years, and ten is pretty good. You know.
I have some friends who, thankfully, you know, we've been
friends twenty plus years, twenty five plus years, and that
is beautiful. But guess what. I've had some friends we
(12:22):
were friends for one year. I have some friends we
were friends for six months. I have some we were
friends for ten years. You know, So everybody isn't going
to be on the life long journey. Those friendships I've
had for you know, the long haul so far easy,
(12:44):
Oh my gosh, so easy. I could take them around anyone,
and they almost steal my other friends. And you know,
I'll say, like, don't steal my friend. I don't want
to see her at your stuff. You know, it's like,
that's my friend. I only hang out with good people.
Of course you would like, of course she's wonderful. But
we have to think about what our friends are representing
(13:10):
while we have them with other people. What am I
reflecting as a part of me? You know, I love
it when people love my other friends. I have one
friend right now, and he is just he's so fun
and everybody is like, why didn't you bring him? Where
(13:30):
is he? I went to a concert recently and he
was there with some other friends, and all of my
friends they were like, you know, he's here. It was
it's like, okay, okay, guys, he is a great person.
And you know, it's really great when you have those
situations where it's like that's how it could be that
(13:51):
you're around people who are excited to be around each other,
not like, oh my gosh, here she come. She's I
know she's going to get into a fight with someone.
Perhaps we've adopted like this Housewives way of friendship, like
this stuff is now normal to have fights and then
(14:12):
meet up again. I think it's the oddest thing that
we feel we have to be in those relationships that
are chaotic. We have a choice, and that choice could
be not to deal with all of this high drama conflict,
you know, and if you're going to deal with it,
(14:33):
go join the cast of the housewives, Go join married
to medicine or something like, you know, make a job
out of it. Don't invite this stuff into your real life.
I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot to be
an adult with so many other pools in your life.
You know, when I think about making dentis appointments, cooking dinner,
(14:57):
folding my clothes, working, being a daughter, doing this, doing that,
do we actually have space for people to just take
up and waste? Do we have space to you know,
you only get four hours after work to hang out,
and you go hang out and it's arguing and fighting
(15:19):
the whole time. Is that what we're making space for.
We have to prioritize our life overall and how this
person fits into it. It could be that this friendship
(15:41):
is paused. It could be that this friendship is outside
of this group dynamic. It could be that there are
a lot of difficult conversations had because you want to
improve it. And I'm not talking about from her side,
I'm talking about from your side. You will see me
(16:05):
doing these things differently based on some of the things
that have occurred in our dynamic. She may not change,
but you can, you know, you can say, you know,
I'm gonna start being a little more assertive. So when
I see a conversation, you know, getting a bit heated,
I may just loudly say let's change the topic. Or
(16:27):
I may say, hey, step outside with me. You will
notice me doing these things because I'm trying to change
the rhythm of this group. If you truly have an
issue with setting boundaries communicating with people in general, this
could be an opportunity for you to improve that. You know,
(16:49):
set boundaries, find pieces of book you could read. We
Need to Talk is another great book, but there are
so many great books about how to communicate and most importantly,
finding resources that help you communicate when communicating is hard.
You know, it's not an easy thing, and I often
(17:12):
think that we assume that people who communicate find it
to be really easy, and it could be just the opposite.
Like I sometimes will communicate because I have to because
I don't want to be uncomfortable. I want to sleep
without having these ruminating thoughts about what happened with us.
(17:33):
I want to be able to have a good day.
So I have to say this thing to you. It's
not that I want to. I don't want to say this,
but I have to say it because if I don't,
I'm going to be up all night. If I don't
say it, I'm going to be upset. If I don't
say it. When I see you, I'm going to be
giving you a little bit of side eye, and so
(17:55):
if I really want to be authentic, I have to
speak up. If I don't speak up, I'm suffering. I'm suffering.
Let's keep listening.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So basically, to sum up my questions, are, you know,
how do I move forward here? How do I decide
if I want to be friends with this person? You know,
is it possible to mend a relationship or friendship where
one person has been brushing things under the rug for
so long? Is there just a point where it's just
too late and there's nothing left to salvage? I guess.
My other question is how can we navigate conflict effectively
(18:32):
in long term friendships and in group dynamics? And you know,
how do we determine if friendship is salvagable or you know,
is it time to just move on and kind of
give up on the friendship? So I know those are
a lot of questions, but I really would love to
hear your thoughts on the on the topic, and I
look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I want to respond question by question. So here's the
first question, how do I move forward? When we have
some disruption or dysfunction in a relationship, it is important
that we use some repair skills. Some of us are
moving forward without repairing, and what happens is we find ourselves,
(19:13):
usually pretty quickly, back in the same situation. We all
know what happens when we don't repair something, it gets worse.
It's like a little hole in a knitted sweater. You know,
if you don't mend that little tiny hole, it gets
bigger and bigger and bigger. So we have to repair.
(19:33):
So how do I move forward? You repair? You have
a conversation about what happened and how things can be differently.
You explore her feelings, you explore your feelings, You let
it out. That's how you move forward. The next question,
how do I decide if I want to be friends
with this person? A pro and commas is always good
(19:55):
for friendship, for deciding if we want to take a job,
move to a new city. What is the reason for
wanting to do this? And what is the reason that
we may not want to do this? So pros this
person is fun to hang around, They're a great dancer,
(20:16):
they have an infectious laugh. Cons they are chaotic. Whenever
we're in a group setting, when you bring up anything
to them, they cut you off. You know, pros and
cons make a list. Next question, is it possible to
mend a relationship or friendship where one person has been
brushing things under the rug for so long? Absolutely? Yes,
(20:39):
you know, when we think about family relationships, that's typically
the case, right, like you've been letting something go for
a really long time. And yes, it could happen in
friendships and you know, dating relationships, all sorts of things.
And as long as you're willing to talk about it today,
there is still hope, you know, if that person is
(20:59):
will to hear you out, there is still hope. Not
everyone gets upset that you say, you know, I've been
having this issue for five years. It's hopeful for the
other person to know. There are some people will be like,
oh my gosh, this has been the problem, and then
there are lots of people who will say, okay, let's
address it. Next question, is there just a point where
(21:20):
it's too late and there's nothing left to salvage? Hmmm?
You know, I'd like to believe as long as people
have breath, you know, there's this possibility that we can
salvage and repair things. However, I think it is okay
(21:41):
to leave things, things that we really once loved. I
had a teeth thermis for Oh my gosh, maybe about
fifteen years, maybe about fifteen years, I had this teeth thermist.
I think I got it for my twentieth birthday, maybe
(22:02):
my nineteenth or twentieth birthday or something. I had this
thing for a really long time, and I meant it.
It had taken falls, falls, a little dentse and a
sipping part, but I love this cup. Oh hot temperature
all a day for my tea. The mouth spout was
just perfect, loved it. Dropped it, bottom fell off, dropped
(22:23):
it again, and you know, the handle was cracked. So
it became a point where could I glue this? Could
I find some And I don't even know who you
find to fix a thing that you can that's not replaceable, right? Like?
Is there someone who can put new rubber on the bottle? Like?
I don't know. But for me, it was not salvageable
(22:44):
because it was broken in ways where I couldn't even
use it anymore. So I wonder, what are you trying
to save? When we are trying to salvage something, it's
really important to think about what am I trying to save?
Am I trying to save a thermis with half a
handle and no bottom. No, I'm not trying to save that. Now.
(23:06):
I need to go to TJ Max and Marshalls and
do a little cup hunt to find, you know, maybe
a similar you know, mouth spout, and I need to
go on a hunt. But what I don't need to
do is hunt for all these ways to repair something
that's broken. Next question, how can we navigate conflict effectively
(23:28):
and long term friendships and group dynamics. We have to
be honest with people. We have to bring up topics.
You know the other day when we met, here was
the problem. We don't need to let things go for
too long, because once we let them go for too long,
people think we didn't have an issue with it, or
they forgot about it, or we forgot parts of the story.
(23:50):
So if you want to effectively communicate in a long
term friendship, it's important to bring up the stuff. And
sometimes that stuff might hurt the person's feelings and it
still needs to be said. You know, from hearing your voice,
it doesn't sound like you would be mean or you
would be aggressive, And I think that's the fear sometimes
(24:11):
that if I say this, it's going to be so mean. Well,
tone matters sometimes we have to say hard stuff, but
if you said in your soft voice, I think it'll
be kind and clear. Here is the last question. Is
it time to just move on and kind of give
up on this friendship? M I cannot answer that for you.
(24:37):
You know, we all stay in relationships up until the
point that we can't tolerate them anymore. Sometimes people will say,
oh my gosh, that's too long. I can't believe you've
been in that situation for so long, and it may
feel like it hasn't been long enough for us. It
is really hard to leave relationships even when we should.
(25:02):
So it's not always. You know, if people are mistreating you,
you'll just get out of there. Yeah, if they do
it the first day. But if you've been in a
relationship with someone for you know, ten plus years, it's
a lot harder. You are intertwined into their life, you
know their family, you have these things you do together.
It can be quite challenging. But this is a question
(25:25):
for you to answer. Has the damage been so big
that you no longer want to be in this relationship?
And I don't want you to think of so big
as this person has committed a crime against you, or
there is you know, some really major thing. So big
is whenever I bring an issue to you, you stop
(25:48):
talking to me. That could be your so big. So
is that something that you would be able to live
with continuing in a friendship because it might not be
that this person stops it can have all these conversations
and they say okay, yes, sure, mmmm mm hm, and
they do the thing again. So is that something that
(26:08):
you can tolerate in a friendship going forward, because that
might be a part of it. You need to hear this.
One of the biggest ways that we change our relationships
with other people is changing the way that we engage
in those relationships. If you improve the way that you communicate,
(26:33):
the communication and the relationship shifts. If you improve your attitude,
the mood of the relationship is changed. Now I'm not
saying this other person has to do nothing, but there
are a lot of times when we can do some
(26:55):
you know, pretty significant changes on our own and those
things really do reflect in the relationship. If we are
more disciplined with some things, you know, every time this
person does this thing, I'm going to do that, we
can extinguish their behavior. But sometimes we'll you know, change
our behavior once and they don't do it the next
time and we just give up. So when you are
(27:18):
having a relationship challenge, it could be wise for you
to consider what do I need to change here? You
need to hear This is an iHeart production hosted by
Mendra Glover to wab Our. Executive producer is Joel Bardique.
(27:41):
Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send
us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and
relationships at You need to Hear This at iHeartMedia dot com.
Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen
to it and share this episode with someone who needs
to hear this. Talk to you next time, m HM
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