April 4, 2024 • 21 mins
Today's caller is feeling the cold shoulder from an extremely close friend. The lines are blurred between friendship and something more, and the codependency is making this rift feel that much more painful.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi listeners, welcome back. I'm Natric Glover to WOB and
you need to hear this. In our relationships, things will
not be fifty to fifty. I'm going to repeat that
because I think there's so much information about there's give
and take, there's you know, when you do this, then
that person should do it for you. Well, things should
(00:22):
not be fifty to fifty in our relationships with people.
That doesn't mean that people get to do nothing right.
They may do something in a different way, and we
have to recognize effort even when it's different, and we
have to monitor when we're just giving too much and
getting very little in return. Sometimes it takes a while
(00:46):
for us to notice that, and there may be other
people in our lives who can point that out to us.
Maybe another friend is like, oh my gosh, Like do
you see the way the person responded to X, Y
and Z. You know, we got to love those friends
who call out another friend for mistreating you or or
doing something in a particular way that's you know, not appropriate, right.
(01:10):
So sometimes we aren't the person discovering that there's a
problem with the connection, that we are giving too much
or you know, we're not showing up enough. But when
this happens in friendships, it's certainly, you know, our opportunity
for conversation, or it could be a sign that we
need to pull back some and allow this other person
(01:33):
to have some space to be more present in the relationship.
We can smother people sometimes and maybe not even give
them the opportunity to call us first, to initiate the
invite to you know, because we may be giving so
much like hey, here's the thing for us to do, Hey,
can you We may need to take a breath. We
(01:55):
might need to pause and see what's possible. When we
get an our relationships with others, we can be so
excited and intoxicated by the energy of that person or
the role that this person have in our lives, and
we may need to step back when it's not being
I want to say reciprocated, because I don't think it
(02:17):
should be mutual, but when it's not being reciprocated, not
even in a fifty to fifty balanced way, but in
any way, when we notice that this person is not giving,
we need to step back and maybe say, what does
this person represent from me? And why do I even
want this from them? What is it that I'm afraid
(02:42):
to ask for in my other relationships. Why do I
think this is the only person who can help me
with this challenge I'm having. In today's letter, we will
be talking about friendship, and not just friendship, but a
best friendship. I know so many of us we have
high hopes when someone is our best friend. We want
(03:05):
it to be the most powerful connection ever, and our
expectations are high. But I'll tell you what, I've seen
some situations where it is a one sided best friendship.
It is one person who's the best friend in that dynamic,
Let's listen to today's call and figure out if this
(03:25):
is a best friend relationship or are we talking to
the best friend.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Hello, I'm a twenty year old woman who's been wrestling
with thoughts about my best friend lately. We've been incredibly
close since tenth grade, but I've observed her becoming somewhat
distant lately. About a week ago, we had a minor disagreement,
and although she apologized, things might feel a bit awkward
between us because of it. Our friendship has seen its
(03:52):
fair share of arguments and reconciliations over the years, leaving
you feeling deeply confused. But oddly attached to hers me
when we don't communicate as regularly as we used to.
Mind you, this distance just started with in this week,
we're only speaking what I call, and when we do
it's brief. I often feel like I invest and pour
(04:13):
more in our friendship than she does, especially during disagreements
and trying to resolve them to preserve the friendship. My
family and friends have pointed out that this friendship might
not be serving me well anymore due to her nonchalant
attitude towards me. I feel kind of guilty for possibly
painting a negative image of her when I vent to
others about our issues.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Often when we're venting to people, we're looking for some
level of validation. I mean, it feels good when you're
able to say you know, hey, you're right, or you know,
I understand that too, Like hearing that from another person
feels good. And that's you know, that's one hundred percent
of the reason why we we vent. We're looking for
(04:58):
some sort of connection. However, you know, when we're talking
about somebody in a bad way, it doesn't really leave
room for an open perspective because guess what we're sharing.
We're like this person did this, and then they did that,
and then they were terrible here and here and here,
and everyone is like, oh my gosh, this is the
worst person you've ever met in life. And you know,
(05:21):
it's very hard to recover from trashing someone to hey,
this person is really great and awesome and hey, guys,
it was me. It's like, no, you said so many
negative things or painted them in such a way, then
it can be really hard for other people to recover.
And so with that said, sometimes we have to be
(05:42):
very cautious about how we share our problems with the
other people within our lives. You know, it's it's important
for us to have some outlets, but we should maybe
consider sharing more of the story so that people can
get a fool perspective. And we have to own the
part that we're bringing to the table, so this other
(06:05):
person isn't the bad guy that they can understand. Okay,
here's the stuff I did, and then here's what's going on.
We have to be balanced in what we're saying about
other people, or at least allow folks to form their
own opinions. But if we are constantly talking about a
person in a certain way, of course, you know, our
(06:28):
friends and loved ones aren't gonna like this person. I mean,
I've certainly been in situations with the friend who is
constantly bashing their partner, and you get to a point
where it's like, you know, I can't even invite you
over for dinner. I don't even want to go anywhere
with you, guys, because now I dislike your partner so much,
and you know, maybe you've forgiven them or you've decided
(06:50):
to still be in this relationship with them, and it's like,
it doesn't work for me. The same thing with their friends.
They can say such bad things about their friends that
you're like, no, is she going to be there? I
don't want to go. You know, You've said so many things.
It just seems like this person isn't a good person.
So I am saying that to say, please be careful
(07:12):
in the way that you share these things. You know,
sometimes we need to journal about our feelings about people,
and sometimes we need to share them, but we have
to be careful about who we're sharing with and how
often we're sharing about particular people. The intention, again, is
not to damage, is to get that connection, and so
(07:33):
just being mindful of that can be really important because
your friends and family are picking up on what you say.
If you highlight all of the situations where you know
it has went a certain way, then it looks a
certain way. And I wonder sometimes, you know. There was
a show called The Affair that came on Showtime, and
(07:55):
what I really loved about this show is it told
a story from multiple perspectives, and so somewhere in those
stories it was like the truth. But it was really
interesting to see how from one character to another they
thought like, oh, my perspective is the way, and then
this other person come in and it was just a
little different. It's like, wow, we really have our own
(08:20):
perspective of what happened during certain situations. And so just
be clear that you know, this is a perspective. It
may not be what's actually going on. It is a perspective.
And when I am sensitive about a person not calling me,
if they don't call me for two days, it makes
me think, oh my gosh, this person is mad at me,
(08:42):
and it's like, no, they typically call every two days.
So be careful about the energy that you're sending out
to other people around this situation. You know from tenth grade, now,
what's that about fifteen years old and you're about twenty
years years old now, I think you're still within that
(09:03):
window of figuring out what the friendship is. You know,
the average friendship, you know, it may not last about
five years. I think anything over seven is a gift.
So you're still in that window of are we going
to be friends? Aren't we going to be friends? We're
still figuring it out. You know. Maybe the first two
years were good, but maybe we're shifting in some you know,
(09:26):
different ways, and so figuring that out right now. It
sounds like that is the space you're in in this friendship.
After break, we will keep listening and we'll figure out
if this is a friendship to continue to explore or
maybe one that we should consider pausing.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Despite this, she's the only friend I feel deeply connected to,
and I can't quite explain the strong codependency I feel.
I'm seeking advice on how to develop an identity outside
of this friendship and not let it consume me. She
has a life and other friends, and I sometimes feel
a twinge of jealousy when I see her praising them.
I know I've overextended myself in our friendship, but I
(10:10):
just want to feel appreciated and recognized. While she does
show her appreciation, I find myself having so many expectations
of her. Sometimes I feel like she takes me for granted,
even though her family recognizes me as a good friend. Recently,
we've experimented sexually even though we're both heterosexual women and
deepening our faith. I realize this isn't healthy for me,
(10:33):
especially since I've caught feelings in the past. I want
to stop this because I know it could jeopardize our friendship.
I feel bad because I don't want to constantly burden
her with my feelings of her, not prioritizing our friendship
as much as I do. The real healing and self
reflection I need to do is to understand why I'm
looking to fulfill so many of my emotional needs through her.
(10:55):
Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
What happens on the other end of our relationships When
people notice that there are some challenges in the relationship
with us, it might look a little like this where
they start to pull back, where they start to create
some time boundaries, and they start to create some conversational
boundaries based on things that have happened in the relationship.
(11:28):
If sex has been introduced and there were already some
codependency issues, I can't help but think that that deepened
the emotional connection for you. Or perhaps it's not the
same on the other side, or maybe there's some confusion there.
We really don't know, but I think the boundaries in
(11:51):
the relationship they have been blured. But in some cases
this works out right, Like if it's a mutual blurring
of a boundary, and we have these sexual experiences together
and we both want them and we both want to
continue in the friendship or bring it to a romantic connection,
it's fine. But when the other person doesn't, it's likely
(12:14):
that they start to exhibit some of this pulling away
and making space in the relationship to you know, just
give it a little bit of a pause. And that
can be really hard when you feel like, well, I've
invested a lot, I want more. I really like this person.
Why aren't they wanting to be a friend in the
(12:35):
same way that I'm wanting to be a friend. That
makes a lot of sense. And also, people have choice.
We cannot make them want to be in relationship with
us in the same way, you know. I think of
that when we may have you know people in our
lives who have a higher connection need than us? I
certainly do. I have you know people in my life
(12:57):
who would love to talk multiple times a week. I'm like,
that's a lot. And it's really based on you know,
the personality of the other person sometimes, or it's based
on my time, or it's based on you know, many
different factors. And so we have a choice and how
often we talk to people, and we have a choice
and whether or not we want to talk to them
(13:18):
for extended periods. So we have to be very respectful
of people exercising their choice, because when we are not,
they will just leave the relationship without explanation because we're
not giving them room to exercise their boundaries. Ghosting can
(13:39):
happen when we are not giving people the space that
they are naturally creating. When someone is pulling back, they
are stepping back from the relationship verbally, physically, they are
requesting space. They may not be comfortable having a conversation,
but it is clear. We used to have hang out
(14:00):
every single Tuesday. Now it's every other tuesday. It is clear,
and we have to take those as cues that this
person they may personally be going through something, or they
may be having some issues with the relationship and not
ready to talk about it. If they wanted to talk
about it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right or
(14:20):
the conversation would be different. Like I talked to my
friend and they said, X, Y, and Z. It doesn't
sound like this person is yet in a place to
you know, talk through this stuff. And so some of
this reconciliation around what's happening is going to be on
your end. I have a question for you, though, with
the codependency which you're putting so much into the relationship,
(14:44):
I'm getting the impression that this is a bit more
for you than a friendship. Is there more romantic interest
on your side than it is on her side. Is
some of the deep connection that you're feeling is it
friendship based or is it romantic? It would be really
(15:07):
helpful for you to know that, because when you start
the letter and you're talking about my best friend, I'm
hearing some other energy coming out, and it's not best
friend energy. It's a possessive energy that we typically, you know,
see when there has been some you know, romantic involvement
(15:29):
or or some sort of thing like that, and that
happens sometimes where maybe we see someone in a way
that they may not see us, or we experiment with
people and we don't talk about what that looks like
for the relationship because sometimes, as I stated, it could
work out, but when we're not clear around what this
(15:49):
actually means, it can create this discomfort in the relationship.
So there may be a series of internal conversations to
have with yourself around why is there such a strong
pool with this person? Is this connection for me platonic
or romantic? Could I be in this relationship without the
(16:10):
sexual connection? What does this person represent to me? Why
am I clinging on to this relationship in a way
that's different than how I cling to my other relationships.
Those are your internal questions to answer, and then the
relationship you may want to talk a little bit about
(16:32):
what is this relationship like after sex? After we've had sex,
do we want to consider this being romantic or do
we want to continue to maintain our friendship? And if
we're maintaining the friendship, what will those boundaries look like
so we're not blurring those lines because you may not
(16:52):
be able to blurt the lines, or she may not
be able to blurt a line, but somebody is having
a challenge with this blurred line, so there needs to
be a conversation around Okay, now that this has happened,
what does it mean for the relationship? Will we continue
to allow it to happen? Is it something that we
(17:13):
want to minimize in a relationship. How do we work
on building the friendship instead of the sexual relationship, or
how do we build both? It can be really hopeful
for us to notice what's happening in the relationship. Hey,
I noticed that there's been a shift in your energy.
A few weeks ago. We would talk, you know, maybe
(17:36):
a few times a week by text, you know, you
would FaceTime me a few times, and that hasn't been happening.
Can you let me know if anything has changed with us?
Just allowed just talk about the things that you're actually
experiencing and seeing. And you don't have to blame her.
You don't have to say you know, I know you
(17:59):
feel or I assume you don't know anything, And you
can't assume anything. You can only notice what is fact. Now,
if this is a situation where there's really been no
change and this person hasn't been given more, I don't
even know if it's worth a conversation because guess what
(18:22):
they're giving at the level in which they want to give.
And I think your work now is to accept that
sometimes in relationships we will overgive in an attempt to
get this person to give more. So if you've been
doing that, if you've been doing a lot for this
person and her family has noticed, and your friends and
(18:43):
family have noticed, and they've not and she's not given
in this same sort of way, she's probably doing what
she can. There may not be more to squeeze from
the situation. There is a matter of acceptance on the table.
Can you accept a person who who is offering less?
It's possible that you can. But what that might look
(19:04):
like in a healthy way, is you having some other
friendships and not focusing solely on this one. You're twenty
years old. You are in a space in life where
you know, I'm sure, through work, through school or whatever
you know your situation is in life, you can meet
other people, and so having one best friend is, you know,
(19:28):
it's really great, but having you know a few friends
is even better. You need more than one friend. So
if you want to focus all your energy on this
one person throughout time, this is gonna feel a bit
empty from time to time because I don't know if
they can feel you up in a way that multiple
(19:51):
people could. So setting your sights on one relationship is
typically not healthy for us. We need two or more people.
We need to spread that love around. We don't need
to put it on one person to be our everything.
We need people to be in relationship with. You need
to hear this. Two or more friends is better than one.
(20:16):
When we center our energy on one friend, we put
a lot on them. Our expectations are high. We start
to believe that they should feel every need that we have.
It is possible and more likely that you can get
your neees met when you have more people. You need
(20:38):
to hear This is an iHeart production host it by
me Nedra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joe
el Baldique. 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
(20:59):
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
Hi listeners, welcome back. I'm Natric Glover to WOB and
you need to hear this. In our relationships, things will
not be fifty to fifty. I'm going to repeat that
because I think there's so much information about there's give
and take, there's you know, when you do this, then
that person should do it for you. Well, things should
(00:22):
not be fifty to fifty in our relationships with people.
That doesn't mean that people get to do nothing right.
They may do something in a different way, and we
have to recognize effort even when it's different, and we
have to monitor when we're just giving too much and
getting very little in return. Sometimes it takes a while
(00:46):
for us to notice that, and there may be other
people in our lives who can point that out to us.
Maybe another friend is like, oh my gosh, Like do
you see the way the person responded to X, Y
and Z. You know, we got to love those friends
who call out another friend for mistreating you or or
doing something in a particular way that's you know, not appropriate, right.
(01:10):
So sometimes we aren't the person discovering that there's a
problem with the connection, that we are giving too much
or you know, we're not showing up enough. But when
this happens in friendships, it's certainly, you know, our opportunity
for conversation, or it could be a sign that we
need to pull back some and allow this other person
(01:33):
to have some space to be more present in the relationship.
We can smother people sometimes and maybe not even give
them the opportunity to call us first, to initiate the
invite to you know, because we may be giving so
much like hey, here's the thing for us to do, Hey,
can you We may need to take a breath. We
(01:55):
might need to pause and see what's possible. When we
get an our relationships with others, we can be so
excited and intoxicated by the energy of that person or
the role that this person have in our lives, and
we may need to step back when it's not being
I want to say reciprocated, because I don't think it
(02:17):
should be mutual, but when it's not being reciprocated, not
even in a fifty to fifty balanced way, but in
any way, when we notice that this person is not giving,
we need to step back and maybe say, what does
this person represent from me? And why do I even
want this from them? What is it that I'm afraid
(02:42):
to ask for in my other relationships. Why do I
think this is the only person who can help me
with this challenge I'm having. In today's letter, we will
be talking about friendship, and not just friendship, but a
best friendship. I know so many of us we have
high hopes when someone is our best friend. We want
(03:05):
it to be the most powerful connection ever, and our
expectations are high. But I'll tell you what, I've seen
some situations where it is a one sided best friendship.
It is one person who's the best friend in that dynamic,
Let's listen to today's call and figure out if this
(03:25):
is a best friend relationship or are we talking to
the best friend.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Hello, I'm a twenty year old woman who's been wrestling
with thoughts about my best friend lately. We've been incredibly
close since tenth grade, but I've observed her becoming somewhat
distant lately. About a week ago, we had a minor disagreement,
and although she apologized, things might feel a bit awkward
between us because of it. Our friendship has seen its
(03:52):
fair share of arguments and reconciliations over the years, leaving
you feeling deeply confused. But oddly attached to hers me
when we don't communicate as regularly as we used to.
Mind you, this distance just started with in this week,
we're only speaking what I call, and when we do
it's brief. I often feel like I invest and pour
(04:13):
more in our friendship than she does, especially during disagreements
and trying to resolve them to preserve the friendship. My
family and friends have pointed out that this friendship might
not be serving me well anymore due to her nonchalant
attitude towards me. I feel kind of guilty for possibly
painting a negative image of her when I vent to
others about our issues.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Often when we're venting to people, we're looking for some
level of validation. I mean, it feels good when you're
able to say you know, hey, you're right, or you know,
I understand that too, Like hearing that from another person
feels good. And that's you know, that's one hundred percent
of the reason why we we vent. We're looking for
(04:58):
some sort of connection. However, you know, when we're talking
about somebody in a bad way, it doesn't really leave
room for an open perspective because guess what we're sharing.
We're like this person did this, and then they did that,
and then they were terrible here and here and here,
and everyone is like, oh my gosh, this is the
worst person you've ever met in life. And you know,
(05:21):
it's very hard to recover from trashing someone to hey,
this person is really great and awesome and hey, guys,
it was me. It's like, no, you said so many
negative things or painted them in such a way, then
it can be really hard for other people to recover.
And so with that said, sometimes we have to be
(05:42):
very cautious about how we share our problems with the
other people within our lives. You know, it's it's important
for us to have some outlets, but we should maybe
consider sharing more of the story so that people can
get a fool perspective. And we have to own the
part that we're bringing to the table, so this other
(06:05):
person isn't the bad guy that they can understand. Okay,
here's the stuff I did, and then here's what's going on.
We have to be balanced in what we're saying about
other people, or at least allow folks to form their
own opinions. But if we are constantly talking about a
person in a certain way, of course, you know, our
(06:28):
friends and loved ones aren't gonna like this person. I mean,
I've certainly been in situations with the friend who is
constantly bashing their partner, and you get to a point
where it's like, you know, I can't even invite you
over for dinner. I don't even want to go anywhere
with you, guys, because now I dislike your partner so much,
and you know, maybe you've forgiven them or you've decided
(06:50):
to still be in this relationship with them, and it's like,
it doesn't work for me. The same thing with their friends.
They can say such bad things about their friends that
you're like, no, is she going to be there? I
don't want to go. You know, You've said so many things.
It just seems like this person isn't a good person.
So I am saying that to say, please be careful
(07:12):
in the way that you share these things. You know,
sometimes we need to journal about our feelings about people,
and sometimes we need to share them, but we have
to be careful about who we're sharing with and how
often we're sharing about particular people. The intention, again, is
not to damage, is to get that connection, and so
(07:33):
just being mindful of that can be really important because
your friends and family are picking up on what you say.
If you highlight all of the situations where you know
it has went a certain way, then it looks a
certain way. And I wonder sometimes, you know. There was
a show called The Affair that came on Showtime, and
(07:55):
what I really loved about this show is it told
a story from multiple perspectives, and so somewhere in those
stories it was like the truth. But it was really
interesting to see how from one character to another they
thought like, oh, my perspective is the way, and then
this other person come in and it was just a
little different. It's like, wow, we really have our own
(08:20):
perspective of what happened during certain situations. And so just
be clear that you know, this is a perspective. It
may not be what's actually going on. It is a perspective.
And when I am sensitive about a person not calling me,
if they don't call me for two days, it makes
me think, oh my gosh, this person is mad at me,
(08:42):
and it's like, no, they typically call every two days.
So be careful about the energy that you're sending out
to other people around this situation. You know from tenth grade, now,
what's that about fifteen years old and you're about twenty
years years old now, I think you're still within that
(09:03):
window of figuring out what the friendship is. You know,
the average friendship, you know, it may not last about
five years. I think anything over seven is a gift.
So you're still in that window of are we going
to be friends? Aren't we going to be friends? We're
still figuring it out. You know. Maybe the first two
years were good, but maybe we're shifting in some you know,
(09:26):
different ways, and so figuring that out right now. It
sounds like that is the space you're in in this friendship.
After break, we will keep listening and we'll figure out
if this is a friendship to continue to explore or
maybe one that we should consider pausing.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Despite this, she's the only friend I feel deeply connected to,
and I can't quite explain the strong codependency I feel.
I'm seeking advice on how to develop an identity outside
of this friendship and not let it consume me. She
has a life and other friends, and I sometimes feel
a twinge of jealousy when I see her praising them.
I know I've overextended myself in our friendship, but I
(10:10):
just want to feel appreciated and recognized. While she does
show her appreciation, I find myself having so many expectations
of her. Sometimes I feel like she takes me for granted,
even though her family recognizes me as a good friend. Recently,
we've experimented sexually even though we're both heterosexual women and
deepening our faith. I realize this isn't healthy for me,
(10:33):
especially since I've caught feelings in the past. I want
to stop this because I know it could jeopardize our friendship.
I feel bad because I don't want to constantly burden
her with my feelings of her, not prioritizing our friendship
as much as I do. The real healing and self
reflection I need to do is to understand why I'm
looking to fulfill so many of my emotional needs through her.
(10:55):
Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
What happens on the other end of our relationships When
people notice that there are some challenges in the relationship
with us, it might look a little like this where
they start to pull back, where they start to create
some time boundaries, and they start to create some conversational
boundaries based on things that have happened in the relationship.
(11:28):
If sex has been introduced and there were already some
codependency issues, I can't help but think that that deepened
the emotional connection for you. Or perhaps it's not the
same on the other side, or maybe there's some confusion there.
We really don't know, but I think the boundaries in
(11:51):
the relationship they have been blured. But in some cases
this works out right, Like if it's a mutual blurring
of a boundary, and we have these sexual experiences together
and we both want them and we both want to
continue in the friendship or bring it to a romantic connection,
it's fine. But when the other person doesn't, it's likely
(12:14):
that they start to exhibit some of this pulling away
and making space in the relationship to you know, just
give it a little bit of a pause. And that
can be really hard when you feel like, well, I've
invested a lot, I want more. I really like this person.
Why aren't they wanting to be a friend in the
(12:35):
same way that I'm wanting to be a friend. That
makes a lot of sense. And also, people have choice.
We cannot make them want to be in relationship with
us in the same way, you know. I think of
that when we may have you know people in our
lives who have a higher connection need than us? I
certainly do. I have you know people in my life
(12:57):
who would love to talk multiple times a week. I'm like,
that's a lot. And it's really based on you know,
the personality of the other person sometimes, or it's based
on my time, or it's based on you know, many
different factors. And so we have a choice and how
often we talk to people, and we have a choice
and whether or not we want to talk to them
(13:18):
for extended periods. So we have to be very respectful
of people exercising their choice, because when we are not,
they will just leave the relationship without explanation because we're
not giving them room to exercise their boundaries. Ghosting can
(13:39):
happen when we are not giving people the space that
they are naturally creating. When someone is pulling back, they
are stepping back from the relationship verbally, physically, they are
requesting space. They may not be comfortable having a conversation,
but it is clear. We used to have hang out
(14:00):
every single Tuesday. Now it's every other tuesday. It is clear,
and we have to take those as cues that this
person they may personally be going through something, or they
may be having some issues with the relationship and not
ready to talk about it. If they wanted to talk
about it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right or
(14:20):
the conversation would be different. Like I talked to my
friend and they said, X, Y, and Z. It doesn't
sound like this person is yet in a place to
you know, talk through this stuff. And so some of
this reconciliation around what's happening is going to be on
your end. I have a question for you, though, with
the codependency which you're putting so much into the relationship,
(14:44):
I'm getting the impression that this is a bit more
for you than a friendship. Is there more romantic interest
on your side than it is on her side. Is
some of the deep connection that you're feeling is it
friendship based or is it romantic? It would be really
(15:07):
helpful for you to know that, because when you start
the letter and you're talking about my best friend, I'm
hearing some other energy coming out, and it's not best
friend energy. It's a possessive energy that we typically, you know,
see when there has been some you know, romantic involvement
(15:29):
or or some sort of thing like that, and that
happens sometimes where maybe we see someone in a way
that they may not see us, or we experiment with
people and we don't talk about what that looks like
for the relationship because sometimes, as I stated, it could
work out, but when we're not clear around what this
(15:49):
actually means, it can create this discomfort in the relationship.
So there may be a series of internal conversations to
have with yourself around why is there such a strong
pool with this person? Is this connection for me platonic
or romantic? Could I be in this relationship without the
(16:10):
sexual connection? What does this person represent to me? Why
am I clinging on to this relationship in a way
that's different than how I cling to my other relationships.
Those are your internal questions to answer, and then the
relationship you may want to talk a little bit about
(16:32):
what is this relationship like after sex? After we've had sex,
do we want to consider this being romantic or do
we want to continue to maintain our friendship? And if
we're maintaining the friendship, what will those boundaries look like
so we're not blurring those lines because you may not
(16:52):
be able to blurt the lines, or she may not
be able to blurt a line, but somebody is having
a challenge with this blurred line, so there needs to
be a conversation around Okay, now that this has happened,
what does it mean for the relationship? Will we continue
to allow it to happen? Is it something that we
(17:13):
want to minimize in a relationship. How do we work
on building the friendship instead of the sexual relationship, or
how do we build both? It can be really hopeful
for us to notice what's happening in the relationship. Hey,
I noticed that there's been a shift in your energy.
A few weeks ago. We would talk, you know, maybe
(17:36):
a few times a week by text, you know, you
would FaceTime me a few times, and that hasn't been happening.
Can you let me know if anything has changed with us?
Just allowed just talk about the things that you're actually
experiencing and seeing. And you don't have to blame her.
You don't have to say you know, I know you
(17:59):
feel or I assume you don't know anything, And you
can't assume anything. You can only notice what is fact. Now,
if this is a situation where there's really been no
change and this person hasn't been given more, I don't
even know if it's worth a conversation because guess what
(18:22):
they're giving at the level in which they want to give.
And I think your work now is to accept that
sometimes in relationships we will overgive in an attempt to
get this person to give more. So if you've been
doing that, if you've been doing a lot for this
person and her family has noticed, and your friends and
(18:43):
family have noticed, and they've not and she's not given
in this same sort of way, she's probably doing what
she can. There may not be more to squeeze from
the situation. There is a matter of acceptance on the table.
Can you accept a person who who is offering less?
It's possible that you can. But what that might look
(19:04):
like in a healthy way, is you having some other
friendships and not focusing solely on this one. You're twenty
years old. You are in a space in life where
you know, I'm sure, through work, through school or whatever
you know your situation is in life, you can meet
other people, and so having one best friend is, you know,
(19:28):
it's really great, but having you know a few friends
is even better. You need more than one friend. So
if you want to focus all your energy on this
one person throughout time, this is gonna feel a bit
empty from time to time because I don't know if
they can feel you up in a way that multiple
(19:51):
people could. So setting your sights on one relationship is
typically not healthy for us. We need two or more people.
We need to spread that love around. We don't need
to put it on one person to be our everything.
We need people to be in relationship with. You need
to hear this. Two or more friends is better than one.
(20:16):
When we center our energy on one friend, we put
a lot on them. Our expectations are high. We start
to believe that they should feel every need that we have.
It is possible and more likely that you can get
your neees met when you have more people. You need
(20:38):
to hear This is an iHeart production host it by
me Nedra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joe
el Baldique. 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
(20:59):
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
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