I have this friend... but I'm over it!

A recent conversation with a client inspired me to write a post about friendships.

All relationships have challenges, because we're human and humans are flawed. Everyone knows this, yet I find many people willing to simply walk away from a friendship for one reason or another.

I'm not saying every person you meet is a forever-friend, nor am I saying you can't have healthy boundaries in friendship. But I think ending a friendship, even in one's mind should be a hurdle that won't be crossed without a real conversation.

What follows is likely a familiar story... so, if you ever find yourself upset with a friend, ask yourself - is there a boundary you'd like to request your friend to honor, to help you avoid future upset in the relationship? If there is, be bold and ask before giving up and walking away.

Now, let's dive into the drama. (Names changed to protect the innocent despite him being publicly vocal about it himself and giving permission for me to share.)

Male friend, Rick; self-proclaimed "good and truthful" long-time friend to Donna is experiencing strong, persistent, negative emotional turmoil over Donna's new beau, Alex.

I have a feeling we've all heard something like this.

He comes to me for advice and the presenting problem/conflict comes out sounding something like this, "Alex is emotionally abusive. Donna defends him, but comes whining to me every time he hurts her. She says she's happy but she's in denial. They fight all the time.

Donna has already ended several friendships over this guy. He can't stand that she has male friends. What makes him so special? That's not normal, right?

I told her to leave him. I told her she needs to be single while she sorts herself out. I told her that he is 100% toxic in every way and she admitted to me he is insecure.

Alex looks through her phone! Alex made her temporarily block me! Which is B$#@#$. He's extremely possessive and she refuses to see it.

I think she doesn't really value our friendship. She goes to me to vent but doesn't listen to my advice in response.

On my FB post everyone commented that jealousy never ends well. She isn't emotionally ready to date. Neither is Alex!

Anyway, I can't make a f#@$'ing decision about moving on from her as her friend or not. She doesn't respect my friendship because she doesn't like me telling her the truth which she can't handle. I'm done with dealing with this! I wanna move on!"

Rick was looking for emotional relief in the form of validation about his opinion of her relationship from all of FB. Once fully enflamed and validated in his righteousness, he was going to break up his friendship with her. The 128 FB comments were everything he wanted to hear. He was getting more and more worked up, extremely angry, extremely defensive.

Now, this is a difficult situation for any coach to walk into; but my objective was clear in this instance. He wasn't ready for the three principles. He wasn't ready to address the things that would help him grow as a person, and he wasn't ready for real change. BUT! I knew I could help him with this one, small situation that he was in absolute AGONY over.

First, we needed to establish whether this concern could be solved with a boundary request. It was a rocky road to get to this point, but we were able to establish that:

1) if he respects Donna then he must allow that she is capable of making her own choices, regardless of the consequences. And therefore must allow her to make her own choices and mistakes. (Especially as they are both mature/senior adults)

2) if there is true friendship with himself and Donna, he must allow her to have opinions that disagree with his own. A true friend must not condition friendship based on Donna's ability and willingness to live her life based on his decisions/recommendations/commands and allow her to choose to not follow his advice without turning her away as a consequence.

3) Donna valuing Rick's friendship should not be considered the same thing as doing whatever Rick says or doing what he thinks Donna should do.

Once we were able to set down these guidelines as to what Rick should do as a "good and true friend" to Donna, the question remained on what to do about Rick's intensely negative emotional state that he was desperate to escape?

The answer was deceptively simple - Rick needed to create a new boundary with Donna to keep his peace of mind.

Knowing she didn't want his advice nor was she going to take his advice, he felt he couldn't stand hearing about her situation with Alex. He wanted to solve Alex for Donna, and was impotent to do so because she was coming to him for comfort, not a solution. She wasn't seeking validation, she sought soothing - which in my mind meant she valued him as a friend - but that's a topic for another day...

I helped him craft a text to Donna that wasn't entirely in his own words because verbiage matters, especially in delicate situations, but dear goodness me, still had plenty of Rick flavor.

"Donna,

Me listening to you talk about your boyfriend is extremely draining for me. I think about it a lot and I feel a lot of anger and negative emotions from that. Please respect my request that we not discuss anything regarding him or your situation with him and thank you very much."

Immediately, he raced into a lot of thinking. (And as we know, thinking is the cause of all emotions. It causes stress and suffering.)

"I'm probably better off not being her friend. And if she says anything other than 'OK, I respect how you feel and why you feel that way.' then SEE YA! I think I've already made my decision to end our friendship but I need one last piece of evidence to validate it. What if she tries to guilt trip me??? How should I respond?"

His response demonstrates the main reason people would rather walk away from a valued friendship. People fear this conversation so much, they'd rather choose a painful end than possible rejection. The fear of finding validation in an uncomfortable suspicion that one is unloved or unvalued is more than people can bear.

Here, I gave Rick the confidence and the support he needed to risk the rejection. I helped emotionally detach his "ask" from his "self". Doing so, he was able to risk rejection to see if he could gain the validation he wanted and the boundary he needed to be happy again in the years long friendship he had cultivated with Donna.

In answer to his freakout, I said "Let's just wait and see what she says before running down every twist in the maze of possible outcomes and getting all worked up over it."

And isn't that reaction the main cause of most anxieties and stresses? Simply imagining possible undesirable futures - why? Why bother wasting that mental energy?

In this case, I had a strong feeling she would respect his request and she did. Two days later, he sent me a screenshot. It was clear he had deleted their thread in an attempt to clear it from his mind.

Donna - "I won't share about Alex anymore. That's probably a very good idea."

And his response was a stream of adorable, loving, happy, excited puppy stickers. He was overjoyed. He couldn't thank me enough.

That's a fun story, huh? What does it have to do with you?

Simply put, if you find yourself upset with a friend, ask yourself - is there a boundary you'd like to request your friend to honor, to help you avoid future upset in the relationship. If there is, be bold and ask before giving up and walking away. . And if there is, ask first before giving up and walking away.

Or give me a call and we can schedule a coaching session! Because ultimately, when we work together, you'll be able to allow upsetting thoughts and conversations flow by without engaging with them in the moment and maintaining your calm by not revisiting those thoughts later.