A somewhat messy friendship breakup

[pianissimo]

The reason I'm writing this post is because I'm scared. I fell out with a friend. But I'm afraid the problem I'm having with this person will not resolve as quickly or smoothly as I hoped. I might need to vent. I have a toxic work environment. This person is also my colleague. I don't intend to share what is happening with her with anybody from work.  This means I can't talk to anybody because all my friends are from work.  I also feel provoked because she keeps texting me. Not responding to her is emotionally tiresome. So, I need to write about this. It helps me with doing nothing but watch and observe. It also detaches me from the drama that is unfolding.

Warning: This is a long post about meaningless events.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I fell out with a friend. I thought it was over within a week: We fell out, and that's that. But, apparently, it's not over, because, she keeps texting me. I'm starting to sense she might want to confront me in her own terms. I'm not up to it.

What happened? This is a long and a silly story, but, to me, it was so triggering. It actually took me back to my childhood. I also find the whole experience embarrassing.

The friend I am talking about is actually the reason I am here. Let’s call this friend E. What happened with her made me realize that I was carrying the old trauma bond as affection for people. She is also the most recent person I felt that way. But, in her case, I was a bit more cautious. So, although I liked her a lot, I was also paying attention in times things didn't seem right. E lives away, and I see her once a month when she comes to work in the city I live. She is a colleague. It might help to know we are both women. I think she likes me too in her own weird way. As I see it, we never became too close. The friendship we had was more about having a couple of drinks and chatting. Then, she would crush on my couch, and leave the next day. I was quite happy with this arrangement. But, from the start, I felt uncomfortable whenever she brought a partner with her. In the beginning of the friendship, there was this one time she came to town with her now ex-husband. The husband didn't like me. The first day was OK, but the second day, I felt that he behaved passive aggressively. Example: On the way back home, they gave me a lift, and whole time, he played the music player at the maximum volume. It was an hour-long trip. The volume of the music felt like some kind of physical assault. When we arrived my place, I was in such a terrible state that even E sensed my misery and gave me a hug before taking off. When I entered my apartment, I couldn't help but cry. I think that I felt abused. In this instance, I thought that this was just bad luck. There was no way E could know this would not work out. I didn't know either of them well enough to judge in any way. We were just getting to know each other. It seemed like E would manage her friendship with me and her marriage separately. Then, she ended up divorcing him. She and I remained friends.

But then, in the last three visits, E came with her new boyfriend U. He and I got along well. But I could see that U had issues. For one thing, I thought that he was disrespectful to E. When he was introduced to E’s friends, some of which are from work, he didn’t like one or two of them and made a fuss about it.  He argued with E when I was with them. I didn't know how to take this behavior. I thought perhaps they felt comfortable enough around me to argue this way. I also thought U had anger issues. He seemed to be triggered by random things said or done. No matter what E said, he would not calm down. I was a bit annoyed with U because I felt like I should be careful to not trigger his anger.  Nevertheless, I didn't mind doing this because I didn't know him that well. From my perspective, he was E's boyfriend. I was polite to him anyways.

In their last visit, however, U went a bit too far. This time, they got in touch with a couple of mutual friends, let’s call them A and Z. The plan was simple. E and U would come to town for a day. We would have drinks. They would leave the next day. I said I'm game.

We decided to have a couple of drinks at my place. U started talking about his difficult childhood and traumatic things that happened to him. Perhaps, here, I should mention that these people and I come from minority communities. Some of the traumatic things happened in our childhood are related to oppression. So, when he started talking about these things, we listened. We could relate to his experience. I asked if he was angry about what happened to him, and asked whether he felt angry with us too (because that was how I felt about my experience of oppression). He said yes, but, then, from there on, he started speaking offensively. When others and I at the table shared our stories to show that we come from a similar place, he told us that our experience was nothing compared to what he endured.

I don't remember the rest of the night very well. I just remember making effort to reduce tension, so I joked a lot. The thing is, the moment I made people laugh, he said something more offensive than before. During all this, I made attempts to show that he was upsetting us. I don’t know how, but we ended up talking about how the direction of the night was headed to the end of our friendship. I think he threatened us with ending his friendship with us. I responded by saying it would be sad if our friendship ended, it was nice while it lasted, but I wouldn’t stand on his way out. Then, I don’t know why, perhaps to see that I would care about the end of our friendship, he started insulting me.  He began by saying  “You are nothing."  I don’t remember the rest of it, but he was definitely insulting me. The context of the insult was banter. The insults were supposed to prove that I would not be indifferent to the end of friendship with him, as I so coolly claimed. I was offended by insults and I didn't hide it: I cried. I went to the balcony to calm down. E followed me to comfort me. Others also came after me. Within a minute, I felt OK again.

I became more or less aware that, what was happening had nothing to do with childhood traumas or oppression. I feel embarrassed to say that I thought we were bonding by sharing these painful experiences (here, my old trauma bond was in action). But U was using these to tease us. He was basically making us feel things he wanted us to feel. It was like an experiment to him. He was having a good time, too. I don’t know how I did it, but I communicated what I observed to people at the table. This kind of worked for everyone. U admitted that he was speaking offensively on purpose, and he actually complemented someone who remained calm despite all his efforts. But he didn’t stop there. Both E and U continued to tease or “tease”  A and Z, who became upset again, and I had to interfere to tell them it was still a game to E and U and they were doing it on purpose. E and U, again, admitted they were just joking.

At this point, I had become so annoyed, I called it a night and pestered everybody to go have a take-away. The night ended.

It was such a weird experience, the next day, I asked A (who knew E long before I met her) what he thought about the night. He was also upset about what happened.

Later, I thought about the night, and my friendship with E, and I held her responsible, as she was the one who brought U among us, and she didn’t do anything to stop him. This was not the first time. And, by doing this, she was violating the boundaries she had set in the first place. The way I see it, E and I liked each other, but that was that. We weren’t that close.

Two days after this incident, I ran into E at work. I didn’t pretend everything was fine. Normally, I would go and check her, but I didn’t. At some point, she sent a mutual friend to invite me to her office to have coffee, and I refused. Then, she came to my office. I let her in because, I thought, perhaps, she would apologize. But she came in, she did small talk, then asked whether I was upset about something because I didn’t sound cheerful. I said all was fine and that I was busy. She wanted to check the article I wrote up. I let her check it grudgingly. Then, she left. Again, the whole experience felt weird because it felt like provocation. It felt like she was testing my boundaries by coming into my space.

A couple of weeks after this encounter, she called me (even when we were friends, we barely spoke to each other on the phone, to organize meet-ups), and I didn’t pick up the phone. Then, she texted me, and I said I wasn’t available. She asked me if everything was alright that I seemed distant. She asked me if something she said upset me. I said it was all cool and thanked her for her concern.

A week after this, she texted me about some TV series she likes, and she said I might like it. I didn't respond.

And today, she texted me about some other stuff I might like. I didn’t read the texts. I will not respond.

Well, just now, she texted me if I was alright.

The way I see it, this is hoovering. I think she thought I was in her sphere of control. She is not happy with the boundary I set. I think that she knows that this boundary is a result of that weird awful night, but she doesn’t apologize for it. She asks me if everything is alright, if she said something wrong, but I think this is some kind of gaslighting. I also think that she wants a fight. This is one of the reasons I want to avoid her as long as possible. I don’t want to fight or to be pestered. Also, I think her boyfriend is a textbook narcissist. I’m not sure about her but the way she behaves makes me think she might be too. I would prefer to be miles away from her as long as she is with this boyfriend.

If you were patient enough to have read this long post, what do you think? Is it the right thing to confront her? Do I owe her an explanation? Did you have similar experiences?

[IRedW77]

I’m on board with your take on things 90%, but
I feel like you’re missing 10%. Perhaps something is missing in the telling, or perhaps I missed something in my reading and I’m wrong, but you asked for feedback, so...

It sounds like E and U are probably awful and you’re making the right move in getting them out of your life as much as possible. I’m 100% supportive of you there.

It also sounds like what E is doing is probably “gaslighting” or whatever you want to call it. However, I’m only 60% with you on this one.

You drew a boundary with E and U—a perfectly healthy and right choice. What you didn’t do (at least in your telling) is explicitly convey that boundary to E.

Every time you’ve been asked if something is wrong you’ve (lied may be too strong) obfuscated the truth.

You might need to examine the larger reasons why you’ve done this.

My bottom line is this:

You don’t owe her an explanation, but before you can judge her for violating or trying to violate your boundaries you need to make them crystal clear.

They’re clear to you, and they perhaps should be clear to her based on the situation. But given the chance you have repeatedly said “everything was fine” or otherwise dodged any possible confrontation however you could.

That’s your right and you should protect yourself however you need to, but you need to either rule in or rule out whether you’re boundaries are intentionally being violated.

Otherwise you’re setting yourself up to
A. Have this situation continue endlessly
B. Keep questioning yourself and your decisions

You can have clarity on what’s going on and then address it accordingly. If she is PD then explicitly setting boundaries is probably a total waste of time—but you’re not doing it for her. You’re doing it so you can be certain enough she is PD to move on and defend yourself accordingly.

Edited to add: 

If I were in E’s shoes and I didn’t know what was going on for sure I’d keep trying to repair the situation that I felt like was there.

If I asked what was up more than once and didn’t get an answer that matched my experience of the situation I’d keep asking.

I personally need things to be made explicit when I don’t understand them.

Maybe E doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt or for anyone to try to imagine being in their shoes, but you have to make that call because you’re both strangers to me.

[pianissimo]

Dear IRedW77

Thanks a lot for reading my post and answering it. You are hundred percent right that this is a big hole in my story. I'm glad that you pointed it out.

I think from the way I told the story, the boundary is not quite clear. The way I see it, U verbally abused me.

I admit that it was not black and white. The insults were wrapped in banter. But, again, I think that I was quite clear that I didn't like the way U spoke to me. The thing is, at the time, I had no idea about personality disorders. Also, it was a friendly gathering, and we didn't know each other that well. So, I was communicating my discontent politely. I was also trying to reduce the tension. I was afraid the whole thing would turn into a fight. There were times U went after Z, who is A's wife. A would spring to his feet to defend her. So, in all this tension, I was trying to make U understand we didn't like what he was doing. And I think he knew it, because, in the end of the night, he said "I bet I will never see you guys again", and A was quite honest when he said "yeap, I would never drink with you again." 

What I'm trying to say is, the whole night, I was telling U I wasn't OK with the way he spoke to me. He was hundred percent aware of what he was doing. U was basically pulling our strings. He was love-bombing when we were down and devaluing when we were OK. If nothing is, the fact that I cried is a big indication that something wasn't right. And, even that didn't stop him. He love-bombed me after that (E and I love pianissimo, she is such a great friend) and went ahead to mess with A and Z.

So, to me, E asking me if she said anything to upset me is gaslighting. A bit like, "Given there is nothing wrong with that night, why are you upset?".

There is a good possibility that she thinks what happened that night is about U but not her. But, again, if she cares about the friendship to find out what happened, I think she should be the one who brings it up. In our first meeting after that night, her body language indicated that she understood that I was upset about that night. You could tell it by the way she spoke and looked. She asked why I looked down, but... I think if you sincerely want to know why somebody is upset, you create an environment that will help them speak. Like, "Can I speak to you privately for a couple of minutes, there is something I like to talk to you. You seem upset. Why are you?." If you are asking if they are alright on your way out, you indicate that you don't have time to listen.

The other thing is, it's very hard for me to explain to her what is wrong through texts. This is another reason I think the way she asks me what is wrong is gaslighting. That night was messy. And our friendship has become messy. A text message doesn't give me room to explain all this. She chooses a way of communication that limits me.

One final thing is that, her problem is not me not speaking to her. I speak to her when necessary. The last time there was a meeting at work, I spoke to her like nothing happened. She is bothered by my tone and the fact that I stay away. That's the other thing. We were never friends in a way that would allow her boyfriend to treat me the way he treated. E and I don't know each other that well. And that's pretty much because of her. I quite liked her and encouraged her to spend more time with me, and I respected her when she preferred to stick to drinks and chats. And chats are usually about films, TV shows...etc.  I don't see occasional drinks and chats as a close friendship. So, backing away one step from the relationship with E is me not picking her phone calls, because the nature of our relationship allows me that. Answering phone calls doesn't indicate friendships, replying to text messages doesn't indicate love, speaking friendly doesn't mean I Iove the person I speak to. More often than not, I'm just polite. So, not doing any of these things doesn't mean I hate the other person.  If she gave me space, we could move back to the cordial relationship we had. I would just limit the time I spend with her socially. Like, if a couple of friends went to have drinks, I would perhaps not attend it, or if I did, I would stay for an hour. So, she protesting me for being distant is out of place. We were never that close for her to point that out.  (Edit: I read my comment one more time and I wondered whether I was ghosting her. Am I ghosting her by not responding?)

These are the reasons why I perceive her approach insincere. It seems like a power game. Our work environment is as toxic as it gets, and she becomes a part of the toxicity sometimes. So, I fear this breakup will feed into it, or that toxicity will make the breakup messy.

I thank you again for your answer. I welcome any objections to any points I make. It helps me think and remember. There might be points I'm unfair. It wouldn't change my approach to the issue at hand but I would pay attention to the raised points in my other friendships.

[IRedW77]

I was mostly trying to leave U out of my response. U is a much more clear cut case. U was being awful and any neutral observer would agree based on your story that you should just stay away from U no matter what.

But U isn't reaching out to you over and over it's E.  E is responsible for U's behavior in so far as E brought U into your house and in any ways that U helped E to verbally abuse you that night, but that's it. E did what E did and U did what U did. 

But beyond that you need to separate them out. If E messaged you tomorrow and said "I just broke up with U, I realized they were really awful and abusive." No apology to you, but would you feel any differently towards E?

My message is hold E accountable for whatever E did herself, but try to separate E and U in your mind. I just say this because when you said that "the boundary is clear" you immediately started talking about U and not E.

E asking if she said anything to upset you that night could also be read as a tacit admission that U was awful. As in "obviously U was awful, but I didn't do anything to hurt you did I?" Would that be a legitimate question? Could that be a fair attempt to make things right?

Maybe she can't admit how awful U is because of what that says about her. I mean if she's staying with someone that acts like that she has to be deluding herself, right? If someone like U is doing that to a crowd at a party they're definitely doing awful things to E when they've alone together.

No one is friends with anyone in a way that justified the way that U treated you. Nothing justifies the way U treated you—full stop.

I've had friends bring awful people into my life with them, and then helped them clean up after THEY finally saw how awful the person was, so don't rule that out. 

I don't want to aid and abet gaslighting here if that's what's going on or to defend E, but there are still holes in your story.

You're holding E to the standards of your behavior, which isn't quite fair. You clearly know how to respectfully and quietly pull someone aside and talk things out. You wouldn't care about someone if you were only asking them on your way out the door.

But E isn't you. Does E have all the same social skills and graces you do? There's obviously something up with E's sense of the world if she's still dating U. You'd certainly know better, so what else doesn't E know how to do?

You said " If she gave me space, we could move back to the cordial relationship we had." but does SHE know that. Have you said "I just need some space"? You think she should know what's in your head based on your behavior, but that's not necessarily fair. You demonstrated last time that your words and behavior do not match up. That's a crucial thing I was trying to point out.

You are kind of ghosting her. She's reaching out and you're being silent. You assume that she knows why, but you haven't been explicit. You assume you know her motives, but you admit you're not sure. You're being silent so you're setting the rules and not giving her any control. That's healthy if you're sure she's PD, but you might be jumping the gun.

You're making a lot of rules for her that make total sense to you. But your rules aren't universal. Everyone else doesn't know all your rules.

You don't see "a close friendship" so your behavior is ok and hers is "out of place" and she's not allowed to "point that out." You say "that's pretty much because of her." So she set some boundaries early on, but that doesn't mean she opted into yours or even understands them.

You're seeing a lot in her behavior that may or may not be there. The truth is available to you if you're comfortable communicating.

I get that it's a complicated and delicate situation because of work and only you know the details on the ground. But you're not currently doing anything that could resolve the situation. Maybe it can't be resolved and you're doing the best you can with what you've got, but I doubt she's going to go away as things are now.

If you feel like you're 100% sure that she's PD then NC or ghosting is the right move. If you're not and the uncertainty is bothering you, then find out.

It sounds like you're already resolved on how to handle things, so please forgive me if I'm overstepping on suggesting how to handle this situation still.

Points for other people are don't assume they know what's in your head or that you know what's in theirs. Neither of those are fair to anybody and are a recipe for future conflict.

That being said, all bets are off for PD's. They aren't normal and you can't expect anything normal to work with them or for them to do anything normal.

But, be careful not to project past experiences with PD's onto other people. If you're here then you were damaged by PD's in some way. You need to protect yourself from the PD's you know and any others you might meet, but it's easy for us to see monsters everywhere because the people we trusted most turned out to be monsters. That lets your PD's hurt you in a whole different way

[pianissimo]

Thanks IRedWW7, for taking the time to read my posts and provide elaborate comments. You are giving valuable feedback, so please don’t hold back. If I’m behaving awful, I want to know.   

I don’t separate U from E because, for E, U comes before me. Even if U and E were not in a relationship, their friendship would come before E’s friendship with me. This is because U and E live in the same city, even as friends, they would spend a lot more time together. Where I live is five hours away from them. I'm a bit of an outsider.

U had an opportunity to insult me because I wanted a more intimate friendship with E. In the context of an intimate friendship, U’s behavior (including insults) could be interpreted as informal, but in the context of a relatively formal friendship, his behavior is considered offensive. So, here, E wants me to see U’s behavior in the context of an intimate friendship, when there is nothing intimate about our friendship. This is E’s abuse. From this point of view, I would agree with you that U's verbal abuse is a separate thing.

About the possibilities that E might not be aware of what she is doing, that she might not have the social skills, that, she might be going through something difficult herself that prevents her from seeing U for what he is: Here, my problem is that she is not open with me. She doesn't talk about anything that matters. I suppose what bothers me is the ongoing lack of intimacy in this friendship. I think that a clueless person without social skills who have good intentions would still be open. Lack of social skills does not mean you can't show intimacy. Even when you did wrong and you had no idea, the way you interacted with the person you offended would show how you are feeling, where you are at, what's going on in your life... These actions themselves actually would make me talk about the incident. Like, if she had kept in touch with me after the incident, included me in some part of her life, I would go like "Look E, what happened the other day really bothered me".  I'm not getting this kind of friendship from her. So, the right social skills do not make up for sincerity. A lot of people without social skills are actually quite good at being honest with people around them, being open about themselves. Their apology would lack social skills but they would come across sincere.

I think that E closed up after the incident and pestered me to be open with her. I think that this is why I feel OK about not responding to her.

For the reasons above, I don't take her messages as her attempts to reach out. She didn't show real friendship to begin with.

I agree with you about the point that U might be treating E badly. Here, I’m not in a position to help E. Again, E is not open with me. Plus, I have to protect myself.  If E broke up with U, I’m pretty sure she would date another abusive boyfriend  Who says I’d be good enough to judge the next boyfriend right and protect myself?  But, this is not the aspect of the problem that motivates my actions.

Thanks again IRedWW7, replying to your messages clears my head. Please feel free to make further comments if there are parts that do not make sense.

[IRedW77]

I appreciate the gratitude and the invitation to be really honest without worrying about offending you. I'm happy to contribute. I like helping people, and other people's problems are always easier to see through than your own.

I think I finally see what's maybe going on here.
You said:
"U had an opportunity to insult me because I wanted a more intimate friendship with E."

That's the key line for me that unlocks everything you've said. I keep not understanding why you'd EVER be willing to put up with U or imagine a scenario where his behavior wasn't 110% out of bounds and unacceptable.

You were willing to put up with U to get closer to E. That's not a healthy choice to make.

I feel like you're actually upset with E because you let her awful boyfriend into your house for the 3rd time or whatever it was and took his abuse, but it didn't make you better friends with E and that feels unfair to you.

You said:
"In the context of an intimate friendship, U's behavior (including insults) could be interpreted as informal, but in the context of a relatively formal friendship, his behavior is considered offensive."

In any relationship period his behavior was offensive and NOT OK. I'm making a big deal of it because you're willing to take abuse from a guy you said "is a textbook narcissist"

You said:

"We were never friends in a way that would allow her boyfriend to treat me the way he treated."

You're telling me that if you were better friends with E then you would allow U to treat you the way he did, and that would be ok. That's not healthy.

You said:

"So, here, E wants me to see U's behavior in the context of an intimate friendship, when there is nothing intimate about our friendship. This is E's abuse."

I don't know that E thinks that at all. I think you're putting that on E. You're basically repeating that if your friendship with E were more intimate then abuse from U would be ok. You see it as abuse from E because you took U's abuse and didn't get a more intimate friendship with E that would have made everything ok for you.

You also said:

"I don't separate U from E because, for E, U comes before me. Even if U and E were not in a relationship, their friendship would come before E's friendship with me."

So I'm reading here that you're going to keep blaming E for what U did because E is closer to U than she is to you.

You see what I'm saying that E isn't responsible for U's behavior, but you're unwilling to accept that because E is closer to U than she is to you. It's another version of if E were more intimate with me then what U did would be ok.

The other thing I'm going to add here is that you're really mad at U (as you should be) but you don't have access to U so you're directing anger that belongs to U at E.

I also see you keep moving the bar with E. I told you that maybe she doesn't have normal social skills. You said that's ok, but she should still know how to be intimate. You keep expecting things from her, but you're shutting her out from giving you anything because she isn't giving you exactly what you want.

You said:

"I suppose what bothers me is the ongoing lack of intimacy in this friendship."

I think you're right. I think that is what's actually bothering you about E.

I think your whole relationship with her is a mess. You either want things from her that she's not willing to give you OR you're unconsciously setting up a situation where she CAN'T give you what you want because you won't let her.

I think you're putting a lot of things onto her that are your things and not necessarily actually there, BUT she still sounds dangerous and like she has her own messed up things that you need to get yourself away from.

So like, you're getting yourself the right message, but not for the right reasons necessarily.

I think you should take a step back and try to carefully examine where your feelings are coming from.

I also think that on reading and rereading your posts that E is probably an unhealthy mess as you say and that you SHOULD get as far away from her and U as you can.

But I also think that you may be drawn to her in the first place because she is unhealthy and she's helping you relive your own trauma the way all us victims of PD's do.

My advice would be to think all this through a lot more and try to see any patterns from your past that you might be repeating. Also try to see if there's some strange way that getting close to her would somehow unconsciously make up for something you lost because of the abuse of your PD(s). 

Lastly, if you think things through really carefully I still think you can find the right things to communicate to E that will get her to leave you alone without blowing everything up or giving her anything you don't want to give up.

I feel like I said the same thing a lot of different ways, so I hope I didn't make you angry or anything. I'm still willing to keep going back and forth some if you feel like I'm still helping or can be of any more help.

[pianissimo]

Thanks IRedWW7, I guess a part of me is trying to be able to summarize what I think E did as a sentence. I don't know if I would communicate the sentence to her, but, it would be helpful to figure out what exactly happened.

About the part where I said U’s behavior might be considered informal in intimate friendship:

The whole night, I communicated to U that I was not happy with the way he behaved. But, I guess, a part of me thinks that my reaction wasn’t strong enough. Like, I could have thrown them out, why didn’t I? Because, I wanted their friendship. So, although I told U what he was doing was not OK, I partially tolerated it, by letting them be there, by not storming out, by not screaming at them… So, although I showed my discontent, I wondered if U was just behaving informally in his own way, and thought that might be a sign of intimacy. I think that I didn’t want to react strongly until I was sure there was nothing more than rudeness to his actions. So, in that paragraph, this is what I mean when I say U’s behavior could be interpreted as informal. I think that I feel like I allowed him to treat me poorly by not throwing them out. But, I did show I was not happy.  I mean, we were having an argument all night. To me, this is still me taking U’s behavior as informal and acceptable, because I didn’t throw them out.

There was definitely my codependent character in action all night. I was catering to E by being polite to U. In the beginning, I thought U had a problem, he was sharing it, and I could help him in someway. I couldn’t imagine me being friends with E if U and I fell out. I think that I didn’t want to complicate the situation for E.  I thought if I threw them out or did something offensive there would not be a chance for our friendship. I suppose, until the end of the night, I gave them the benefit of doubt. Like, there was a reason U was behaving the way he was, and I would find out in the end. They would tell me. There were occasions U was actually promising me he would tell why he behaved that way. I guess, at this point, I should add that, in the end of the night, I invited them to stay in my place. E refused, and U asked if I would like to go with them to their place. Thankfully, I refused, but I definitely wanted to go. I might have gone with them if E was the one who invited and insisted. So, again, I protested U all night, but emotionally, I was not completely against him. To me, this is me allowing U to treat me poorly.

I like to add that, at the time of the incident I didn’t know anything about PDs. I actually found out about PDs right after this incident. I think what woke me up was U’s invitation to their place. In the end of the night, I was so angry with U and E, yet, I wanted to go with them, to find out why they behaved that way. It felt very similar to how I felt about my big brother. Like he would be mean to me one second, would make me cry or angry, then he would invite me to play, and I would put aside all my resentment and go play.

My attachment to E was definitely not healthy. Probably I project my need for a mother to how I feel about E. Well, until I realized I was doing that. (Edit: As an edition, when I said I wanted intimacy, I meant spending more time with E. And, just that. Like, I wanted her to crush on my couch more than a day. Things like that. Might be still a weird expectation. I don't know.)

But, when I put my unhealthy attachment and codependency into the equation, I still end up thinking E was not honest in this friendship. Although I didn’t know it was called “trauma bond”, I was aware that I liked E a bit too much, and that was weird. But, when it came to actions, I disregarded the trauma bond. For example, when she was having conflict with people at work, I remained distant, and I suppose, through actions, I was quite clear that I would do what I thought was right, and that might not be in her interest. I think that, in some way, I remained unpredictable to E. Even then, I could see that E had some questionable character traits, but I didn’t mind them because I thought nobody was perfect. The other thing is, these questionable character traits were out of my sight. She wasn’t around much, and, when she was, we didn’t talk about work so much.

My codependency takes action in social occasions, and perhaps, at personal level. Like, I try to be entertaining, I go along with whatever people want to do, I try to be not too demanding…I make people feel good about themselves. So, up until that night, I guess I have drawn all types of narcissists around me. But, again, narcissists couldn’t get very intimate with me because I become quite honest as soon as I’m friends with people. What I mean is, I don't agree with everything people say or I don't go along with everything they want. But I didn’t know this was what was happening.

I would love to hear your perspective. Many thanks again for sharing your thoughts on this.

[IRedW77]

I'd like to hear that sentence if you figure it out.


Some things of interest:

I think that you're connecting abuse with intimacy. You keep talking about how if your relationship with E and/or U were more intimate then U's behavior might have been ok. Again I need to say that NOTHING could have made U's behavior ok.

The more you reveal about E and U's behavior that night, the more transparently manipulative it appears.

Also, the more I learn the more E seems complicit in U's "games". Like maybe you're upset with E for facilitating U's behavior. It's one thing to bring a bad boyfriend into your house, that doesn't necessarily make E responsible for any of his behavior—it's different if you're actively helping him play his F-ed up games.

I'd suggest that maybe it's ok for you if people behave badly because the people that you've had more intimate relationships with (starting with your FOO) did do strange and abusive things.

I could boil down everything I said in the last message to: you're looking to (expecting to? conditioned to?) tolerate abuse in exchange for intimacy.

Maybe you associate intimacy and closeness with abuse because from such a young age the people closest to you did this stuff and strangers and teachers and people in less intimate relationships didn't. It's also a question of access, more intimate means more access and opportunity to take advantage of you. And then there's obviously the trauma bond (but maybe that's part of what causes that).

Lastly in a weird way abuse is kind of intimate. It's between two people, it's often private and personal, and it involves strong emotions. That description fits healthy intimacy and unhealthy.

As far as not throwing U and E out that's tough to do. Even with normal people, ejecting someone from your house is dramatic and kind of socially transgressive. Like that's an awful big and brave move under normal circumstances, so don't beat yourself up for not doing that.

I find your interest in getting answers that explain the strange behavior of U interesting. Is this just something that U picked up on and used against you, or is it something that you're often looking for?

What was up with them inviting you to stay with them?! That really sets off my radar. What was that about? What was that supposed to look like? What did they expect to get from you?

It also struck me as strange in your last message that part of why you were upset with E is that she put U before you in terms of intimacy. It's not reasonable to expect her to put you first.

In a healthy friendship it would be expected that a friend would prioritize the relationship with a partner over the relationship with anyone else except family.

You only get to come first in terms of intimacy with a partner. That being said, I wasn't questioning your definition of intimacy before you brought it up. That could cause a whole different set of confusing feelings and a stronger than expected desire for intimacy. However, that would be a much healthier set of confusing feelings to sort through.

Since you brought it up it's worth thinking about.

Wanting her to stay in your house on multiple nights is kind of a weird expectation. It's also a weird set of boundaries.

Like I wouldn't invite someone that I didn't have a close friendship with to stay in my house. If they're just someone from work that I have occasional chats with about work and TV shows and nothing personal, they probably don't even get any invitations to my house, let alone to stay overnight.

It's weird on her end too. If she wants to keep you a work friend and not get close she shouldn't want to crash on your couch.

I should have said that earlier, but I hadn't really put it together yet. It's so different than what I'd expect that it kind of didn't even register with me.

So she's either taking advantage of you because she lives far away, or there's something else weird going on. Where does she stay when she's not with you if she lives so far away from where you both work?


—————-

It's easy to fall into behaving the way that you were programmed. Sometimes you can turn it into something good though.

I'm probably trying to help you now because from the time I could speak I was programmed to solve all of my BPD mom's problems for her. I find it rewarding to try to help people, and hopefully I help people sometimes, so I can turn it into a positive.

You're probably an amazing friend when you aren't being abused by narcissists.

The narcissists around you are still taking advantage of you if they're in your life at all. They get something from any relationship with you even if you don't give them all that they want. And as with U and E you occasionally give them an opportunity to take more from you.

It's all feels like a mess right now, but you've got this.

[pianissimo]

you’re looking to (expecting to? conditioned to?) tolerate abuse in exchange for intimacy.

I guess up until that night I did this. I didn't know a lot of the problems I had in the family was related to personality disorders. So, I had formed an expectation that any person would have some sort of problem. With regards to my family, what confused me was that, despite all the abusive behavior, they spent a lot of their time and money on me. Some of the things I wanted to do were not very conventional but parents didn't stand in the way, and they encouraged me when I wanted to move abroad. I feel like I owe both my success and failure to them. I'm still not clear how to think about them now that I know about personality disorders. Even now, I perceive my mother as this poor woman who can't help herself to behave better. When she rages, I feel sorry for her. It seems like she is stuck somewhere and she can't get out, despite her narcissistic personality. I feel very sad when I think that I can't help her. I sense narcissistic tendencies in my father, but, then, I suspect he protected me from my mother's full blown abuse, but I didn't like my father when I was a child because his temper scared me.

Given this history, I prepared myself to tolerate some abuse, or perhaps it's more correct to say I prepared myself to fight it? Like, I thought my life would involve a form of abuse because that's how people were. I'm still not sure if this is not the case. I mean, at work, everybody seems like a mess. I meet happy couples and the more I know them, the more I realizee how their relationship serves to just one of them. I don't think I have witnessed a relationship that I would call healthy. I don't know what that looks like. So, at the night of the incident, I thought that U's way of behaving didn't rule out the possibility that my friendship with E could be healthy. I could make it work if I figured out how to manage it.

I find your interest in getting answers that explain the strange behavior of U interesting. Is this just something that U picked up on and used against you, or is it something that you’re often looking for?

I guess I was trying to be sure of what happened. I can think of two reasons for my interest in getting answers. One of them is that I wasn't expecting any tension that night. So, initially, I thought U's anger was linked to a personal problem, and I thought that was OK, because of my mindset I mentioned above.

Towards the end of the night, I started to consider the possibility if U was actually not angry. I wondered if he was behaving aggressively just for the fun of it. At this point I was faced with the necessity to let go of the friendship with E. Here, again, for whatever reason, I didn't separate my friendship with U from E. I wouldn't feel comfortable to tell E "Hey, your boyfriend... Can you not bring him to social gatherings I attend?" We could have this kind of talk if she approached me after the incident to apologize.  So, in the night of the incident, if I became sure that U was just awful for the fun of it, in my head, that would end the friendship with E too.  I wanted to be sure before doing that.

I think that he did pick that up and used it against me. I think I asked him why he was behaving that way multiple times.

What was up with them inviting you to stay with them?! That really sets off my radar. What was that about? What was that supposed to look like? What did they expect to get from you?

I thought this was weird too. This is linked to the aspect of conflict with U that I left out of the post. I think, there were times, U was triangulating between E and I. For example he was praising me for things in a way that implied E should behave the same way. There were times, I felt uncomfortable with U. But, I think, U might have teased people the way he teased us before. I think he wondered if I would still go with them after the awful night despite his behavior. He seemed completely unaware of the fact that I put up with him because of my friendship with E.  Perhaps he took my interest in getting answers that explain his behavior as some kind interest in him. There is a bit of "yuck" here.

It also struck me as strange in your last message that part of why you were upset with E is that she put U before you in terms of intimacy. It’s not reasonable to expect her to put you first.

At no point I was upset with E because she put U before me. I took that as given. I was OK with this. I was upset with E because, given she puts U before me, I couldn't tell U off that night. I think that it was up to her to to tell him off. I think that U took advantage of the space she created. He could say and do what he could say and do because neither I, and I think, nor A and Z felt like it was up to us to tell him off.

Wanting her to stay in your house on multiple nights is kind of a weird expectation. It’s also a weird set of boundaries.

Like I wouldn’t invite someone that I didn’t have a close friendship with to stay in my house. If they’re just someone from work that I have occasional chats with about work and TV shows and nothing personal, they probably don’t even get any invitations to my house, let alone to stay overnight.

It’s weird on her end too. If she wants to keep you a work friend and not get close she shouldn’t want to crash on your couch.

I should have said that earlier, but I hadn’t really put it together yet. It’s so different than what I’d expect that it kind of didn’t even register with me.

So she’s either taking advantage of you because she lives far away, or there’s something else weird going on. Where does she stay when she’s not with you if she lives so far away from where you both work?

Here, this might look weird without other parts of the story.  I will start with explaining why she lives away. We work in this school that's in a rural town. The school offers accommodation but the town doesn't offer much in terms of social life. So, most of the staff (including me) live in the city, which is an hour away from the town. Few of them live in a large city that is five hours away. E is one of these. The school offers limited accommodation for the staff, and E managed to get one. So, she stays in the school accommodation when she comes to work. She sometimes comes to the city to see me (and other friends from work). I moved to the city six months ago, it was right about the time pandemic came to the country. So, since then, in summer, there were occasions, E came to work, stayed in her place, and came to to the city. The city I reside is also a holiday destination. So, she would come for a day, we would go to some beach, we would enjoy the sun and the sea, then we would go to a restaurant and have meals and drinks (We avoided crowded places, and the restaurants we went to had tables in open spaces). If we drank to much, there was no way they could drive back to the small town for an hour. On my part, it would be cruel to let them do that. Also, we are all single people with no children. I live in an apartment. So, this is the scene. This is not something only E and I do. E sometimes takes a mutual friend of us to the big city she lives and has her over her place. She lives with her parents. She invited me too, and I might have gone if there was no pandemic. As far as I know, she visited many other friends and I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed in their place for a night or two also. So, I think having guests over is acceptable social behavior to us.

About the work/personal relationship: Because we work in a school in this small town which is in a small city, it's difficult to draw a hard line between personal and work relationships. There is not much opportunity to meet people outside of work, and the pandemic doesn't help. This situation makes friendships complicated, at least from my perspective. This is part of the reason we had to stick to talking about films, TV series, and books.  For one thing, we can't discuss work, at least, I don't, and I discourage people from doing that. And I understand if people don't want to talk about their personal life.

So, although I hoped to be better friends with E, my problem with E wasn't that she didn't become more personal in the friendship. I feel like she set me up in a way that prevented me from taking action against U. My desire to be closer with E was my vulnerability, and it feels like, U took advantage of that. And, as E didn't apologize for U's behavior that night or bring it up in anyway, I feel like she is relying on that vulnerability so that I won't make that night a big deal. Can I prove this? Probably not. Well, at work, I would be the one to go to her office to say hello and have a chat. I think I might have started the tradition above to have occasional getaways in the city (sometimes there would be other colleagues). I also didn't hide that I thought E was great, and that I liked her friendship.

There is also an aspect of E I left out of the post to keep it simple. At work, the management puts pressure on us to live in town. They settled with us living in the city. But, they have put pressure on E to move to nearer to the location of work. So, at any time, she needs support to sustain her situation. But, I don't think I'm an active part of this conflict.

Intimacy thing:

I would like to point out something I picked up in the conversation we had. I thought perhaps it is not just me, perhaps that has an impact on your perspective too. So, I feel a bit of shame around my desire to be closer to E, and I know where that shames come from: My mother. From what she tells me and from what I remember, I gather that she couldn't connect to me as a mother. For example, when I was a kid (can't remember how young I was), there were times my attempts to hug her were rejected. And, she would complain about my attempts to hug her to other people around us, which would embarrass me. Her reaction would make me feel like I did something indecent. I was too young to articulate any of this, but, when I look back at those moments, that's what I see. So, this history makes me feel like I should explain what I mean by intimacy in friendship with E. I partially wonder if I'm using the word correctly (English is not my native language). To be clear, the intimacy I'm talking about is not something inappropriate in the context our friendship. I feel like making this clear because your responses invoked a lot of shame that I felt when I was a kid. They made me feel like my desire to get closer to E was problematic. I like to think that it's OK for me to want to be closer to E, and it's on her if she doesn't know how to refuse my attempts. Here, I'm quite confident that I didn't seek a closer friendship with her in an inappropriate way. Perhaps this explanation is unnecessary, and probably I felt like emphasizing this point because of the shame I carry, but the point about wanting a closer (more intimate, I still don't know if I'm using this word correctly) friendship with E came up quite often, so I thought I put this aspect of our discussion forward.

You’re probably an amazing friend when you aren’t being abused by narcissists.

The narcissists around you are still taking advantage of you if they’re in your life at all. They get something from any relationship with you even if you don’t give them all that they want. And as with U and E you occasionally give them an opportunity to take more from you.

It’s all feels like a mess right now, but you’ve got this.

Thanks for saying all this. Talking to you helped me see what happened from a more objective point of view. Thanks for being that point of view.

[IRedW77]

First, wow! Your command of English is fabulous. You should be very proud of that. I didn't even have a suspicion that English was not your native language.

I noticed this and that, but a lot could easily be dismissed as typos, or even autocorrections. I noticed you said "crush" on your couch instead of crash. However, that could so easily be a typo, or an autocorrection, or just some random word that you heard wrong when you learned it and never got corrected in writing.

I've encountered several people on this site from the U.K. and some from other English language countries as well. Just that difference is enough to explain any number of tiny inconsistencies in your English usage compared to mine.

American English is different from (for example a Brit might say "different to") British English and English in most other countries. This comes up in grammar, structure, slang, idioms, and word choice and usage. Even in different parts of our own country these things come up—especially in slang usage.

Second, I need to apologize for making a lot of assumptions.

For starters I've been speaking from the point of view of someone grounded in North American culture... typical American assuming that we're the center of the universe. I really try to be mindful of other peoples and cultures (more so than many of my countrymen) but it is an unfortunate default point of view in a vacuum.

My only defense is that your English is in fact so good that I didn't think to question my assumptions.

Third, that re-contextualizes a lot of what I have said. Some things that haven't made sense to me are as simply explained as being part of a small language barrier.

If you come from a different language and culture, then any number of my assumptions could be wrong. For example, different cultures have different understandings of hospitality. Just because I wouldn't (or someone else in my culture wouldn't typically) have a casual work friend stay in my house does not mean that it's atypical for you or your culture.

So you have my great respect, and my sincere apologies.

——-
As for some remaining specifics:

Regarding tolerating abuse in exchange for intimacy it makes total sense based upon your life experiences for you to think this.

You owe yourself better than this. No one has any rights to abuse you in any way under any circumstances—no exceptions, no excuses. This is black and white, there isn't a grey area.

This may be the primary unhealthy behavior that you learned in childhood that you need to overcome, so don't beat yourself up if this is an ongoing struggle for you.


Ok, I finally understand what you mean about putting U first! Maybe there's a tiny bit of cultural difference here. Maybe it's a gender difference in what men are comfortable with versus women as far as confrontation. But I'm leaning more towards cultural if A and Z agree.

If someone is a guest in my house then they're responsible for their own behavior. If I'm being made to feel uncomfortable it's my responsibility to address it. I can imagine quietly pulling E aside away from U and telling her what he was doing before I confronted him myself. It's always nice to try to solve things quietly and it's less embarrassing for U that way, but...

If that didn't work I'd go straight to U. Or if U's behavior was as bad as it sounds I wouldn't wait to try to be diplomatic or spare his feelings.

If I were in their house I might feel differently, but in that situation I'd also have the option to just excuse myself and go home.

However you want to look at U's invitation there is a lot of "yuck" there. That's what I meant by setting off my radar. It's so much yuck that I almost didn't want to mention it at all, but my mind just kept coming back to it as I wrote my reply (this is maybe also why you didn't include this detail in your story initially).

It's so far off that we feel inherent shame even in just discussing it. I think that's how he gets away with behavior like that in the first place. It's so wrong that we feel ashamed telling anyone about it.

Best not to dwell on what the intent was there. It makes your gut scream at you, and mine me while reading it, so it was nothing good.

I'm very, very sorry if any of my responses made you feel shame about anything at all. That was never my intent, and I don't think you have, are, or have anything to be ashamed of.

I think what I meant to invoke was discomfort with what you were willing to exchange for greater intimacy. I wanted to get across that you need to think better of yourself—that you deserve better than that. I'm sorry if I overdid it.

That's a tendency in me, to want to really drive my point home when I feel like it's important. If I feel like something important needs to be gotten across I'll keep restating it in as many ways as I can think of if I feel like my message isn't getting through.

You kept indicating that you still thought it was ok to accept abuse in exchange for intimacy. That's not ok with me, and I felt like you just weren't getting it. I think you do hear me, but that I'm poking at an issue that you need to work through and not being appropriately patient or respectful of that. I'm sorry that my insistence made you feel any shame, that's on me and not you.

I have my own issues around being heard and understood. I'm sorry for that.

As far as your view of relationships you've witnessed, you're not completely wrong. Relationships of any kind (especially romantic ones) require unending effort, not to mention practice.

One of the wiser things that I was once told about romantic relationships specifically is that they're where we expect to have our needs met. It's a Freudian idea, and much of his work has been discredited over the years, but there is still something to it: in romantic relationships we seek to have our most childish needs met—and we seek to get those needs met in the most childish ways.

In other words, whatever we needed in childhood and didn't get or still need more of we seek out in romantic partners. They are childish needs, so we seek to have them met in immature and childish ways. That's what you're witnessing I think.

It takes lots of communication between partners to work these things out. Everyone will always have needs and it's easy to have an imbalance where one partner is always giving and the other taking.

I also think that the younger we are, the closer we are to childhood and the less time we've had to learn how to be more adult in how we get our needs met. Also, young people think they know everything when they're young.

It's the very rarest of couples that can get together at 18 and stay together in a healthy partnership long term. For one thing people grow and change A LOT in their teens and twenties and it's easy for people to grow apart. For another different people mature and develop at different rates. Maybe partner A is as mature as a 25 year old at 18. Maybe partner B is still like an 18 year old at 25, by then they're effectively at least 14 years apart. I don't think most people are mature enough to stay in long term relationships until at least their late 20's or early 30's.

But anyway, all we can do is try to be the most mature and open versions of ourselves that we can be. You need to be a healthy part of a give and take without giving or taking too much from a partner. That's hard and takes work and communication and honesty.

Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it isn't out there. And it definitely doesn't mean you should sell yourself short. I don't even think there is one good model of a healthy relationship. I think you just do your best to get your needs met while trying to meet the needs of others.

You in particular need to not lose sight of your own needs. I doubt you even need to put much thought into taking care of everyone around you because you're probably already too good at it.

As far as your mother, I'm so sorry. That's a lot to overcome. It at least sounds like you already understand the dynamic that plays out in your other relationships.

Lastly, regarding intimacy. I think you have a pretty good understanding of the word, but I probably would have chosen closer for the context of friendship. The only connotation that I think you might be missing is a euphemistic connection to sexuality.

That's actually what I thought you were trying to disclaim in your small edit. I was trying to convey that it would be ok if that was the case AND that it might cause you a different type of discomfort and confusion with E. 

With everything you've said, I don't think that has anything to do with it. But it's a different and more common struggle that people often have. I just wanted to be supportive if that might be part of what you felt uncomfortable with.

That wouldn't be something that you needed to work on or try to change. But it's something that can cause people great personal discomfort and pain depending upon their culture and upbringing.

——
I'm really happy if I've helped at all. Thank you for being patient with my interpretations. I'm sorry again if any missed the mark.

[pianissimo]

Thanks for high praise! I always misspell "to crash one's couch" as "to crush one's couch". I'm inclined to get the prepositions in phrasal verbs wrong too. I think that when you learn a second language as an adult, there are natural limits to how well you acquire it. You have to make peace with this fact, otherwise, you can't enjoy the process.

When I sent my initial comment, it didn't occur to me that my story might be seen in a different light due to the cultural difference. A lot of people are able sustain these weird relationships in their own way. Perhaps this is an unrealistic idea about real life . So, when I read other people's experience, I don't pay much attention to the nature of interaction, I try to understand if the interaction makes the person telling the story happy. In my case, usual or not, I was OK with occasional visits. I liked E, and, before the incident, U.  I was OK with their occasional visit so long as we had a pleasant time. We were arranging these visits as a break from work. 

One of the reasons I refrained from clarifying the possible sexual aspect of the topic is because I kind of hoped that it was clear from the context.  Plus, it didn't seem relevant. Also, I think there is a boundary somewhere around here. Say, I had a crush on E, and I was jealous with U. I think I'm not obliged to mention it. It might change the quality of support I receive from here (because the reader doesn't know everything about the story), but that's my problem. It might be that I wanted to know how what happened would seem if these details were left out. If it were me, I would take the story as it is and analyze it by assuming there is nothing more to it.

About how you would manage the situation: Your approach would backfire in a very dramatic way and you would end up feeling terrible for bringing the issue up in the first place. E would tell U that he should behave, U would be offended and go like "Why, what did I do, I'm just talking about my terrible childhood experience. What kind of people are you to tell me to shut up instead of listening and offering support!?". He would make a scene. You would hear a lot of his past traumas (and his stories are as sad as it gets). In the end you would wonder if you were actually not patient with U. If you were still cross and if you defended yourself, U would make you the one who reacted cruelly to somebody who shared something sad about themselves. What would E do? Would she back you up? She didn't back me up in the incident, she might not back you up either. Say, E didn't back you up and agreed with U that he should be able to talk about his past trauma (this would be their point), then E and you would fall out. E and you have mutual friends. So, there is a possibility that E would tell them how you two fell out, and you would come across as this person who doesn't feel sorry for U and wants him to shut up: "In the end, what did U do? He was just angry because of his terrible childhood. So what if he made some unpleasant comments? The insults? Come on, they weren't really insults, he was just joking. Compared to the horrible childhood U experienced, who cares about a few derogatory words? He was just angry." In the end, there would be even more drama to deal with.

Thanks again for your comments. You did help me. Right after I posted the first comment, I thought that it was too long, and nobody would have time or energy to read it fully, let alone respond to it. I thank you again for your time and support.