Stumbling blocks on the way to better friends

[Sapling]

Hi all,

To cut a long story short, about a year ago I cut ties with a cluster of people I recognized as uPD. A couple of them were at very close quarters and I also recognised some uDPD and uN traits in my sis which led me on a whole journey of unpacking family dynamics and recognizing that I attract PD types into my life because I have already been primed for this kind of supply/target dynamic.

Since then I have been trying to make new friends and nurture healthier relationships. But I have also found that some of the relationships I thought of as healthier also involved codependency and emotional immaturity. They are not PDs but there is an unhealthy dynamic where people do not meet me needs and then I overcompensate until I get tired of it and then the minute I stop overcompensating, everything falls apart. It is pretty heartbreaking. I am working on myself in therapy and in a 12-step program but I am curious if anyone else has had a rocky road to building healthier friendships, hit any stumbling blocks, or has any advice to impart?

[notrightinthehead]

I have overcompensating tendencies too. In order to compensate for this trait of mine, I have started taking clues from the behaviour of others. If, for example they take several days to respond to a text from me, I will also wait several days before replying. If they ignore my reaching out to them, I respect that as a sign that they are not interested in me and I do not bother them again. If I call and they don't call back, I respect that too as a sign that I better use my energy on people who want to spend time with me. Thing is, we can't not communicate. Even if we are NC, we communicate something - I do not wish to interact with you.
I found this a bit clinical and calculating when I started doing it. Now it has become more natural to me. It enables a more mutually satisfying connection.
Another change I have made was to watch very closely how I feel during and after an exchange with another person. I used to be so fixed on them and what they thought of me that I hardly noticed how they made me feel. If I feel drained and down after some time spent with this person, I limit my contact with them to very short connection times with very long intervals in between with the hope to eventually fade away.
Normal people do this naturally but I had to learn it. I had to reprogram my habitual people pleasing behaviour to a healthier give and take exchange.

[1footouttadefog]

I think that growing up with pds on my FOO, and then marrying into a of minefield, that I was trained to become enmeshed and jump all in on relationships.

As I got a little older I realized the error of this and it has been a journey to mitigate the damage it can have on forming and maintaining friendships.

On the bright side this exact weakness of mine now serves as a filter and red flag for me when I meet folks.  It I feel the old desire to jump all in if I feel that level of facsination with someone, I now regard it as a time to step back and observe and proceed with caution.

I think my advise would be to compartmentalize friendships to a degree. Don't expect anyone friendship to be all/everything.  Don't over share.  Don't over engage. 

I think that often being a non to pds leaves us starved for intimacy and we seek to drink deeply of any and all relationships when coming Out of the FOG, but this is not the norm and we have to retrain to normal being that many of us were trained to enmesh which is not normal and is out of the comfort zone for most people.

compartmentalizing, to this end I now have different friendships that serve different needs.  I have one friend who I can talk about pd stuff, and the crap I have lived with and had done to me.  She is from the same place and we reciprocate in this regard.  I have other friendships that are more about our spiritual walk and such.  Others are for discussing politics and current events over a glass of wine.

I have friends wherin we engage about hobbies  or working on projects. 

I still have a big whole not being filled in terms of a life partner, but I am better at not over doing friendships and more importantly not engaging with harmful folks due to the tendency. 

There is a wonderful podcast called Crappy Friends.  I listen to it while washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen in the weekends.  They two women who host it are wonderfully light and funny while discussing alot of important friendship topics.  I find it validating to have many things I have concluded on my own confirmed.  It also serves as a reminder of types of things to avoid and who to cut my losses with and things like that.

[LemonLime]

Oh wow, what a great thread!  I am the overcompensater.  I've done it with romantic relationships and friendships all my life.

NotRightInTheHead, that's brilliant advice.  I too have been taking the cues of others lately to guide me in my investment in them.   I have a friend who always takes days or even a week or more to text me back, even when I'm asking a sort of essential question that I need an answer to.  So I'm doing the same to her.  Often now plans with her fall through because one of us doesn't respond in time to make the event happen.  Oh well.  She doesn't seem to care, and I'm learning not to care either.  I'm learning to be less attached to the results.  I'll put a text out to her, and not expect much in reply.   I do wonder if someday I will decide she's not worth the effort and our friendship will end.   But for now, I'm letting her drive it and I'm practicing with her....she's helping me play around with the idea of following instead of driving.

Just last night hubby told me he ran into an old acquaintance of mine, who told him she "wants to get together with LemonLime for coffee".   Hubby reminded me she is a disorganized person, so I might want to text her to invite her instead of waiting for her to locate my contact information, etc.  Because truth is, she is quite disorganized and probably would never get it together to text me.   So I told hubby I would do no such thing, and that I'm letting the rope drop on many of my friendships, to see if they have any steam of their own.   Not my good friends of course, but the many sort-of friends who never seem to do the work of reaching out.   I'm done with reaching out to them.  They are adults and if the don't have the time, or the executive function to text someone to make a coffee date, forget it.  My time is too valuable.   I'm not angry, just resolute.   Life is too short.  I've sold myself short for far too long.
Time to clean house and allow room for people as motivated as I am around friendships.  My friends are lucky to have me.  I'm loyal and I take the time and energy to meet with them and listen to them and try to contribute to their lives.  I'm generous with my time and spirit, and I deserve friends that do the same. 
So do you, Sapling.  So glad you are making room in your life for quality.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Well, Sapling, I hope you have as good luck as I have over the years in 12 step.    I have a handful of friends with good long-term recovery who have histories much like mine and have done a lot of healing around their codependence, or controlling, or enmeshing, or no boundaries, ... or whatever they learned from their FOO's.  We support each other on the path with respect, honesty, openness, integrity, and heart.  Such a blessing!  Of course, you have to be discerning bc not everyone in 12 step is trustworthy.

NotRight, I've always done what you're talking about except taking it to the other extreme.  when someone didn't return my call or message I'd figure they were one more person who found out I wasn't worth having a relationship with and I'd never reach out again.  So I had to modify that and give them at least a 2nd chance. (For their sake and mine!)  Maybe they did respond but somehow I didn't get it and now they think I'm ghosting them.   But if they still don't show interest, I'm gone.   My preference is always to disappear over chasing.

[pianissimo]

That has been my struggle too. I realised some people are just emotionally unavailable. But, it was a huge relief to realise that the problems I had been having before were not just because of my unhealthy approach. Even if you watch out, most of the time, people don't know what they are doing. In my case, there was a friend who liked me a lot, but I knew that was because she couldn't see me as who I really am. To her, I seemed agreable or, perhaps, at times, naive and in need of protection. There was this time we had an argument. I think this changed her perception about me. In the past, I would blame myself, go back to her and apologize, and pretend I am who she thinks I am. This time though, I felt seen, and, it felt right to me that she saw something real about me, even though that meant she might distance herself from me. In other cases, there were friends with whom I occasionally got together. Again, in the past, I would try to be content with these kinds of friendships and would assume it was something about me that made me feel disconnected and empty when I was around my friends. But now, I can see that I feel this way when the nature of the friendship doesn't match the actions. So, now I confront people when this happens, even if what I demand seems insignificant, like being kept in the loop about what is going on. I'm more aware of my need for communication and emotion in friendships which helps me demand them from people who declare their friendships to me. In the past conflicts in relationships scared me (angry people triggered me, a codependent trait), but now I find people who show anger more authentic (this is quite an improvement for me).  So, at this point, I lost some friends, but, I think, my relationships with them are still cordial, and the distance I have with them feels right to me. I don't feel like I'm being taken advantage of or I'm taking advantage of anybody . It just feels fair. I don't mean to say that the situation makes me happy, but I feel at peace with the outcome. I also hope that these relationships still have a chance to become healthy friendships in the future.

[Coyote23]

I think that growing up with pds on my FOO, and then marrying into a of minefield, that I was trained to become enmeshed and jump all in on relationships.

As I got a little older I realized the error of this and it has been a journey to mitigate the damage it can have on forming and maintaining friendships.

On the bright side this exact weakness of mine now serves as a filter and red flag for me when I meet folks.  It I feel the old desire to jump all in if I feel that level of facsination with someone, I now regard it as a time to step back and observe and proceed with caution.

I think my advise would be to compartmentalize friendships to a degree. Don't expect anyone friendship to be all/everything.  Don't over share.  Don't over engage. 

I think that often being a non to pds leaves us starved for intimacy and we seek to drink deeply of any and all relationships when coming Out of the FOG, but this is not the norm and we have to retrain to normal being that many of us were trained to enmesh which is not normal and is out of the comfort zone for most people.

compartmentalizing, to this end I now have different friendships that serve different needs.  I have one friend who I can talk about pd stuff, and the crap I have lived with and had done to me.  She is from the same place and we reciprocate in this regard.  I have other friendships that are more about our spiritual walk and such.  Others are for discussing politics and current events over a glass of wine.

I have friends wherin we engage about hobbies  or working on projects. 

I still have a big whole not being filled in terms of a life partner, but I am better at not over doing friendships and more importantly not engaging with harmful folks due to the tendency. 

There is a wonderful podcast called Crappy Friends.  I listen to it while washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen in the weekends.  They two women who host it are wonderfully light and funny while discussing alot of important friendship topics.  I find it validating to have many things I have concluded on my own confirmed.  It also serves as a reminder of types of things to avoid and who to cut my losses with and things like that.

Wow, this was so insightful and helpful to me. I really relate to drinking deeply from relationships, and realizing that normal people don't necessarily do that with friends. I'm retraining myself to meet my own emotional needs when appropriate.

[Sapling]

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies. This really helps.

notrightinthehead, I'm definitely trying to take cues from other people's behaviour but sometimes its difficult to reconcile that with having my own personal standards of how I treat people. Eg. I don't take 5 days to reply to someone's text. I try to be punctual and not keep people waiting etc. But I see what you mean. It is a balance I need to strike.

1footouttadefog I think you've nailed how I'm feeling when you said: "I think that often being a non to pds leaves us starved for intimacy and we seek to drink deeply of any and all relationships when coming Out of the FOG, but this is not the norm and we have to retrain to normal being that many of us were trained to enmesh which is not normal and is out of the comfort zone for most people." I crave real connection and I want to drink deeply of relationships but I'm coming to realise that not everyone is capable of the level of intimacy I desire.

LemonLime, I'm taking a leaf out of your book and dropping the rope on a friendship that has recently broken down. Tbh I'm doing a LOT of the emotional and social labour in the relationship and the other person just isn't getting it. They are insisting on this dynamic and I can't keep going. I need friends who can meet me half way.

Lookin 2 B Free, I am 3 months into my 12-step and I hear what you're saying about being discerning. There are PDs in 12-step programs too and not everyone is trustworthy but I am taking it slowly and learning to share slowly and connect with people I think I can trust. I'm gld to hear you had a positive experience of 12-steps and have long term friendships that have come out of it. That is encouraging to hear.

pianissimo, I also found it "a huge relief to realise that the problems I had been having before were not just because of my unhealthy approach" and that "Even if you watch out, most of the time, people don't know what they are doing." It's painful but at least I am not blaming myself for other people's stuff anymore. Also, its good to hear that you now view people who express anger as more authentic. I have had issues in the past where I have expressed legitimate anger about something and been cut off or vilified so its good to hear that people can reflect on that and come to see it differently. I too hope that some of the friendships I have distanced myself from temporarily may still have a chance to evolve into healthier dynamics with time.

Coyote23, I'm right there with you, also "retraining myself to meet my own emotional needs when appropriate." It's not easy but I hope with time it will pay off.