How Do I Maintain Our Friendship Despite All This Frustration?
Q
How do I navigate a friendship where their mental illness has consequences that make the friendship difficult? We’ve been friends for years, but she often drops out of touch for multiple days at a time or responds too late to time-sensitive texts, she frequently cancels last minute. I want to be sensitive and be there for her, but sometimes it’s very frustrating. She gets very defensive when I bring these things up, like says she is trying her hardest, and I’m sure that’s true, but I sometimes feel taken for granted. Recently she canceled last minute for a ticketed concert! She paid me back for the ticket but I literally had to go alone. Am I being unreasonable?
A:
Summer: Being supportive to someone who needs it while managing your own well-being is a tightrope walk. Historically, I drift out of people’s lives if they’re remarkably unreliable or I deem the effort of assisting to be too much. That’s not the right approach for every situation. You have to do my favourite thing: cost-benefit analysis. Weigh up the costs of continuously accommodating her against the benefits to your shared well-being. Are you the only reliable person in her life and would knocking that pillar out be devastating to her? Are there alternate activities you can try together that aren’t so… logistically stressful? Are you positioned to nudge her toward other support structures like hobbies, exercise, friendship circles that can take a load off you? Cost-benefit analysis.
Valerie: Over the course of my life I’ve found I’ve sometimes needed to…recategorize friendships. When I realized things were one-sided or someone was unreliable, I had to shift my perception of our relationship. So, for example, if your friend were my friend, and what you described was happening, I’d think, “Okay, so I’m taking this friend off my mental ‘concerts’ and ‘spontaneous hangs’ list.” Because they’re not reliable for that, for whatever reason. I don’t TELL them that, of course, but I just adjust the way I think about that friendship; if she tries to initiate a ticketed or timed event, I politely decline, and I don’t invite her to them either. Instead, I only do low-effort hangs. Let’s get dinner, want to come over and watch a movie, hey when is a time that works for you to grab a coffee. Things that wouldn’t throw off my whole day/night/weekend if she bailed. I would reschedule if she cancels at the last minute, and just try again next time. This is going to sound shittier than I mean it, but you have to change your expectations for that friend. Not LOWER necessarily, just change. You’ve tried talking to her about it, but it doesn’t seem to be something she’s able to change right now in a noticeable way, and that’s okay, but that’s going to have consequences. The types of plans you make, and the frequency of those plans, are going to change. You can mourn it, if you have to; I have. Sliding someone’s friendship from “serious, close friendship” to “casual, fairweather friendship” is hard, and sad, but sometimes necessary for your own sanity. You shouldn’t have to go to concerts alone if you don’t want to.
Nico: Sometimes, someone going through it in a mental health way just can’t keep up with appointments and obligations, even fun ones. You know this, of course, but it’s worth saying. Much like Valerie said, in this kind of situation, I’ve just had to reframe the friendship and change my behaviors and expectations in ways that are more protective of my own time. There’s always a chance that your friend will go through periods where she’s more able to commit to plans, as mental health can ebb and flow like that, but for the time being — if something means a lot to you and is commitment-heavy, it will be good to look to other friends to join you.
Like Summer, I’m wondering what her other supports look like. Could you try arranging group hangs, and then inviting her? If she can make it, then she’ll be fostering more connections, and if she doesn’t, then, well, you’ll still have people you’re hanging out with, anyway — and your plans won’t be ruined. You aren’t being unreasonable for learning from the data that’s right in front of you. It’s not productive for anyone to set yourself up for disappointment and to have your friend in a position that makes her feel pressured.
I Can’t Stop Thinking About The Person I Met When We Were Poly
Q
My partner and I of 5 years have had an on and off situation with polyamory. We recently opened up the relationship properly with a lot of trepidation. I started seeing someone new and really fell for them and started seeing many things in them that I hadn’t been seeing with my partner. However the anxiety and jealousy for me watching my partner date other people was too much and we closed the relationship and are back to monogamy, I broke up with the person I was seeing. I’m not able to forget them and keep wondering what if I had dated them instead of staying with my long-term partner. Any advice?
A:
Summer: The things we see in others that are appealing are often indicative of something missing in our own lives. If your relationship is closed and your third party lover is elsewhere, all you have left are memories and dreams of them. Both of those facets are prone to embellishment. ‘What ifs’ aren’t meritless, but they pale next to ‘what is’. What you have is your current partner and I think it’s important to tackle what you feel this relationship lacks than the potential of someone else. Whether you stay with your current partner or not, you’ll still need to face them in all of their imperfection and goodness.
Nico: I’m sorry things didn’t work out — polyamory is really hard. If you had dated this person instead of your long-term partner, then you would be missing everything you love about your current partner. It’s hard to cope with the feeling of missing out, but you yourself know that you weren’t able to manage the anxiety and jealousy of polyamory,and I’m presuming this other partner was polyamorous, right? So, it stands to reason that if you dated this other person, you would face the same issues. If it’s working for you to be monogamous with the person you’ve already built a relationship with, then I think it’s, like Summer said, important to focus on what you can build with that person.
Riese: Our early impressions of a potential partner while inside of or recently having ended a different relationship with a different partner do tend to be focused entirely on the things the new person has that the old person lacks. And of course some people are better fits for each other than others, that’s kind of how romantic love and relationships work, but if you’ve spent a few years with someone who’s lack of ambition frustrated you, for example, of course a new person’s stunning ambition will be the first thing you notice and appreciate about them. But you might overlook their inability to show up for you when you’re sad — you might not even know yet that they are bad at that! Also obviously New Relationship Energy will come into play with someone new — the thrill and delight of a new person, the tunnel vision about only their greatest qualities. Ultimately it’s not so much about any individual’s qualities as it is about how their behaviors and personalities and lifestyles complement (or don’t) your own.
I think for many people this is why polyamory is appealing — you’re not asking one person to do or be everything you need. But some people, including (it sounds like!) you, just aren’t polyamorous, which means having to decide on a person who inevitably cannot possess all the qualities you desire in a partner. But sit with the things you feel like you’re missing in your current relationship, the things that make this other person more appealing — are they dealbreakers? Stuff you can bring up? Stuff you should work on?
Ultimately, you’re not obligated to be in any relationship you don’t want to be in, including the one you’re in now — if it ends up not working out, maybe the option will still be open for you to try things with this new person, or maybe it won’t and there will be another new person who possesses qualities your current person lacks.
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Valerie’s answer to the first Q reminds me of when my friend and roommate started law school – she would say she wanted to do things in the future but then when it was time to do them would realize she didn’t have the capacity. I basically decided to stop making one-on-one plans with her so that if/when she bailed I wouldn’t feel like my plans were ruined, which worked pretty well for me.
I’m taking in the advice you all gave for LW1 and applying it to my own friendship struggles. I’ve “downgraded” friendships when proximity was the major factor but never considered framing it like that for other friends, for some of the same reasons as LW1 (minus the MH). 👏