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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Difficulty Getting Over Loss

I've had a hard time getting over losses my whole life. Every time I lost a pet when I was a child, I was inconsolable for weeks. When I became a teenager and started dating, each breakup was harder than the last. I've lost several "best friends", and I experience a never-ending cascade of hurt and guilt.

I think I must be a hard person to be friends with. I've lost every single best friend I've ever had, save for my high school best friend, who never really knew me anyway. The only one that still hurts to think about, "broke up" with me two and a half years ago. We were so much alike in so many ways. She is an abuse survivor like me, so she has plenty of her own issues. I'll call her D. She left when I had been married for 3 months.

What hurts the most is that I came to depend on her. She has experienced so much of what I've experienced. When my husband and I were first married, he was unemployed. Laid off. We started our marriage with him out of a job, and having a hard time finding a job as well. D. and her husband started their marriage with him unemployed. I struggled with my husband's unemployment and how to help him, and there were times I ached to call D. and ask her how she got through it all. I'm struggling now with my abuse issues, and I'm sad that she could give me advice, but I can't reach out to her.

What happened? Everything exploded in October of 2010. She had been staying at my house when her husband and her got into a huge fight over the phone. She went home later that day. She called me the next day, hysterical. Apparently, she'd been sleeping with her husband's best friend and her husband found out. He was leaving her. She was on the verge of a breakdown, and her father was on his way to take her to the hospital. I was blown away that she had cheated on her husband, she had never confided that in me. She ended the conversation abruptly.

I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks. I called, and called, and called. I left many messages. Coincidently, I got a new cell phone in this time period, and a new phone number. I called her on my new phone and she answered the phone. I was floored. As soon as she heard that it was me on the phone, she became cold. I asked her how she was, and she paused. She proceeded to tell me that she couldn't be my friend anymore. That I was a bad influence. That if she wanted to make things work with her husband, she had to get rid of every thing from her past.

My heart broke. It hurt me to hear these words. In a small voice, I told her "Ok". I said goodbye and I hung up the phone. I stared at the phone in my hand for a minute, and then I deleted her phone number out of my phone. I never called her again. I never spoke to her again.

I still hurt over this today. I'm so hurt that she said I was a bad influence. I hurt that I can't get her advice anymore. How was it so easy for her to walk away and act like I never existed? Did I mean so little to her that I was that easy for her to cut out of her life? I feel I never even knew her, there were secrets she kept from me. Like her affair. I told her everything, I never kept a secret from her. I told her things I've never told anyone else. It's been almost 3 years since she's been gone, and I still think about it. I Google her sometimes on the Internet, and I am enraged and full of hate if I run across anything about her. Anything that shows how easy it was for her to move on with her life.

Often, I was wish I could go all "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and forget about her. All the hurt, the rage, the loneliness. Unfortunately, my mind thinks the lesson I've learned is not to let anyone else in. They are going to leave anyway, they always do. So don't let them in. I haven't let another woman into my life since she left. I don't think I ever will either.

I will add that there is more to this story than what I've said, but that's a tale for another day.

2 comments:

  1. It's such a shame that she behaved so carelessly towards you and your trust, I hope you can bring yourself to trust again x

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    1. Thank you Alice. I've often wondered how people are able to act so hurtful, and be ok with it. I can't bring myself to hurt anyone's feelings. I know how much it hurts to be treated like that, and I don't want to be the cause of anyone feeling like that. Others don't seem to feel the same.

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