So....I have had a struggle of sorts over the last year or so. The struggle has been when to know to let go of a longtime friendship. When you have been close friends with someone since childhood, when do you let go? For me, that is a question that I am having problems figuring out.
Let me back track....Susie and I met in middle school and were close friends. Then, she started hanging out with a different group of friends when we started high school and we drifted apart. Slowly, we rebuilt our friendship and it was going strong. In college, we were both super busy with school and jobs and lived in two different towns. But, we would make time for a call to check in and it felt like we had been talking the entire month instead of every few weeks. We would visit and were each other's maid of honor at each of our weddings. Everything was going good until Susie got pregnant unexpectedly with her first child. I noticed something was up whenever I got back from CO and Susie and her husband came over to drop off our key since they had been the pet sitters for us. They quickly dropped of the key and left - not the usual chatting and seeing how the trip was...odd...very odd. I just passed it off that they were tired. No biggie. A few nights later, we had invited them over to dinner at my parents house with some good family friends. There, in the middle of dinner, Susie's husband announced they were pregnant. I was speechless with hurt. I quickly ate my food and left the table and went upstairs. I was so incredibly hurt....deeply hurt....not because she was pregnant but because she didn't tell me first...I was merely one part of the crowd...well, she took it that I was upset that she was pregnant and I wasn't. See, at this time, C&I were trying to get pregnant. It ended up take us over a year and seeing a fertility specialist in order to get pregnant. Now, keep in mind that I work at a school with pregnant teenagers....I was surrounded by people who were pregnant and really didn't want to be. That was tough, but Susie being pregnant wasn't hurtful for me. She was the ONE person in the world that I could honestly rejoice for her in this blessing. But, no. She didn't trust that I would be happy for her and that hurt. She didn't want to tell me by myself I guess out of fear of what I would do. And it was that lack of trust in me that hurt me so deeply....but I brushed it aside and got on with being there for her during a very difficult pregnancy. As time went on, we would see each other occasionally but our friendship was never the same. It got to the point that when she went to the hospital for emergency surgery, I found out from one of her co-workers. She said that she didn't want me to be worried when there was nothing that they knew and then she had the emergency surgery and there wasn't time to call. Again, hurt. Around this time, I noticed that whenever I would call Susie, she would be too busy to take me call. If I really wanted to talk to her, I would have to wait for her to call me and the conversations were usually one sided on her part - no questions about me or my life. So, I stopped calling since I felt like I was interrupting her life. She would call me every so often when she was driving to school since that was the one time she was by herself. I understood and wasn't hurt by it, just adapting to it. When I left for maternity leave with my second child, things stopped. No visit at the hospital. No visit to see me or the baby until three weeks after the baby was born. No phone calls. When I returned to school, no more morning phone calls. I just figured she was super busy. Since it had been about 5 months since we had talked, I didn't feel it was right to invite her and her family to my son's bday party. I felt like asking them to spend money on a present when we haven't had any communication was wrong. Then, came my birthday. No usual happy bday phone call. Then came Susie's bday. I sent her a text (we were out of town) to tell her happy birthday and her response was "Thanks". Hmmmm..... So, I festered with hurt and anger and sadness until, one day, I had enough of carrying all of this within me. So, earlier this year, I sent her an email and let it all out. Her response was that she felt like she was the only one doing the calling and I explained my side. So, every so often, I'd send her an email. She never sent one to me without it being a response to an email I had sent. When we were heading out for a trip, I sent her an email asking about information about the area we were going to since that is where she had gone to college...no response. I sent an email to her last week just checking in....no response. We invited her and her family to to parties we are hosting at our house, both of which have been "declined".
Ok, so I get it. I am no longer wanted in her life. While I wished she felt like she could talk to me honestly and openly, she doesn't. I just get the silent treatment. I do not know what I have done to so wrong her nor am I given the opportunity to apologize. I have prayed about this and have talked to various other people and know that I will be ok. But how do I convince that middle school girl inside of me to let go? How do I comfort her tears and tell her it will be ok?
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