Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Larie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist's Advice column for the Atlantic.
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED. And this is Deo Therapists.
Each week we invite you into a session so you can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help other people come to understand themselves better and make changes in their lives.
So sit back and welcome to today's session.
This week, our fellow traveler Wonders had a menda relationship after a childhood friend severs ties.
I don't know what kind of value I would get out of a friendship with her right now, because it feels like I haven't gotten any value from that friendship for a while.
First, a quick note, therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and it's not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and clarity and the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed for the privacy of our fellow travelers. Hi Guy, Hi Laurie. What do we have in our mailbooks today?
Well, today we have a letter about a broken friendship and goes like this, Dear therapists. I had a childhood friend, Liza, who suddenly cut ties with me and two other longtime friends almost a year ago. After she traveled to visit our city for a weekend together. We had a mild disagreement in a group text. It escalated unpredictably. The other three of us did not understand how or why. Then she stopped responding and she severed our social media connections.
None of us independently reached out to her. Maybe some friendships should end. My father died soon thereafter, and months after his death, I got a condolence card from her that said she knew he and I weren't close, but she still was sorry for my loss. I don't know if she hesitated to send it or it took time before she found out he died. Months have passed and I haven't responded. Maybe I should let it lie, as
I have, but I keep thinking about it. I get angry because if she actually cared, she could have asked about his worsening health the weekend of her visit, but she did not, even as I was late letting her into my home because I was visiting him at the hospital. She clearly has my address, my email, my phone number. The card feels like a way to bandage herself image rather than a way to give me comfort. At the same time, what a year last year was on everyone?
If I read her card at face value, perhaps it's just a good will gesture, certainly no effort for repair, but respect for the years we did spend as friends. What do I tell myself to let this go? Do I send a simple, efficient thank you so that I close this out, Wendy.
That's a really complicated, painful sitution situation. The thing about childhood friends is that either you grow in a similar direction together in life, or you grow apart in some way. Now, there are plenty of childhood friends who grow apart but can still maintain their friendship. They just have to reformulate it a little bit so it matches who they are as adults. We change a lot in our lives and you often have to reformulate what that friendship is about.
And when they're four friends, one of them might not fit anymore. Yeah.
I think people don't realize sometimes how intense friendships can be, especially when it's a childhood friend and that person has known you your entire life. So let's go talk to Wendy and find out what happened and what her ambivalence is about.
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I'm Laurie Gottlieb.
And I'm Guy Wench and this is Deo Therapists. So Hi Wendy, Hi there, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Sure.
So, we read your letter and this sounds like a complicated friend situation, and we wanted to understand a little bit more about the history of your friendship with Liza.
So e, Liza and I have been had been friends for probably eighteen years. One of those situations where we grew up in the same small Midwestern town, which means under twenty five hundred people in the Midwest, so we've known each other our whole lives, been to each other's weddings,
all that kind of thing. She ended up moving to a smaller town as we got older, and I've moved to the Twin Cities, which is a little bit more urban, and then I don't know, I think our lives kind of went different directions and we are where we are now, which is not talking.
To each other. How do the two other friends figure in?
So we were all childhood friends.
From that one small town. Yes, yeah, oh well.
Yeah, in a small town, everyone knows each other. So one of our friends came in fourth grade, she moved to our town, and that's when we became friends with her, and then the other three of us were basically born and raised in our small town, and so we've kept in touch. The one who moved in actually left town a few years later, but she's maintained a friendship with us throughout the years. And now we're in our late
twenties and all of us were still pretty close. The three of us ended up all in the Twin Cities. One actually lives with me now is my housemate. Two of us are partnered. One of us is not. None of us have kids.
Can you tell us about the nature of your friendship with life, you know, tell us a little bit more about what that friendship has been like up to the point of the rupture.
Obviously, we grew up together, We went to the same college for a little while I was in her wedding, I had a very small we called a gorilla wedding. We just eloped with seven of our closest friends and she was at that So we maintained a pretty good connection in a lot of ways, at least on the surface as far as it goes. We were always better at reaching out to Eliza to communicate than she was to us, and it felt that way most of the time.
That we had to initiate conversations, and of course that when you live in different states and different towns, that's a pretty important part of the friendship. I would contact her and ask her how she was doing, and organize events if we were going to get together.
You said, you've been friends for eighteen years and you're in your late twenties. Do you remember when you were going through school together or what that friendship was like in terms of did you guys argue? Was it a smooth friendship. Did you confight in each other? Did you feel like she had your back? And did she feel like you had her back?
It was a close friendship. We were very smooth friends. Before fourth grade, she was more in a different group of friends, so I knew her before that, but she became one of my close friends, and we really didn't argue, didn't fight. She was very just very easy going and was not argumentative, and I think she really tried to avoid conflict all the time.
When you were friends. Did she also not take initiative? Were you also the one who had to say, hey, let's get together, Hey let's do this? Or what? Did she take more initiative? Was she real proactive?
No? I think that she didn't really take a lot of initiative throughout the course of our lives. She was always willing to go along with things and a happy participant, but and initiate ideas. I think this has been a long time coming in terms of not engaging a lot. And this is hard because, of course, it's not just when we've been friends. For this line, it doesn't feel like the relationship is just me and her, it's me
and her and our other mutual friends. Because we've been a group of friends for so long, so for a number of years since they graduated college. If I reached out, she would respond to me and ask questions and engage in a conversation. If our other friend reached out, she would often just ignore the text. But if we got together.
She wasn't as close with the other two.
It always seemed like she was closer to the person who she ignored than to me. But I think that I'm the more persistent one, so she would respond to me because I would call her out on it if she didn't.
Usually in a friend group, there are people who are closer than other people in the group, So how would you characterize those relationships within the group? Who was closest with whom?
So me and my housemate have definitely always been the closest. Beyond that, it always felt like Liza was a little bit closer with my housemate than to me. They both attended the same college until they graduated. They engaged in the same sports activities, so they have those types of bonding experiences. So it felt like Liza was closer to her, but she would be more communicative with me.
She was close. It felt like she was closer to her just because they saw each other more or because they actually had more emotional intimacy.
That's a good question. Maybe I did have more emotional intimacy with her, and then they had more time together.
I want to know what do you like about Liza? So the friendship persisted for a long time, you made a lot of effort to stay in touch with her. Tell me what you like about her.
I like sharing laughter with her. I like sharing old jokes. The comfort of really long friendship is really nice and special, and I think there is an intimacy that you develop over time that's certainly hard to achieve quickly.
But again, my question is what do you like about her? What qualities do you like?
And I don't know what answer I have to that anymore.
You must have enjoyed something about her, because there are lots of people you can talk about your childhood with, but you chose her. So what qualities did you like about her before this happened?
I liked her goofyinus and your sense of humor. I liked her her comebacks. She makes the most amazing facial expressions that they're all just comical, and she has no idea. She's making them, and they're always ridiculous and it just fills your heart with joy.
Did you think she was kind? Did you think that she had your back? Did you think she cared about you?
Yeah? I did think that she cared about us, and I thought she was loyal and trustworthy and would be there for me when I needed her.
I would like to hear about the rupture, about what happened.
So she came to visit our city and she stayed with me at our house, which we just got last year, so it was her first time seeing the place, hanging out with us here, and she was in town for work,
so she came and stayed through the weekend. And as she was driving home that weekend, she texted something that was like a fat joke, and I responded that I didn't like those kind of jokes, and she told me to calm down, which is, in my personal experience, the best way to make me not calm down, because I felt like I was already calm, as you always do when you get told that, and then things just blew up.
She said that we had different senses of humors and different values, and that she didn't feel like she could say anything to us and not to contact her again.
Were you surprised by the intensity of her reaction asking you never to contact her again?
Yes, yes, we were all surprised.
You are the two friends they were bystanders in this or did they actually participate in that conversation?
It was in a group chat between the four of us, and one of them participated a little bit and said she didn't understand the reaction, and the other person remained silent.
Was the housemate the person who participated a little bit or who remained silent.
The housemate was the one who participated.
So was that zero to sixty and two seconds? So whether a couple of stages of build up in between, in between I don't like those kinds of jokes and the never duck on my doorstep again? Was there a couple of steps?
It was pretty rapid.
It was.
I thought I was trying to politely say I don't like those kinds of jokes, and I'm sure there's two sides to how that can be interpreted, but it went from me saying that to I want nothing to do with you within minutes.
Is there some history around body image with Liza that you're aware of that made her have that reaction in that way.
So throughout the weekend when we were together, she made some comments about and her body, and I didn't say anything.
What kinds of comments, like she'd be eating a piece of candy and then say something self denigrating, and I didn't know how to respond and didn't like hearing her talk about herself that way.
So she'd say something like, Oh, I shouldn't be eating this because I'm so fat.
Yeah, things like that. And she's always liked to snack, and she's had two kids, and she's had body issues because she was in the military, and so she had to maintain a certain standard and struggled with that at times. So I know that that has been a thing for her. Amongst our group, I feel like none of us ever talk about our bodies and negative ways to each other.
Can we get a little more detail on what happened between Hey, I don't like those kinds of jokes and calmed down and then never talk to me again.
I don't think there really was much more than that. There was just a rapid evolution to we don't think the same way, we don't have the same humor or values or body issues. And she didn't feel safe talking to us about things because she didn't want to be in arguments.
So I mean it sounded that she had been holding a lot in and that accumulating a lot of a grievances feelings. Had she voiced any of those concerns previously?
No, No, we just had two and a half days together with no arguments.
Have you guys ever had an argument?
Yes?
Yeah, tell us about that?
Oh, oh gosh. Well, the last argument I can think of is me asking how her relationship was with her husband, and her turning around and asking me how mine was. We're so far away from her. I guess I was trying to check in to see if they were okay.
Did you have reason to believe that things were not okay based off.
Of them not having pictures together on social media when she used to do that kind of thing and have pictures of them together on social media, and then not talking about him much in conversations with us, just being hush about it.
Did you just say how are things going with your husband? She didn't answer and said, how are things going with your husband? Where's the argument? Help us flush that out a little bit?
I think that I asked, and then she was insulted that I asked how things were going.
I'm sorry, and just be clear that was the argument because I'm from New York. I just want to be clear.
Uh, yes, in the Midwest. This is how we argue.
I had the same question because I want my money back.
I get it was the show.
That's the show. Yeah, that's that's the last time I could think of that. We got angry at each other before this.
Wait, how so here's our question because we because this is this is like you're putting us in in a different frame of mind about what an argument is. So you said, how are things going with your husband? And she said how are things going with yours? And then you guys didn't talk anymore. But that was the argument, and you both assumed that the other person was offended by the question.
No, it was. There was heated things between those two flagship.
Oh will help us, Okay, So that's what we'd like to know, So you can you take us through the dialogue a little bit more.
It was in text. I don't think I have the text anymore. I think the flavor was basically, none of your damn business, and who are you to ask? And what about you? How are things for you. How am I supposed to know any of that stuff?
And how did you respond to that? One example is somebody might say, you know, oh, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just want to hear what's going on with you? And other question is what's going on here? I'm really confused about why you're so upset? What was your response?
Probably some blend of those things, with a little bit of a of anger back. Things are fine here, and there's people who can see that things are fine here.
So defensiveness like, you're defending your marriage, but you're not talking about what's happening between you and Lizay neither of you is.
Have you and Isa ever talked about you and Liza? If we have, I don't know when it would have been, So that's a no.
So you defended your marriage and then what happened The texting just stopped and you picked up another time and you never spoke of it again, or you somehow repaired that what happened exactly?
She got defensive, I got defensive back. I don't remember if I tried to justify to her why I asked in the first place. I think that I probably tried to communicate that a little bit, but certainly not entirely, because I think some of why I asked was definitely are other friendships reading between the lines and not sure how she was doing, And I didn't fully tell her that.
What got lost there is I care about you.
Yeah, well, I think that what happens is and what this happens so much that you clearly asked that out of concern. But in text, we do not have tonality, and so what sounds very concerned when you're saying how's
your marriage comes across as how's your marriage? You know, can be read that way certainly, and it's one of those where you intended something one way, she read it very much differently, and she read it differently because she was already feeling some kind of tension distance and that was how long ago this won the marriage.
Argument, Probably last year sometime.
So things were brewing already. She was already feeling some kind of distance.
And some kind of judgment. You did not intend this, but I think in both comments about the marriage, she interpreted that as a judgment. And when you said I don't find those kind of jokes funny, I think she interpreted that as a judgment as well, and they both seem to touch on areas that she's sensitive about. Maybe she is sensitive about her marriage, and maybe she is sensitive as you said with the comments she made over the weekend about body.
Image, Wendy, and she might be sensitive about one other thing. You both came from this very small town with twenty five hundred people, and then she goes to an actually smaller town and you will go to the big city. And I think that that's symbolic, probably for her more than for you, in that she might have felt that you moved up and on in a way and she did not, and that you were now people of the
big city and she was not. And maybe you are mo sophisticated, maybe you know something and she was not, but she clearly felt a part.
Yeah. Yeah, it's hard because we definitely want different things in that way. She wanted to stay in a smaller town. So we've known for a long time that we were moving in different directions in that kind of a way. But the dramatic rupture was unexpected.
Guy asked the question, do you and Liza ever talk about you and Liza? What about with your housemate? Do you ever have conversations that are a little bit more intimate than the kinds of conversations you've had with Liza. Yeah, yeah, tell us about those. Can you give us some examples with the kinds of conversations you've had that have been a little bit more intimate about the two of you.
A lot of our conversations about our own relationship are when we're doing well and that we're grateful to have the friendship that we have.
So conflict resolution is not something that you've really ever done as friends, not much.
Have you ever had an argument with your husband where you had to do some repair with each other?
Yes?
Can you tell us about how those go? Give us one example of an argument where it was about the two of you, one of you did something that upset the other person.
Well, I think what we're coming to here is that I also avoid conflict and things just take time and die off because because we usually sleep on it.
Can you give us an example of something that happened where you did come back and talk about it and what that conversation was like. Because most people have arguments with their spouse rights all kinds like they sound so silly when you try to recount them. You know, it's like we had a fight over this one dish, right, those kinds of things.
So in the year twenty twenty, our favorite year ever. Right, we were not sure we were going to make it through this, and it was something that I got told to me.
You mean that your husband told you that.
Yeah, he said, I'm not sure I want us, I'm not sure I want this, And he was just at a point where he wasn't sure about anything. And that's hard because in some ways it's definitely about our relationship, but it was also about everything. When this first happened, we at our housemate, and we also had someone that we were just letting stay with us because we had a shelter and place order in our state and so they didn't want to be alone an apartment, so they
were hanging out with us. So there was four of us in this house. And so, like right away, it was about trying to find moments where he could tolerate being in the same space with me and talking about it at all. And like he didn't have anything.
Because he's he's afraid of talking about these things too. Yeah, when you say he didn't have anything to say, you mean you said, tell me what's not working for you? Were you able to say that to him?
And he said, he said that things just weren't how he imagined they were going to be.
Did you get into detail with him about what some of the specifics were that weren't working? Not much, No, not really, So you don't today still know what that was that wasn't working for him?
Nope?
And what are things with him today?
We seem good right now? Yeah, this is where the podcast takes a whole different direction.
Now, it's actually so much the same direction.
Right That's why we're asking about it.
I ended up getting called up to do some work that I was limited in how much time I could be home, and so we had a little bit of separation just via that. But I kept trying to talk to him, and he tried to be kind and responding.
How did you try to keep talking to him and how did he respond?
I tried to stay open and vulnerable and make it clear that I still wanted a relationship and he wasn't sure and kept not being sure, but also said he didn't want to hurt me, He didn't want me to suffer,
he didn't want me to feel pain. A lot of that just like texting and communication as I was working and doing other things, and then when I was able to be here just one on one time with him, asking try and ask him if he still wanted us, if I could try to, you know, keep our relationship, and that I would like to keep him.
When did did you actually ever ask him? Tell me what it is that you're not happy with? Tell me what you think we should work on? Did you ever ask him for any specifics or did you just ask do you want us?
Yeah?
I tried to ask what was wrong?
And what did he say was wrong?
I think his response was mostly that just nothing felt right. Things just weren't satisfying and weren't what he hoped things would be and hadn't been for about six months in terms of everything in.
Life, but specifically to your marriage. What was different for him? What was he missing?
I have no idea.
Did you ask?
Yeah?
Yes, and he said what.
He just said? He this wasn't what he thought it would be.
And when you said, what do you mean by that? Can you tell me more specifically what is not working for you?
He didn't have anything more to say.
So he was silent, and then you two would just kind of stare at each other.
What we were asking is how many rounds of follow up did you actually do? Because I know that with every round it's very painful the answer that you're getting, And I'm wondering if that shuts you down or you then inquire further and say, what do you mean everything? Give me one example? Okay, so how long six months? What's changed for you over six months? How much follow up inquiry do you do? Not?
Much more than what you did just now? As an example, Yeah.
Okay, was the exchange with Liza around the marriages? Before? During or after this? Before?
Yes?
Okay? When this was going on, did you confide in your housemate who was living there with you that this was going on? Or did you confide in Liza? Did you confight in anybody?
I assume that the housemate could put some things together, but she didn't say anything and was just respectful and was just a warm presence and made sure that I felt valued.
In your letter, you seeing a little torn about whether to I think you said let go of Liza. Can you tell us a little bit more about that ambivalence?
So some of it is surrendering an intimate, long friendship, although I don't know how intimate of a friendship we've been for a while really, And some of it is because I don't think there's a lot of other people in her life, so I worry about her in terms of not having people that she can be close with.
These are reasons that the loss of the friendship might affect her. But I'm wondering about how the loss of the friendship has affected you and how you imagine it might affect you in the future.
I mean, I have one last person that I can call at two am if something happens.
Have you ever called her at two am?
No?
I've been lucky to not need that.
Well, so you say you've been lucky to not need that your marriage almost imploded. That feels like a pretty big thing. And yet you didn't call her at two am or anyone, even your housemate. And then another big thing that you wrote in your letter was that your father died. Yeah, how did you reach out to people?
Then?
I talked to my partner, and I talked to my housemate or our friends in our city. I reached out to a lot of them via text to let them know what was going on, and I had some good conversations with a couple of those people.
What was the conversation with your housemaid.
My housemate did not like my dad, so that conversation was a lot about the torn feeling that comes with losing someone that you have a complicated relationship with, and I was able to have that conversation with her and with my partner.
I'm glad that you were able to really talk about that. And I think what Guy was getting at earlier is that in this conversation it might have been easier because it wasn't about you and your housemate. It was about you and your complicated feelings about losing your father when you had a difficult relationship. But I think what's hardest for anybody to talk about is what's happening between the two of us, and it's hard for you to do
that with your husband. To this day. You're not really clear about why he wanted to end your marriage, and I don't think the two of you have really come to any place of emotional intimacy around that. I don't know how solid or stable you feel in the relationship. I don't know that you've had a lot of practice doing that growing up, and certainly with even this core group of friends that you've known since elementary and high school. And I think that's the piece that's missing here.
There's one thing we know about relationships, and that is that for them to survive and thrive, and this is true of romantic relationships, but really it's true of most friendships as well, you have to be able to develop skills with conflict resolution. And conflict resolution means that you are able to talk about the conflict that you're having
and result it and figure it out. And that starts with asking each other questions so that you understand better what the other person is upset about or how they feel about things. And once you have a good understanding each of you of how the other person feels and why, then you start figuring out what you can do about it, whether it's an apology or compromise, whatever that is. And that's a skill set I just don't think that you've
developed very much. And I think it's it's costing you a little bit in moments where you could really use it, like with your husband. Certainly that was a moment and still is in which you need to use it, and certainly that was the case with Liza. And since you have long lasting friendships. It's going to be the case with anyone. Can you tell me a little bit, why is that something that you've really not practiced much.
I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, and it's unfortunate because it's a lot you know, it's a lot easier trying to win or lose arguments rather than engage in talking about the difficulties in your own relationships with them.
When you were growing up, you said you had a difficult relationship with your father. What did conflict look like in your family?
Isolating from each other mostly.
So nobody really talked about what happened. It was kind of like what you've done with your husband a little bit and what you tend to do. Yeah, you know, guys using this term conflict resolution, which I think for a lot of people sounds like something that happens in negotiations and relationships are in a way, negotiations and another way to put it though, is rupture and repair. So there's a rupture between two people in a relationship and
a friendship, and then how do you repair it. So a lot of people say, oh, we never argue, we have a great relationship, and we always say that's odd because in general, people do have disagreements if they are really emotionally intimate with each other. No two people are going to get through a real rich relationship and not have disagreements at some point or another. And so the issue isn't whether you have the ruptures. The issue is
how do you repair them? And it sounds to us like you don't have a lot of practice repairing them, And no matter what you decide to do with this relationship with Eliza, that's going to be a skill that's going to come in very handy for you. I think it would help for us to just get a little more clear on one issue, which is you kind of have made it sound like you are done with the
relationship and you're trying to let go. And I think what we're curious about is how did you come to that conclusion as opposed to feeling like there might be some value in continuing this friendship, but maybe in a way that's more nourishing for both of us.
So one of the things I keep going back to in my mind is there's this moment where she was visiting and she was really surprised. She says, she said to me that she just didn't understand. She didn't understand my partner because he's into cooking and sports. She thought that these were incompatible features, that he couldn't be someone who is into these different things. It hurt me because it seemed like she couldn't see his humanity beyond a
trope that he couldn't be more than one thing. And I have a hard time valuing someone who thinks that people can only be one thing.
See, there are so many assumptions going on here, because you think that she meant your partner's weird, right, that there's something wrong with him, Whereas it could be that there was even some envy there. You know, then maybe it didn't come out that way. Maybe it came out because of her envy. It came out as an insult,
you know, in tone. But it might be that maybe she's envious of that that well, you have a partner who you know watches football and cooks, but you just don't know because the two of you didn't talk about it. You didn't say, oh wait, what do you mean? It was just ouch, I'm hurt and I'm going to file that went away.
Yeah, it sounds like from what you're saying that Lisa hasn't added a lot of value in your life, and that the thing that's making you question whether you should let her go is your concern for her, but not that you're going to miss much of Lisa? Is that correct or? And I'm asking because this is given the reality up until now or of you not doing any
repair or conflict resolution. But if that was something that you will say had a little bit of practice in, does that open possibilities with Liza or not?
Really, I don't know what kind of value I would get out of a friendship with her right now, because it feels like I haven't gotten any value from that friendship for a while.
So I was hearing something a little bit different. I was hearing that there were things that you would miss about this friendship. And maybe it's a piece of your childhood. Maybe it's just that she's entertaining and she makes you laugh. Maybe it's that just she knows you in a way that a lot of people don't know you. And it sounds like you're trying to be very binary in how you define this friendship, like Okay, we're not going to
be friends, or we're going to be friends. But there's a lot in the we're going to be friends in terms of what that range looks like, and your idea is, well, she cut us off, so I'm just gonna cut her out too. But I can't seem to cut her out because I still think about her. And she sent me that note after my father died, And you have this fantasy that if you respond to that note, that you will have and you use the word in your letter closure,
some kind of closure to the friendship. And I'm looking at your face and I'm seeing that there's some kind of pain around that. So I'm not sure that you know yet what you want. And so that's why I really want you to try to look at this not as how do I get closure on this friendship, but how do I get more information about whether I want to not engage in this friendship anymore. I don't think you're there yet. Does that sound right?
Yeah? That does sound right, okay, Wendy. So we have two pieces of advice for you. The first is about Liza. We would like you to contact her so that you get more information about what's going on if she chooses to respond, and we think the best way for you to do that is to say to her something like Lisa,
I thank you for your card. The reason it's taken me a while to respond is because I've been thinking about our friendship, and I realized that there was a lot brewing before our fight last year, and that there was a lot that was troubling you in the friendship. And I never asked to hear what that was, or what was troubling you or why you aren't feeling good
in the friendship. I should have, And I realize I'm not good at doing that, but I want to get better at doing that, And so I'd love to have a conversation with you, if you're willing a video conversation, so we can talk a little bit about what happened and what this friendship means to us after so many years, and how you feel. I just love to hear a little bit more about what was going on for you. Our feeling is that she's probably felt judged by you
and the other two friends. You should anticipate that if she agrees to have the conversation, that those are the kinds of things she might say, in which case, really all you need to do is say, Okay, I understand, tell me a little bit more. How you felt and oh, okay, I understand, And what you're trying to do there is really just try and see if talking about things like that with her will open things up between the two of you so you can make a decision.
And really the goal of the conversation, no matter what what happens with her, is for you to get practice having these kinds of conversations. And the reason that you're going to be asking about her side of things and how she feels is because in order for you to be understood, first, you have to understand the other person. So you might have a lot of responses in your head like oh, I didn't mean that, or that was not what I said, or you have that wrong. This
is not the time to bring that up. The whole task here is to listen to what she has to say so that you understand more about this person that you have this long history with. And we also want to say that at the end of that call, it's not as though you're going to determine yes, I want to be friends with her, No, I don't want to be friends with her. There's a lot of gray in there, and you see how things evolve from there. Does it open something up for the two of you. Can you
continue to have conversations like this? Can she eventually hear a little bit about how you've been feeling. So that's just a place to start.
One thing, I know this is going to seem very scary to you to do, because these are uncomfortable conversations for somebody who has in practice. The scary part is usually what if they say this? What if they say that? What do I say? And we're taking away that part for you because all you need to say, no matter what she says, is Okay, I understand, and if you don't, you ask questions until you do. But you actually don't have to defend, explain, justify, I rationalize, You meediately just
have to listen and understand. And so there's the difficult part has been taken away a bit, so it should be a little less scary.
It's a welcoming of what she says. You don't have to agree with it factually, but it's the gratitude of thank you for sharing this with me. I'm so glad we can talk.
Like this because it's going to be hard for her to share.
She's going to need a lot of reinforcement of that You're really grateful that she feels comfortable enough to share this with you, even if she doesn't present it in the most optimal way. So that's number one, and then number two is we'd like you to do something similar with your husband. We would like you to say to him, listen, I know that things seem better between us, and I also know that you have been very careful not to
hurt me. But I've been thinking about this and the not knowing hurts me more than whatever you might have to say about how you're really feeling. And so I'd like us to be able to have a conversation where I can really understand much more specifically what was going on might still be going on, And we want to give you some buckets that might help. Because he tends to kind of vague out right, you can say, how are you feeling about the ways that we communicate with
each other? How are you feeling about the closeness between us, How are you feeling about the ways we have fun with each other? How are you feeling about things that go on with our families. How are you feeling about the way we handle our jobs and the way we handle things around the house.
How are you feeling about our roommates.
How are you feeling about things that we might do in the future, like have children, How are you feeling about our sex life, how are you feeling about yourself? How are things going with you? And so when he says something very vague in the answer to these questions, you follow up with tell me more, just those three words, tell me more. I want to understand better, or what do you mean by that? Or what specifically can you give me an example and keep reassuring him during the conversation.
This is so helpful for me. I know you don't want to hurt me, and things that you might say might be hard for me to hear, but they're not as hard as not having this conversation.
Okay, well, I mean that definitely feels like an easier proposition for the relationship that has already in some ways ended, and scarier for the one that's ongoing.
Yeah, that makes sense, But I think it's going to be really good for you either way, no matter what happened in either of these conversations. You didn't get this growing up, and you're not getting it in any of your other relationships. It sounds like or any of the ones you've mentioned.
Today you were having your turn on the headlights because you're navigating in the dark, and this will give you a light and you'll at least know what you need to navigate around. Okay, Wendy, we know this is going to be scary, but we also really know that you can do it.
Okay, thank you very much.
You know, Wendy's story just reminds me that if you learn something about yourself that you're doing in one relationship in your life, check if you're doing it in any of the others, because you probably are.
Yeah, And that's why I think this is going to be really effective for her is that it's opening up this possibility for her about how to handle rupture and repair. There are so many people out there like Wendy who grew up in houses where they did not get good models of what it means to resolve conflict, and that's what we're really trying to help her with here.
IM really curious to see how she does.
You're listening to Dear Therapist for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
So we heard from Wendy and we gave her a dual task of speaking up about the relationship and processing something with someone, maybe for the first time in her life, both with her friend and with her husband, and I think those were important conversations for her to have. Let's hear if she had them.
Lauren Guy, thank you for your time and advice. I was able to talk to e Liza on the phone. I was really surprised with how receptive she was to speak with me, and she was really willing to engage and discuss her feelings about things. It was a difficult conversation for me to initiate, but it really wasn't hard once I heard her voice again and she heard mine for us to talk and be open with each other.
I heard some things that were difficult to hear, but I felt incredibly capable, both during the conversation and afterwards to have ongoing conversations with her and for us to decide together what the nature of our friendship might be in the future. The conversation with my husband took a while to actually complete. We danced around it for a while, and ultimately I got some more specific answers, but it feels like something we'll have to repeat multiple times before
we really communicate well together. That said, I'm not afraid of any shading that conversation again, and I feel a lot less afraid of what's being left unsaid by probing a little bit more and just listening to one another.
The thing about having conversations like this for the very first time is that it really depends on who you're having them with, because it sounds like maybe Liza wasn't able earlier to be more direct about how she was feeling, but she was incredibly receptive, and that was the first thing that Wendy said. She was receptive, She wanted to have the conversation, she participated in the conversation, and they were both really willing to be open with each other.
I think the problem with the conversation with her husband is that he is not receptive, so she has no practice doing this. She has never in her life had practice having a conversation with somebody about that relationship. So she may have been vulnerable in other ways, but it wasn't about what's going on between you and me right now. That is a conversation she's never had. Liza was open
to that. Her husband, we suspected from our earlier conversation, was probably not going to be very open to that. And so I think that just by virtue of her coming to him and saying, I want to talk about this, that it will take some time, but that she's opened a door there, just a little bit that had been slammed shut between them.
I'm grateful for Lisa because Liza gave her and us the opening to say, you need to practice having these conversations because really you need to have them with your husband. That seemed much more urgent and important than with Liza. I mean, Lisa's a friend, and I think that's important, but there were issues going on with a husband that really needed to be addressed. I'm hoping she continues this dialogue with Liza. It will help her to then continue
having the dialogue with her husband. If she can practice on Liza, who's a better responder, she can then bring that perhaps to conversations with her husband and over time, get them to be more open with one another. Because clearly that was sounded like it was a bit of teeth pulling.
Yeah, and I hope that Liza not only models for her how can I have these conversations with my husband? But I also hope that Liza can be a support for her and maybe encourage her to be more open with her husband, to really give her the moral support, give her the you know the things that friends can do to kind of hold you up when you're doing something very difficult.
Well, that would really be a nice switch to rough right, because their last fight was about relationships with husbands and who's had problems. And the suspicion was that both did. My measure of whether a conversation was successful, the minimum bar really is do you feel an easing after the
conversation or do you feel crease of tension? And it sounds like in both those conversations that were somewhat of an easy so they were both successful, even the one with her husband, because she did sound like she felt a little bit better. She said she's less afraid of the unsaid things. So to me, that's an indication it was perhaps as successful as a first effort might be.
That's something I really want people listening to this to understand, is that the opening conversation is the beginning of something. It's setting the stage for something, it's planting the seeds. And I like your way guy of measuring the success of a conversation, because I think in both instances, these conversations were a success.
Next week, a young man seeks all counsel on whether to try to get his girlfriend.
Back absolutely lower and then just kills me because I know the main problem, you know, was the drinking, and you know I told her I don't have to have a drink again.
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