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“You said that he was possessive and controlling, and I assume he was like that throughout your friendship. How did his possessiveness manifest (if you care to talk about it)? Was he jealous of your other friends, your career, or other achievements in your life? You did say he recently endangered your livelihood…”
He always tried to monopolize my time/attention and highly disliked it when I spent them on somebody else. He was also always critical of my other friends.
There was a project to which I invited him, that would then support my living. There he mostly alienated people with his reckless behavior and tried to defend himself when I told him to stop. He also kept making promises of helping me with this and that but never actually did anything I asked him of, even simple tasks, then complained about me “leaving him out of the decision making” when he himself barely engaged, had no idea about what was going on, encouraged me to drop the project and even went MIA for months.
So to say, the concept of personal accountability is mostly alien to him and he’s quick to anger.“How did you feel about your friendship? Did you feel some guilt around him? I am asking because it may help you understand what made you susceptible to someone as possessive and as it turns out, toxic, as him.”
Perhaps I did to a degree as he often complained that I wasn’t giving him enough of myself even though he was trying his hardest to be the best friend. What I felt though is that I had to erect barriers to fend off his possessive behavior. Yet I still cared a lot about his wellbeing and such.
“I hope that we managed to pinpoint the main problem, and that things are a bit clearer now.”
It’s been very insightful so far and I appreciate everybody’s help. For now I have no choice but to wait and see. I’ll update the thread when there’s a new development.
“Your former friend sounds quite manipulative and toxic. How come he was your friend for such a long time?”
I assume because he was never able to exercise such influence over me even though he was quite possessive and such in the past, or perhaps this kind of behavior was new to him, only happening after I cut him off and he got very upset at me.
I wonder if there’s anything I could do right now. Just let it be and see if she contacts me in the future? Try to actively but subtly engage with her perhaps through e-mails? I feel like any little misstep could just make her gain even more distance or become even more angry. She’s been disregarding all my observations, feedback and counsel during this conflict after all.
One more things, when I attempted to talk to him and told him our story, he constantly said that the story she told him is quite different, that I’m lying and making things up, that he trusts her and not me. Here I couldn’t help but to wonder what she’s been telling him and she’s an accomplice in all of this. Previously she pretended to like something she loathed just because he shared it with her.
“But then your former friend “turned around” (unlike her brother) and probably started flattering her and praising her”
That’s pretty much the case. She said she’s finally cutting contact with him for good as it only harms her but in the end instead engaged with him further. As things between me and him took a nosedive (I cut him off), it seems he decided to be nice to her and “apologize”, even though this apology just shifted all the blame onto me, that I was the root of all the issues and responsible for his vile behavior.
She had a critical judgement failure and decided to share our relationship issues and her own troubles with him, and she said that he’s been “very kind and supportive”. Even before things between me and her took a nosedive, my former friend told me to “stay away from her” and that I’m “harmful to her”, even though she never expressed anything of the sort and we still engaged in more or less normal conversations, and there was affection. Yet when I confronted her about those nasty things he said, she replied with “I can’t blame him”.It’s hard to imagine whant kind of mental gymnastics were at work there.
“she saw you as part of that dangerous world and sided with the boy she needs to protect.”
This part makes sense I guess. At first she said that we’re still friends, that she cares about me and will support me. After a few days everything changed and now she no longer saw us as friends and dropped all her care an support but still wanted to keep some contact. Then later on she became very abrasive and angry and decided to cut the contact entirely, saying that it’s too painful and sad to interact with me (?) and also that she doesn’t want to stay in contact with me because she doesn’t want to do that to him (?).
It seems I became some sort of boogeyman in her eyes when it comes to him, and she was also suffering and crying a lot from what she lost; our relationship and her closest friend. It feels like she’s trying to force herself into that mood of separation and to “move on” from me as if what we had could be just swept under the carpet.
I wonder if she’ll come to senses and disengage herself from him soon, or it’s only going to get worse. Her friends mentioned that she’s been very quiet and evasive, acting unlike herself, barely engaging with them and she also kept everything about my former friend a secret from them.
But apparently she’s been sharing all my “flaws” with one of them and some things were either heavily twisted or just plain lies.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.