Thank you for your thoughts, both of you.
Mia – I do think of this as a blessing 🙂 They have both shown their true colours, haven’t they. And I am better off without them both. I have other friends, one of whom is another girlfriend I have known even longer than L – for over 40 years! I have always treasured my friends. That’s why this came as such a shock, that she/they could both do something like that. Oh boy, that hurt. It broke my heart that they could treat me like that. However, I have got over that. People who do that kind of thing aren’t really your friends, or they were, but only as long as it suited them to be so. Big lesson learned!
Anita – you wrote: “If you sent them a letter or an email- if you wrote such, what would you write? Would you like to try that?”
I have already tried that. Early on, around the beginning of August, I sent her a text message which read, ‘Hi L., I hope you are both well and happy. I apologise for my initial gut reaction. (the gut reaction was, after waiting for several days with her saying she would phone to explain and then didn’t, I sent an email to J. telling her not to bother, that I was done with them both!) The text carried on: ‘I am sending this message as I think a friendship like we’ve had for 30 years was worth one last attempt to put things right. I have forgiven and forgotten.I hope you can do the same, love and light, JJ.
The reply I got was ‘I’m very happy. New start. New life. At Folk Fest at the moment. Take care. Hope your sister’s son is ok, Linda.’
That was the last time I heard from her. My sister’s son died very soon afterwards. L. only asked after my nephew as as I had written in an email to J. in response to the part highlighted above by Mia (L. doesn’t ‘do’ emails and has no email address) ‘When you realise that someone you loved doesn’t even have the decency to call and let you know what is going on, doesn’t seem to give a fig about you or the stressful situation they have put you in….
(the stressful situation being her now abandoned ex, who was on the phone for hours to me as he didn’t believe I didn’t know where she was for a while, and was very angry at my perceived deception and very suicidal)
, isn’t bothered whether a member of your family live or dies, then you realise that maybe the friendship wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.’
So I tried to make something right, when I had really done nothing wrong, except spoken my mind and tried to put it right? I have never known J’s address, so a letter would be out of the question anyway. I could easily find out his address, but I really feel I should just leave it alone. They have never contacted me since then, so I assume they don’t really care anyway. That’s ok, I have plenty of other friends!
I don’t know how I will react if I ever see either of them again. Like I said, I keep imagining scenarios where I tell them what I really think of them, others where I just ignore them and walk on by, others where I let J. know just what a parasite he has hooked up with… and on and on, round and round in my head. This is the part that needs to stop. I have already done the rest, the post-mortem, if you like and no longer think about them or the hurt they caused at the time, like I used to do. I was making myself ill trying to find a logical explanation for their actions, until I finally realised that there simply wasn’t one.
I just need to get these final thoughts of them out of my mind. I might one day meet them again, but I know it’s pointless fantasizing or obsessing about something which might happen in the future. I will know what to say when the time comes, I’m sure of that… but these thoughts about that future happening are driving me mad!
ETA: I would hope, if that time ever comes, that I will be strong enough to be dignified and graceful… and not say any of the above!
Thank you both very much for your help.
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. 