Dear Hope:

You are welcome. I want to look more deeply into what you shared in your two posts:

Six years ago, in 2014, you were in the process of separating from a “physically and mentally abusive” marriage. While in that process, you started a new job as a supervisor under two male managers. Both managers were “super understanding and great friends”, particularly John, one of the two managers. John was “really there” for you, a “good true friend”. You considered it “a tight friendship”. You talked to John about your marriage, crying on his shoulders more time than you can count, and he talked to you about his problems in his marriage. Sometimes the two of you went out for drinks, as friends.

This tight friendship seems to have been your anchor as you went through your marriage separation, someone (John) to hold on to; something (a tight friendship) to hold on to.

The other manager and John urged you “to get out of the marriage as quickly as possible”. Time moved on- you received a promotion to an Assistant Manager in a department different from John’s. The two of you “didn’t talk as much”, but remained friends. Later,  you transferred back to this department. Within a year and a half, you lost your brother, your sister and your mother to different illnesses, and went through a very difficult time. Your divorce was final in the beginning of 2016, and a year later, you took a position with a different company, for a better pay.

Two days after your final day at the company where John still worked, a month after you lost your mother, while you were in the process of moving to the house where your mother lived- John called you late in the evening, asking you if you wanted to go have a drink. You agreed. He told you that “he’d been separated for a year”, “one thing led to the other” and you ended up sleeping together.

The next morning, the two of you agreed that you were “good with it and would take it day by day”. Day by day turned into “a biweekly hookup”: you didn’t hear from him for days, then he would text you late at night, come over, avoid parking in your driveway, and you felt hurt and disrespected. You were definitely not “good with it”.

Sometime along the way you realized that he was no longer “a good true friend”, that the relationship was no longer a “tight friendship”. It as if the guy you were so close to was gone, and what you had was “just some guy”. When you confronted him about this change and his behavior, he told you that he cares so much for you, that he didn’t want you to feel used, and that he could make you very happy.

You suspected all along that he was back with his wife, but you “just didn’t want to face it”.

This past Monday, you sent him a text and he never answered you. You then blocked him on social media and on your phone. You feel “angry and hurt and grieving the loss of what I thought was a good friend”. You worry that if he pops up at your home one evening, you may  not have the strength to send him away.

My thoughts today: congratulations for doing as well as you have been doing, considering having been in an abusive marriage, separating and divorcing, and  losing three members of your family in such a quick succession- through all of that, you managed to get a promotion, look for and get a new job with better pay, and you managed to move to a new home.

Give yourself credit for managing all this and be gentle with yourself for being human and therefore needing emotional support from another person while going through such difficult times.

You greatly needed emotional support in 2014 and you received it from your two managers- that was like a breath of fresh air, wasn’t it? It has energized you to do what you needed to do, separate and get a divorce. When we need something desperately and we receive some of it, we make the most of it, often believing that it is more than it really is.

It is similar perhaps to this: a well-fed person is given a piece of cake, it tastes good. A very hungry person is given a piece of cake and it tastes extraordinary, the best ever. If you were in a loving marriage back in 2014 and had a healthy support system, you would have appreciated the friendliness of the two managers, but their friendliness wouldn’t have felt  so extraordinary, to you. You would have thought of them as friendly, instead of “great friends”. You would have appreciated John as a friendly guy, but wouldn’t consider him as such a close, true friend.

You needed a close true friend so much, that you made the best out of his friendliness, making believe that -in his subjective experience- he was that “good true friend” to you, and that he felt the “tight friendship” that you felt.

“I guess I’m just looking for answers as to why a good friend would treat another good friend like that”- he wasn’t as good or as great or as close as you thought and needed him to be.

“there’s a part of me that still desires to see him, that doesn’t want to send him away. I hate that I jumped from one abusive relationship to one that isn’t real. How do I find the strength inside to hold my ground. I’m afraid to let myself down”-

– consider what is real. In my personal experience, the more I see reality as-is, the better my mental health. See John as he is: he is a married man who waited until you were no longer working in his company (to avoid the appearance of impropriety in the workplace, I imagine) before beginning a hook up situation with you. He used you and when you expressed your dissatisfaction with this hook-up relationship, he lied to you, telling you that he cares so much for you and didn’t want you to feel used.

I believe that you did the right thing to block him, but I believe it will not be wrong for you to let him know how he has wronged you, so to not allow him to think that he has fooled you with his words. Let him know your disappointment of him. Let him know.

anita