These are certainly some complicated things to think about that I really never considered – in particular my relationship to my mother.

What I would say about this, however, is that my mother was, and is, someone I could generally always count on to be there for me and to a certain extent I would say  the expectations I have had of women in my life have been pretty high because of her. I am not disagreeing that there aren’t some issues to be explored there but I don’t really feel insecure about that relationship. However, I would think a possibility here is that the high expectations  I have of women in my life combined with my abandonment/rejection issues with my father could be coming into play with my friend.

I also do have to say that while I am the one who has to take ownership of my feelings here my friends actions/inactions in how she handled our friendship definitely did play a significant role in where we currently are.  In her last email she made the comment  that she didn’t want our friendship to be “muddy” but I think some “muddiness” was created on her end because her emotional needs were definitely not being met by her husband. And at times I wasn’t quite clear what “compartment” she had me in and it felt like she might have even been confused as to her expectations of me. This isn’t to say I didn’t misinterpret things, I am quite certain I did, but I have had lots of female friends and the boundaries were very obvious.

But when I do clear away all of this stuff,  her and I did have a really good, and nice, friendship. To me it really felt like a warm, old, familiar blanket (as cheesy as that sounds) and I would love to get back to that with her. Like I said, I don’t believe my  journey with her is over but I have a tendency to want things resolved and not left hanging but maybe this is why I need to let go of this for a while.

I think, as I mentioned before, the best thing will be for me to just reach out to her like I used to when we were normal friends and take it from there. But I think I do need to be in a better place emotionally and this anger has to be gone of she will know. I also think part of the reason she is hesitant to engage on her end more than just occasionally on Social Media is because she is probably worried about my wife so it probably is a little bit more on me to make an effort.

Anyway, thanks so much for your help Anita because this has been truly a weight off of my chest that I have been carrying for quite sometime.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Timepassages2070.