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I have had a veryyyyy close friend for the last 6 years, I would even venture to say she is one of my very best friends. I am ready to break ties because the relationship is causing me SOO much stress that I feel physically ill and needing psychiatric help (i take full responsibility for my own feelings). But I can't take it anymore.

This meltdown and crisis was caused by learning news of me buying a house with my partner and moving hours away in the coming months.

I'm getting all kinds of back and forth mood swings from anger, dismissal, love and kindness, and moments of apparent sanity and clear headedness ...its so confusing when she seems rational and i love her very very much!

but it's not worth it anymore because it ALWAYS ends up causing me insane amounts of stress.

I cannot do it anymore. this person is not violent and this relationship is not romantic although I'm certain she had romantic feelings for me in the past based on confessions of love and telling me she had dreams about kissing me and stuff.

I guess my bigger question is : Is there a right or wrong way to do this? I have already explained that her emotions last time i moved were way too much for me. and now it is repeating but 10 fold.

Does she have any history of this sort of behavior?
Like, has been abusive, hostile, demeaning - and then loving, idealizing - in cycles with you, or has it all just started because of your upcoming move?

The anger and dismissal are definitely triggered because of the move. She has a history of victimizing herself eternally and sometimes ends in burning bridges with perceived abusers.

I have had high stress levels surrounding this relationship for quite some time, as I have been there and been supportive during times of nearly constant crisis. This eventually caused me to feel taxed emotionally and really I feel trapped. I am afraid to end the friendship.

But I feel relief when she is mad at me, and I hope that she will want to write me out of her life, and that seems like a realllllly bad sign to me. Even though I love her soo muuuuch and my heart aches so badly for her.

I feel too much stress with the mood swings and constant need for emotional energy

i dont mean to be pat here, but align your heart and mind, and follow them. dont do anything you may regret.

im a fan of detaching with grace (its hard, and its not always possible). i think that there are emotionally mature ways to distance yourself from a relationship, or, for that matter, distance yourself to the point of it ending, that dont involve a hard, fast, emotional cutoff. but there are pros and cons to each, really.

keep your eye on the big picture here. youll be hours away in the coming months. thats going to change the friendship dramatically, if not end it completely at some point.

you can adjust the relationship in the meantime. you dont have to stand for verbal abuse. you can let her spin, and work herself back to baseline. it isnt something you have to take on. you can take your space from it. step away, put the phone down, let her return to baseline.

you can also see it for what it is. shes struggling with the potential loss of a friend she likely emotionally depends on, and thats not something shes very well equipped to cope with; thats why you see the wild swings. friends love and support each other, but they cant fix each other.

having said that, if thats the path you choose to take, know that it could get worse as the clock ticks; it could also get worse if you decide to cut ties, there are no easy ways to emotionally detach. do what youll feel good about a year from now, when i can guarantee it will easier.

Thank you so much for your input. It's hard. I don't feel strong enough to face it... because my empathy is eating me alive. I just want to slip away. I keep almost getting to the point where I'd feel good talking on the phone, but then she has another wild reaction and I end up having to distance myself again. That's where I'm at right now. I know that everything that I need to do to take care of myself will be detrimental to her.. but i reallllly think i'm at a point where I need to take care of myself. I'm in a constant state of panic attack, my chest hurts, my stomach hurts. It's really so incredibly sad.

its hard, especially hard, when you have six years together, and a history.

you have to do what you have to do, but be advised, abruptly ending the relationship could, legitimately, be harder on you in the short term.

consider as well, that if you decide you regret cutting things off, and you try to rekindle the friendship, and she shuts you down, thats likely to hurt too. there are a lot of things to consider here.

if you are committed to the friendship ending, then there are really two options. you could take the hard and fast route. tell her its over. stop responding, set it to where you wont get emails/texts/calls/whatever. or you could slowly but surely, increasingly distance yourself and detach. the simplest way to do that is to become boring. dont be someone interesting or rewarding to talk to (that includes when shes going off on you. if you over respond to that, that is a payoff that on some level makes her feel more secure about your attention and the relationship). let her get bored with you; that will take a lot of the emotion out of it.

I have been working on the slow but sure distance for awhile, I moved 40 mins away 2 years ago and she has been grieving over that. I don't want to completely cut ties, but i don't know how to conduct a healthy relationship with her. It seems wrong to be unavailable for her emotionally but expect to be friends still?

I feel guilty knowing that I want to do a slow fade out, but stringing her along. I feel like I just need to say what is true which is that I don't know how else to take care of myself than by taking some space.. but for an undetermined length of time. I just feel so weird and awkward.

I do not know how to handle it. :/ struggling so bad. Therapist keeps assuring me that either route I take, neither is right or wrong, and that I need to focus on taking care of myself.

it largely depends on whether you want to remain friends or not.

if youre certain you do not, you have a couple of options. they arent great, or easy. you will need to weigh the pros and cons, in the context of your relationship.


but if this is your goal, i would post on the Bettering board and work on a plan.