Friendship Heartbreak Part II
I really, really want to tell y’all the whole story so y’all can fully understand how grimy this girl did me. Ahhhh yeah, I have to tell the whole thing and here is why. I absolutely...
Don’t get me wrong, some people are flat out snakes, and no amount of positive thinking will change that. Three years ago I found myself in a really dark place. There was a situation kicked off at the very top of 2018 where a supposed friend did the grimiest thing that I think anyone has ever done to me in my life. This impacted my family, my business and put some of my other friends in a tough spot having to pick a side. For the record, I’ve never asked anyone to pick a side. However, solid people have a hard time going along with fluke stuff, so they end up naturally distancing when they see it happening.
I mean it doesn’t hurt that this girl was 1,000% wrong, no if ands or buts about it. If I try to find my 1% accountability for that situation, it would be trusting that she was anything other than the snake that she is. I really, really want to tell y’all the whole story so y’all can fully understand how grimy this girl did me. Ahhhh yeah, I have to tell the whole thing and here is why. I absolutely hate the idea that anyone thinks they can hold anything over my head, especially as I’m building a brand. I’ll tell it my damn self!
So “friend” calls me and she’s like you should stay away from this particular associate. I had business dealings with the associate so I found that weird for her to say. She wouldn’t give any further information at that time. I called back a few days later because I just couldn’t let it go. After a lot of digging, she finally says that the associate and my husband had been texting inappropriately. I’m like OMG when?? She says that it wasn’t happening any longer but the exchange had taken place a year prior. I’m thinking, well why did you wait a year, but whatever, it’s investigation time!
S/O to my bestie who jumped right in. She was like oh we’re going to get to the bottom of this! And that we did! After lots of coercing we end up getting the text messages which had to be pulled from the cloud. The FIRST thing I noticed on the messages was that they were dated 2014. This conversation was in 2018. I called “friend” back and I’m like I thought you said a year ago. She was like “ohhhh damn, I didn’t realize that much time passed.” I’m like huh???? Who gets last year and four years ago confused? I’m missing it.
Ok so here is what makes “friend” uber grimy. She had just fallen out with the associate and they weren’t speaking. She thought I didn’t know that but I’d already been informed of all their drama. So in an effort to get back at associate she decides to throw this information at me, although she knew the entire time. I asked her why she was telling me now if she couldn’t tell me when it happened. She said because she couldn’t take seeing me getting closer to associate knowing that. Ok, so for four whole years you could take seeing me interact with her??? Truth is, it didn’t bother her at all because she was cool with her. Behind the scenes though, she had been talking about this girl like a dog. Yet, she was all on IG with her going to basketball games, playing with her kids, etc. Just full-blown snake vibes.
To be honest, had she said I was closer to her so that’s where my loyalty was, I could’ve respected that. But even in that case, you don’t tell her tea once y’all fall out. You chose your side. You don’t get to bounce back because it didn’t work out over there. She also claimed that she didn’t tell me because I always said I didn’t want to know. That is a blatant lie. What I’ve said was that I would not tell someone because 1), it’ll come out eventually and 2), I’ve been burned that way multiple times before trying to help someone. But ok, let’s entertain this idea that I didn’t want to know. The question remains, why are you telling me four years later??? I never got an answer to that.
Bottom line, she fell out with ole girl and she decided to rattle my whole world because of it. People like that are no one’s friend. I wasn’t mad at her initially. My friends were like are you crazy, she is playing you! LOL I had a very delayed reaction. It took me a minute to process everything and finally become enraged. If I’m honest, I wanted to find some excuse for her, because I just couldn’t believe that she would do what she did. That’s the only answer I can come up with.
Meanwhile at the ranch, your boy got kicked out the bedroom, was sleeping in the basement, and we were headed towards divorce. People were like you’re going to end your marriage over some four-year-old text messages? No! I was going to end my marriage over betrayal, lies, deceit, etc. Well, let’s just say God didn’t allow for any of it to happen. I will do a “Marriage Bootcamp” blog to talk about our healing journey as well. Since this one is about friendship, I want to keep it there. However, I don’t want anyone thinking he got off free. We are still together because he paid a HEFTY price, and because he put in WORK to keep me. Ultimately, we only survived because God took what was intended for evil, and worked it for our good.
People will say how come women can always forgive their man, but not their friend. It’s honestly because women will try to spit in your face and tell you it’s raining. To this day, that girl has never apologized for what she did. On the other hand, my husband took his hits emotionally, mentally and even physically. Yeah guys, I was a complete psycho at that time. If you know me on any level, you KNOW he did not get out of it easily. However, it’s always going to be easier to forgive someone who apologizes genuinely, but most importantly shows you they are sorry through changed behavior, as opposed to continuously lying about their actions and intentions.
It takes a lot to hurt me but that one really hurt because I genuinely thought this person was my friend. She’d ask me to be her maid of honor before! I thought we were THAT close. The next devastating blow here was another friend trying to take her side. Honestly, with that entire group I was never allowed to be human, or feel hurt in any way, even when BOTH of my parents died. When my dad died, they didn’t so much as get me a card, or even call to check on me, besides one person. When my mom died, everyone came to the service, they started drama before the service in their true fashion, and they brought me a dinner one day. When someone else’s mom died just five month’s later, oh hunny, the red carpet was rolled out for her. I didn’t get 10% of what she got. But again, people tried to make me feel crazy for seeing reality.
Then theses chicks had the audacity to ask why I wasn’t there for the other friend, not to my face of course, because everybody would’ve gotten cursed out. But it’s pretty simple, I was busy being there for my damn self, like are you stupid or are you dumb?!?! I want to just let the record reflect that I lost BOTH of my parents before anybody else lost anything. Yet people can still have the audacity to say that kind of stuff to other people who were supposed to be my friend, and get away with it. Again, I was never human in these people’s minds.
This all led up to my final straw with that entire group of women. I left the group chat, blocked some people and began my healing process. I take accountability for the red flags that I ignored for so long. Like if I started listing them all out, y’all would call me a fool for even being around these people pass freshman year. My discernment is impeccable. There are people who can quote that I have said since the beginning “these girls just don’t like me.” Every single thing that I said, came out to be true. They legit never actually liked me. And I’ve always known that. I will never again allow anyone to make me feel crazy for my God given gift of discernment. It is never wrong!
While I’m no longer upset about any of these situations, they did cause me to tighten up on my boundaries. The biggest lesson for me is that any friend of mine can’t be afraid to rock the boat. Period. The uncomfortable truth is, sometimes you have to pick a side. That’s life. I would not respect my bestie if she tried to maintain a close relationship with someone that participated in wreaking havoc in my world. Our relationship would’ve suffered for that. You can’t hold me while I cry, and keke with the person that was involved in making me cry. That’s not how this works.
So at that point I had to process everything that had happen. I had to sit with that hurt. I had to be uncomfortable. I wrote a lot about it. I vented to trusted sources. I cried. I prayed. I envisioned doing evil things to people. I considered exposing everyone on social media with screenshots. Like I literally experienced every range of emotion that there is from sadness to complete rage. I took my time with this process and actually allowed myself to feel it.
Once I was able to discuss it without anger, I knew I was ready to begin true healing. What healing looked like for me was to release. It’s one thing to block people and cut off communication. Yet, if they still hold space in your head and control your emotions, you haven’t healed. In order to release, forgiveness is necessary. I know, I know…it’s hard, especially when you don’t even get an apology for the wrongdoing.
Forgiveness does not mean you have to allow access. Forgiveness means you recognize the human flaws of a person, free them from their wrongdoing, and free yourself from the bondage of what happened to you. You have to let that stuff go. It serves no good to anyone. Honestly, I don’t even talk about any of this stuff anymore, like at all. I’m only discussing it now because of the topic request. I will never put out anything fake or inauthentic to who I am so if I’m going to discuss friendship heartbreak, then I have to discuss my own.
The next step for me was redefining how I view friendship. I had to rediscover my dealbreakers. I had to accept the fact that fun does not equal friend. Usually if you have a lot of fun with people, you spend more time with them, and then you automatically identify them as close. Next thing you know, you’re going around saying we’ve been friends for x number of years. However, once you really break it down, it’s like no, you’ve been hanging out for x number of years. You haven’t actually been friends to each other. And that my friends is a word!
Then I evaluated every single relationship in my life and made some tough decisions. I categorized people where they belonged or completely released them if I deemed it necessary. Sometimes you’re hurt by people because you place them in the wrong category. A happy hour friend is a happy hour friend. Don’t put best friend expectations on them.
Next was recognizing the solid 20+ year relationships in my life. Y’all I have several! I’m so blessed in the friend department. People often say time means nothing in relationships. I agree if all you have is time. However, the bulk of my friendships are 20+ years solid, loyal, communicative, understanding, trusting, reliable and vulnerable. THAT is the standard for me! I now measure all of my friendships by this standard. If I can’t hold you to what I’ve been blessed to experience for the last 20+ years, then I don’t want it. Because I’ve experienced this, I know it’s attainable, so I can’t settle for less.
What I had to acknowledge though was that I wasn’t nurturing those relationships the way I needed to. I mean I literally had the standard for friendship right under my nose the whole time but took it for granted. It was almost like well they aren’t going anywhere, we’re always going to be friends. That is absolutely false. They do not owe it to stay loyal to a friendship that is not cared for or nurtured in the way that is deserved. Everybody has the option to check out, not just you and I. So I had to make adjustments there and be more present and intentional.
I also had to accept that my boundaries are mine, and they don’t need approval from anyone. I was tired of people making me feel like my boundaries and dealbreakers were unrealistic when I’m asking for the most basic, fundamental values of friendship. Either way, my deal breakers aren’t negotiable. Plenty of people have met them for 20+ years in my life, with absolute ease, and I won’t tolerate anything less.
In closing, to sort through friendship heartbreak, I’ve realized that I don’t NEED anyone. People are often offended by that statement, but it’s the truth. God equips you with all that you need within. Don’t get me wrong, we need relationships and community. But no, we don’t need a particular individual. If one walks out, God will send three more. People are great to have around and they enrich your life while they are there, but if they decide to leave today or tomorrow, life still goes on. That’s what I know better than anything. I’ve lived it with my own parents. In the most devastating moments of my life, the rest of the world kept moving right along.
This is helpful to understand though because it allows you to take some of the unnecessary pressure off of your relationships. We cannot expect our friends to be our God. They can not be there at your every beck and call. They have their own issues, their own problems, and their own purpose to live out.
When a relationship has run its course, don’t force it until it becomes ugly, walk away while there is still love and respect there. Accept the fact that you’ve been done wrong, and you’ve also done someone else wrong. We are ALL the bad guy in someone’s story. Lastly, don’t take your riders for granted. Everybody ain’t riding. And that’s on who….Mary had a little lamb! LOL
From One T.U.F.F. Chick to Another,
Michelle L.