Topic : Being a Good Friend

Relationships in general can be very complicated. Friendships are especially for me. Sometimes you just never know who are your true friends. It's hard to find a mutual relationship, and a bondess that will last in a friendship. What i find most difficult for me is someone of similar interest and someone who puts as much effort in a friendship as I do. I've been up and down with friends that i really feel has been beyond my control. But you can only take it one day at a time and maybe someday there will be someone who understands and can appreciate you. 

     What i think about friends is that it helps you find your self within the friendship.  

     Once, i discovered, that i could really cry infront of a friend. (sound silly?) But i am a very rigid, unfeeling a person that i am afraid to show others, even my own set of friends, of what i truly feel. I was growing up believing that i should not trust any one with how i feel because that would render me vulnerable. And i don't want for others to think i am helpless. Deep inside though i am as weak as a dying tree. It felt empty. But then when i try finally succombing to the close and more honest company of friends that I had never felt so alone again.I can tell her (or them) what my frustrations are, or  those little, amazing moments that happen just as easily. There is that nice feeling of being free atlast from my shell, where i have long been hiding from every one. I learned that I can change. And somehow be also of a help to a friend when they too are in trouble. 

     I guess from social, distant friendships that i had i had finally learned how to communicate. It is hard at first. Especially the part wherein I also try to be honest with what i really feel. But God has his own way of doing things, that in time i finally learned to be true-- both to myself and others.  

     It is this transforming kind of friendship that keeps me on my feet now, planted on the ground deeper than before. 

My best friend is the ultimate best friend.  I would walk through fire for her.  We've been friends now for almost 35 years and although I work full time, I still try to find time to visit her when I can. 

She understands a lot of things about friendship and we've taught each other a lot over the years. 

I can't have children though and she has 4, all grown up now, but she asked my told my husband once that she was thinking of going surrogate for me so I'd be able to be a Mum.  How awesome is that hey?  My husband is a Remedial Massage Therapist and treats her and her family quite regularly and given the problems she has with her back, if she would have had another child, she would have ended up in a wheelchair.  But the thought was there and to me, just the thought she had made me respect and admire her so much more (if it were possible). 

Over the years, she's come to mean more to me than my own family at times.  She's more like a sister to me than a best friend. 

What I think is really cool about her is the fact that when we had our own home, she used to run away from her home for a week or two to our place.  She felt it gave her enough time to build up some more strength to go back to the grind again.  I would trust her with my life.  I can just see us when we get older.....sitting on the porch together, looking back on our younger years and laughing at the good times we had. 

I love her to bits and am so glad I was so bold and free when I was only 7.  We were at school together and she was sitting on the steps at recess, looking all lonely and falorn.  I bowled right up to her and asked why she was sitting alone.  Her friend was sick that day, so did not go to school, so I asked her to come and play with me and my friends.  She looked at me sadly and said, "What if they don't want me to play with them?"  Then I said, well, they're not my true friends and I don't want to play with them anymore." 

We've been together ever since.  I just hope that when the time comes, we both go together cos I can't imagine my life without her in it. 

I'm sorry you are feeling so guilty about the way you feel towards your friend.  You are right, people do change, but being a friend also means trying to help.  Maybe you could find a group in her area that have the same sort of problems with the illness she has and talk to them.  Maybe you would find that even though you can't be there all the time, maybe this group can and they can all help each other over the rougher times. 

I know my Mother has changed over the years and I often get frustrated with her depression and her lack of motivation to try to seek help for it, but I still love her very much and try to see past her "moods".  Sometimes, if I talk calmly to her, I can get her remembering the fun times we all used to have and it picks her up a little. 

Sometimes I try to push her into doing things, like giving her the truth hard and fast, making her look at life a little differently, but that never works, so I try to take her mind off her worries and that seems to help a little for a while. 

Have you thought about talking to others who may be in the same situation as you?  Maybe they have some thoughts that may help. 

I wish you luck with it all. 

 I can relate and understand to alot of what you are saying at least in the past tense. Things in my past definitely are comparable.  I can also tell you that if I did not have a friend who allowed me to feel, and be everything at the time, well, I could have not have reached this ponit. I would never have been able to make strong choices. She was not a lesbian, but it was implyed enough  and I can tell you we both stated to each other a lot if only you were the right sex for me.     It would be perfect. Anyway,  I was prepared to leave Then I read this book called Verbally abusive relationship and decided I was shortchanging myself in my relationship. What can be worse than living in such pain emotionally that you think the next person who can give you thirty seconds of passion can be a solution .I do know that, I would have not been whole had I made a choice to only live for what I thought would make me happy at the time. I also know my relationship of close to 25 years could not have been this good. I am not saying it is perfect my thoughts are definitely more realistic. but I can say I am almost certain that making a sexual act more important than life as a whole will not give you what you are looking for. I hope this helps you In some manner. I really do believe that if you have not move on this it more about the emotion returns that your husband is not giving you.  

I have a very dear friend that for lack of better words has recently fell off of the deep end.  Which in itself is hard to say about someone that I hold so close to my heart.  Our families and children are as close and closer that some relatives; so this situation has hit our family very hard.  And although I feel in my heart that I am doing the right thing it is hard to really know.  So I am here hoping for resolution to my internal battle.  I will try to make this as short as possible.  Over the last year I have watched as my friends marriage has endured alot of ups and downs; most recently there was a mutual domestic situation, of which my daughter was witness to, this was in fact the last time that I talked to my friend when she came and picked up her kids from my house after this situation.  She packed up the kids and all of her stuff and went to a shelter.  In the meantime our husbands are best of friends as well her husband turns to us for support and advice we do what we can to guide him in the right direction for his family.  After about a week she returns home but doesn't want to have anything to do with any of their friends us and our children as well.  We respect this for thier family and give them the oppurtunity to take care of thier issues.  Again after about 2 weeks she picks up and leaves again without a word.  We again are there for the husband to try and figure out what has happened and at least find out if they are okay.  They are again at a shelter, which is completely unneccesary because the husband would have moved out of the home so that the kids could have that stability, but apparently that would not have been traggic enough for her.  The following week after this leave, we do find out that she has taken all of the money from their business, every account is overdrawn, even his most recent paycheck; all of this and she is staying a shelter.  I understand that this would be acceptable in a seriously abusive situation, but we have been so much a part of eachothers lives that this was not the situation.  So we hear nothing for a few weeks other than we are all horrible people to the point that we do not deserve the dirt that we are walking on, and she wants out of the marriage and wants nothing to do with anyone.  She has not let the husband talk to the kids since the first of March of course my children have not seen or heard from them since the first situation in February.  Well once we found out the money situation I was asked if I would help get his books and financial stuff back in order as well as keep him on track as to doing the right thing for the kids.  My husband and I agree that this is something that we can do.  She is of course extremely upset and is making it out the be everything that it is not, which breaks my heart everytime she attacks.  She knows that she left the business days from loosing the licenses need to continue and that I was the only one in thier lives that could fix it.  And that if I was not doing what I am doing that her husband would n'ot have the money to help take care of her and the kids.  All of this time I am giving my best Dr. Phil advice in doing what is right by the kids, they are my motivation, they don't deserve this.  I miss my friend and I understand that things just got out of control for her and she couldn't handle the pressure of a business, a family and a demading husband.  Knowing her the way that I do, she is very self critical in that her self dissappointment is always greater than that of others.  She couldn't face that.  So my dilema:  Am I really being the friend that I think I am by helping the husband "clean up the mess" (as I call it) so that he has the funds to get them out of the shelter and into a home and anything else they need???  To this point is all technicallity, I truly miss my firend and need to know that she is okay and I need to be able to tell my kids that their friends are getting what they need to be okay.  Right now she sees me as the enemy at some point will she see where my heart truly lies??

Desperatly seeking some peace.  april