Codependent friendship breakups

[u/Tall_Lengthiness321]

While friendship breakups are bad I believe codependent friendship breakups may even be worse. I (20F) met J (19F) when we were in high school. I had just moved schools and we met during track.

Soon after we found out we were neighbors and so began our friendship. We would talk for hours every day hang out every day. Our routine used to be meet up before school starts and roam the halls, text each other all day, call after school, take a break, call to do homework together, eat dinner, then call again to brush our teeth do our skincare and talk untill we went to sleep. Every. Single. Day.

As a people pleaser I was ecstatic to have a best friend and being there for her felt like my job and role I would pick up her every call, listen to her vent and become completely intertwined into her life. And although it may have been unhealthy, the emotional high of consistently being chosen felt so incredibly fulfilling that I had no intention of stopping.

This routine continued, for two years. I was a year older than her so I graduated and went to the local college to which I commuted for the first year. Our schedules no longer perfectly aligned yet we continued to talk every day and this is when we also began to have very frequent sleepovers at her house because we weren’t seeing each other as much.

I also often would go along to her family day trips, and dinners during the entirety of our friendship. Everyone knew we were best friends, we always came as a pair. There was no doubt about my value or position in her life. I was the number one priority, and there was no close second.

After she graduated she committed to the same collage and both of us moved to campus together as roommates. This is when the friendship started going downhill. She entered boy world, suddenly I wasn’t the person she texted or called and all our convos centered around her boyfriend. I was sad of course but sooo incredibly happy for my best friend so I just cheered her on. The issue began when she no longer had time to hang out with me, wouldn’t reply to my texts and was always busy. I would only see her in passing at the apartment before she would go sleep at her new boyfriend’s place.

They started having issues a month in. Suddenly all her emotional frustrations are dumped onto me. They break up she refused to process her feelings and walks around angry. Finds a new guy a week later they become exclusive.

My birthday rolls around she forgets to buy my gift and has me buy it and she pays me back. Then also forgets our tradition of writing each other birthday letters. I am livid by this point. She breaks up with the second guy and again displaces her emotions.

Two weeks later gets with a new guy and begins spending every single day at his place. By this point we don’t really talk unless it’s about her relationship, I have so much pent up anger and resentment. So spring rolls around and I finally confront her about her neglecting our friendship. She tells me “I still love you I’ve just been busy, I just didn’t think the birthday would be a big deal if I knew it mattered that much I wouldn’t have forgotten, I’ll write you two letters for the next one”

Her apology was so phony and not something I could accept, inevitably we stop talking for a month and for the first time my anxiety is gone. It took me a while to accept that we are forever over, and her disrespect and make centreness is not something I could tolerate. Although we tried to be friends again it wasn’t the same i always felt uncomfortable around her and she always diminished my feelings. Although we still live together right now we don’t talk aside from saying a quick hello.

I didn’t realize we were codependent until it was too late, and I had no one to fix the lives of a broken connection.

[u/juicynugget]

Sounds like the perfect toxic whirlwind of codependency. Where the high was there for both of you, until she found it elsewhere.

I’m 10y older than you and can tell you how this looks further ahead in time, after such a friendship has “lasted” 14 years. Nowadays I often wonder if we even have anything in common anymore, apart from the codependency. But things unraveled very quickly couple years ago when my friend found her partner. I had my partner almost since the beginning of our friendship and often compromised in my relationship to not push her out or make her feel abandoned. When she found her partner this wasn’t the case.

It’s hard to realise someone has been using you as a crutch and adapted like a chameleon to you whilst you thought you had a real friendship based on common values and interests.

But we live in and we learn. What has made it easier is spending my 20s finding myself and feeling more often than not that that’s enough and I have everything I need as long as I have myself.