CW: gaslighting
This is a creative non-fiction piece I wrote about one’s processing a breakup. I strongly identify with the narrator’s experience and hope to share this message about self love. Names were removed to protect identities.
I’d never had a best friend who loved me back. Losing him was like losing a part of myself, and I lose touch with those 5 years more and more each day. To remove him from my thoughts is to overwrite at least one pivotal year of my life: a year that shaped my identity in many ways. Even if I am better off forgetting, without those memories who am I?
Several times after we broke up, I tried to return things to how they once were, perhaps in an effort to find myself again. We always promised that if anything happened to our relationship, we’d still be best friends because nothing could possibly change that… Right? But repeatedly I’d dive back into this friendship I was not at home in, and all the old habits would pop up. Hours passed between texts, even for deadly important news. Stories were shared, but without regard for how I might feel about them. It was as if he thought a day of apologies erased all of the pain. He existed far far away from me.
The adventurous, caring, eccentric boy I knew from 8th grade was no longer there. Only silence. The same silence I fought for 3 years when I was away at boarding school. Toward senior year, he’d no longer message me excitedly, or message me about anything for that matter. He stopped telling me what was happening in his life until I no longer had any idea. The only reason we kept in touch was because I asked to call every weekend.
I cried myself to sleep sometimes wondering if we would ever get to exist in the same place again. If he was drifting away. But every time we talked, there was only ever reassurance. We shared a love that nobody could steal away, I thought. It was stronger than distance or time, and whenever we saw each other again, everything was as it once was.
We spoke in inside jokes so often that to others, our conversations could be incomprehensible. It was like having our own language. We had a sincere appreciation for art and, when time permitted, would spend hours working on photo editing or poetry writing to share with each other, each piece an attempt to one up the last. We valued education and opportunity over anything and cheered each other on whenever we hit a new milestone. We were goofy as hell, him jumping on my back when the time was right so I could shout “CHARGE!!” and barge down the hallway to utterly confuse our friends. We once had a snail race across the living room floor — not racing snails, but rather becoming the snails and racing each other without the use of our arms or feet. We ranted about politics and supported one another through all the hell life threw at us. Which was a lot.
In fact, he was the one to unveil the abuse that I’d endured from my mother. He was there for me in my darkest hours, and his family protected me on many occasions. He ensured that I didn’t internalize any of the awful things she said, even when I was convinced they were true. He made me realize that I was a whole person worthy of love. He helped me see that my value wasn’t based on how happy I made other people; that my value was not conditional. He was everything to me.
But there were flashing red signs that I either ignored or explained away. He convinced me to drive myself home while I was sustaining a mild panic attack, and his mother didn’t want guests over that night. I made a trip back home for his prom, finding out that he misunderstood when I said I was available to go to the after-party at some beach house. He went without me and sent me photos of him drinking with his friends all night long. There was the date, burned into my memory, where we went to photograph a park and then develop the photos in his makeshift dark room. He hardly said a word the entire 5 hours, and he was surprised when I told him of this. He would vehemently deny I said something I said and only concede if I had written proof, like a time-stamped text message. He convinced me he wasn’t gaslighting.
But at the end of the day, I always returned to the comfort that we loved each other and nothing could ever change that. After all, everyone has their quirks, and I loved him through all of his as he loved me through mine. Even when I finally got the courage to ask him about the future, something that caused him to go silent for days if I brought it up, and he told me he wouldn’t ever be around to see me on a regular basis with his anticipated career, I still held hope. But by then I was outright lying to myself.
Even during the fight where I was at fault for hurting him (I kissed a mutual friend he’d grown to dislike without his explicit consent) he didn’t say a word. It was almost a silent loathing. I didn’t know exactly how he was feeling or why. I tried to apologize from every angle I could think of, and asked what made him feel the way he did. I sincerely wanted to understand, since I personally would not have reacted this way. He didn’t answer and only looked at me with great disappointment that I couldn’t intuit his emotions on my own. He didn’t yell, he didn’t cry. He left me. In silence.
It didn’t help my understanding, however, that any time I asked about our relationship, he’d tell me that he loved me more than anything. That he was so happy to be with me. That even those times when he forgot about our plans, when I drove 30 minutes just to see him for 10, when he didn’t tell me he took a full time internship during the summer I kept open for us, he loved me so much.
Love isn’t everything.
No matter how you feel, a partner needs quality time, effort, respect, compromise, empathy, etc. Love is a feeling; a relationship is a choice. Even friendship is a choice. And everyone has a choice to outwardly treat those they care about with as much love as they hold for them.
He wants to make things right, I know he does. But I don’t think he’s able to be the friend I need him to be… Someone who checks in to see how I’m doing, who doesn’t bail in the middle of a serious conversation, leaving me riddled with anxiety that something terrible happened. Someone who understands that trust can be rebuilt, but it takes time and commitment. Someone who listens to the ways I’ve been hurt and works through the pain right there next to me. I know it can be done because I’ve done it (a story for another time).
If the relationship you’re trying to repair causes you more tears than laughter, it isn’t worth it. You don’t owe them friendship just because you have history. And you can’t move forward by living in the past.
If this person truly wants to be a part of your life, they’ll put in the legwork. By far, the most important part of an apology is asking how/working to make things right. Verbal apologies are only effective if supported by changed behavior. If they aren’t, love yourself enough to not put yourself in that situation again.
2021 is not the year for empty words.
