My friend (let’s call him Liam) doesn’t want to hear about people being hurt or murdered. I’m trying to figure out why being told about this boundary hurts. I see my therapist on Monday, for my regularly scheduled session. So, this is me thinking out loud and trying to process my feelings. It’s 2 am here on the East Coast, please pardon my insomniac rambling.
My friend now lives outside the US, but grew up here. We were college roommates.
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Maybe I’m jealous that he is comfortable enough that he doesn’t have to work, can travel, and has socialized medicine. He hasn’t fought with his health insurance to pay for needed procedures.
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Maybe I’m upset that his boundary means I can’t share large swatches of my life with him. I can’t talk with Liam about my health insurance issues because that’s too close to violence for me to feel confident I’m not overstepping. I can’t talk about my dad because my dad died through my mom’s actions. I can’t talk about politics because American politics today seems to be about hurting people you don’t like. I can’t talk about my worries for the future.
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Maybe I’m upset because his boundary is so broad and vague but also clear enough that I can’t ask him for clarification about it without violating it. Is social murder murder to him? I dunno!
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Maybe I’m upset because it’s almost the 4-year anniversary of my dad’s death and it’s easier to be upset at my friend’s confusing boundary than it is to confront the fact my dad’s still dead. TBH, this feels pretty solid, based on the amount of tears I’m producing. Circling back, I sure would like to be able to talk with Liam about this, but nope.
I hope so, too. I don’t want to hurt my friend.
Luckily, he has a good support structure that doesn’t involve me. He’s physically far away, temporarily far away (his bedtime is before I get off work) and we’re both bad at keeping in contact.
My prediction is that this friendship will continue to drift apart and I’ll just have an added stressor when we do interact that’ll discourage me from initiating contact.
It will definitely change. It can still be quite good though, maybe better in some ways, and not even in spite of but rather bc of the differences in your life paths after parting ways physically/geographically. But you aren’t married or anything - it has to be fun for the both of you or it will be harder to maintain.
It sounds like that will be harder on you than on him, at least in the short term. But you are engaging in therapy, and willing to think through what is good for him, good for you, good for your continued friendship, and e.g. how that might be a cover / smokescreen for what’s really bothering you inside. That’s everything that you need to be doing, and you are doing it, even though it’s a process and will take a minute to complete.
And I mentioned elsewhere but it seems worth repeating: find other friendships as well, so that you don’t pour all of your hopes and energies into this one that isn’t as sustainable as when you were geophysically located closer together. This one will be different now than it was before - but it can be good if you want to put in the effort to maintain it, i.e. not hold out unrealistic expectations that it must remain always the same as it used to be, which ofc it literally just cannot ever do.
Yeah, it unfortunately sounds like you might be drifting apart. Hard to say for sure just from reading comments, but that’s a thing that happens even though it sucks.
You might get somewhere by asking yourself why this boundary is being put up. It’s not explicitly said, but it sounds like this is a new boundary in a longer relationship. Did something happen that caused it? If it’s a new boundary, it’s probably worth asking your therapist if they can help you figure out a why. More for your own benefit, because even if you figure out a “why”, it doesn’t sound like it would help the relationship improve.