My Dear Ex Friend,
The idea of this letter has been in my head for several years. I never wrote it before because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings or put you on the spot about your behavior.
I guess what I need to know is this: What happened? What changed? What’s your problem?
Our friendship, I thought, was lifelong. We became friends in the first grade, and we soon became permanent fixtures in each other’s lives and families. I knew everything about you; you knew everything about me. We became roommates in college and shared our lives–good and bad–with each other.
When you married, you asked me to be your maid of honor. When I married, you were mine. I met your little girl shortly after her birth. My husband and I took time out of our lives and drove to your home to meet your daughter. This visit involved a drive of several hours, but that is was what we did. That’s what friends do.
Now, it’s my turn to express my enormous disappointment in you and our friendship. Shortly after I announced my pregnancy, things changed with you. You didn’t call or email as much. We would get the random photo or card in the mail, but not much else. At my baby shower, you were two hours late. Your gift looked like you stopped on your way and picked out whatever you could find on the clearance rack and then threw in a little stuffed toy for good measure.
After we had our baby boy, I invited you to come up and meet him. You didn’t come. I should remind you that we live in the same hometown that we grew up in, the same town your parents and grandparents still live in. This trip would not have been out of your way. I continued to invite you to our house every weekend for the first seven months of our son’s life. Your response would have been one of the following: “I can’t. I have to work”; “Maybe, I’ll let you know later” (However, I would never hear from you later.); and I even received this one a few times, “Yeah, I’ll call you when I’m getting ready to leave.” (Guess what? I never got a phone call and you never showed up.)
After seven months of playing this game, I was done. I continued to respond, although not as enthusiastically, to your emails and stuff. Then, our son’s first birthday arrived. Should I invite you or should I just forget about it? Well, I decided to invite you. A year had gone by and you had yet to meet him; maybe this would finally be the breaking point.
Oh, my goodness! You responded and it was a yes!
Finally! Oh, but you’ll have to come early because you have plans late that evening. Well, the party started at one o’clock, so I would think that would leave you enough time, but whatever. At least you’re actually going to come. The week of the party, you sent a birthday card to my son. That’s weird, if you were planning on coming to the party why would you mail the birthday card ahead of time. Why?
Oh, well, at least you were coming to the party. The day of the party arrived and you didn’t come early. It was one o’clock and you were still not there. The party was over and you never showed. You never called. I wondered what happened.
Later that evening, I received an email from you. Something came up, on that Saturday afternoon that just had to be taken care of. You hoped I understood.
Really, you hoped I’d understand. Well, maybe if it hadn’t been 365 days since my child was born and you still had yet to meet him, I would have understood. But, no, I don’t really care what came up. I don’t care one little bit. I don’t understand.
I am angry and I am done… again. I stopped all contact with you for almost two months. No response to emails, nothing. Then, I began to feel bad and once again, I call you. Everything seemed fine, as we talked on the phone, so what do I do? I invite you to our home, once again, for the following weekend. Your response was an astounding yes and you said you’d call me later when you knew which day you would be up. I’m so happy again.
Well, later that week, I never heard from you. You never came.
You have still not met my son.
Let me tell you what my life has been like since then. I spent about a week crying, a lot, even crying myself to sleep. The realization had finally set in that you didn’t care about me or my family. We are not friends anymore. When a long, 20 plus year friendship, ends, without any real explanation, it’s a very difficult thing to understand.
Did I hurt you somehow? I don’t recall. Did I offend you? No, I don’t think so. I talked to other people about what they think happened. The overall conclusion was that you became jealous of me for one reason or another. Maybe you saw how happy I was and you were envious of that, because you were not happy and you did not want me to know about your relationship troubles.
Maybe you were jealous because I was quitting work to be a stay at home mother. Maybe you were jealous over our new home. There were a lot of theories, but nothing that anyone knew for sure.
Shortly after our last conversation, I found out I was pregnant again. We now have two children that you will probably never meet. We have moved into our new home, which you will probably never visit. A lot has changed, for the good and bad that you will never know. Our friendship is gone. I am over it and healing has occurred. I don’t want or need anything from you. I have moved on. I still don’t know what happened, and I don’t really need to know anymore.
You did need to hear these words, though. You did need to know how much you hurt me. Oh well, once again, I am saying: I am done.
Signed,
No Longer Your Friend
~~~
Kristi Cramer is a freelance writer, mother of two precious little boys, and former educator. She writes nonfiction articles on parenting, family and education. She is currently trying her hand at fiction writing and story-telling. Please visit her blog site at www.raisegoodkids.today.com
