When you’re friends with a couple that breaks up, the friends of the couple usually have to decide who gets custody of which friend. Sometimes it’s clean cut: you leave with the friends you came with. But that only works when you’ve known one of them longer then they were a couple.
What happens when you met them as a couple and befriended them as a unit? How do the friends caught in the middle stay friends with both parties?
Very very carefully!!! Recently I’ve had 2 1/2 couples breakup among my friends. I say 2 1/2 because one of these couples is still going through it and is currently in that, “let’s say we’re working on it when we all know we’re just not done torturing ourselves yet” phase.
But when the other couples split and I found myself torn between both of them, I took as neutral stance as possible. I let them all vent and cry on my shoulder. Being careful not to use the usual friendly support terms common in these times such as, “you could do so much better”, “I always hated her”, “that bitch!”
Instead reaching for true yet neutral commentary such as, “sometimes love just isn’t enough”, “I think you’re both good people but you brought the worst out in each other” and my last but least favorite, “time heals all wounds.”
See, when you can’t take a side and you’re walking on eggshells your support speeches are severely limited to the lame and the cliche. But what choice do you have? After you repeat those few lines enough times to make you want to stick a fork in your own ear the only other thing left to do is to slowly back away.
I found myself slowly backing off of my friends and I hated that. But after a while I realized I couldn’t fix their problems for them, my 3 or 4 neutral comments just weren’t cutting it, and that I felt guilty even listening to one party talk about the other. Even though I never paid into it, I simply listened. It messes with you head and your loyalty. Are you being disloyal to one friend by not defending them? But you love the other friend too and see where they’re coming from so you just sit there and listen.
That’s sort of what happened here, in front of all of you. Two of my friends have been going through a break up and unfortunately some of it spilled onto here. Some of you may have wondered why I let it go on here. And that’s part of this blog. Because I didn’t want to pick sides. I didn’t want to censor. And because lesbian breakups happen and I thought that maybe, depending on the post, someone might find some help or comfort in seeing that they weren’t the only ones. That’s why I share my personal demons on here, because it helps some people to know they’re not alone.
But as we all know it went to a dark place and everyone was getting uncomfortable. It was sort of like a really really awkward dinner party where you’re invited to someone’s house and then the hosts end up fighting in front of you. You look around the table at the other guests to see their reaction and you’re all equally mortified and not sure if you should leave or stay. Then one or two people who think its gone on far enough might pipe up only to be bitch slapped back down to their seat and told to finish their dinner! So we’re all sitting there, like children watching our parents fight. Our tummies hurt, we feel sick but we can’t help. Because we’re just little kids and we shouldn’t be seeing our parents fight like this. We are going to need therapy after this.
I don’t want this blog to be just about what went down here last night. We were all at the same dinner table. We know what happened. But I do want to let you know what has happened since I think you all deserve to know a little bit at least. I woke up to apology texts from both parties. They know it got out of hand and they’re sorry. They didn’t mean for it to go that far. I totally get it. Breaking up is hard to do, that’s why they keep writing songs about it. Of course I instantly forgave them. They’re my friends. They are still part of the CCL family and are welcome to post in the future. I just think they need some time to live their lives in private and to let themselves heal. I love them and will be waiting for them after their time out.
As for our other friends that you all don’t know, going through similar things albeit not on a blog for the whole world to see ….. Well …. That’s just as hard. How do you stay friends with only half of a couple when they break up? Or even harder, how do you stay friends with both? Especially when there is no “bad guy” in the situation. Only circumstances that couldn’t be helped? Only two friends that loved each other and now don’t. It’s so sad to see this happening to some of our friends. And in a narcissistic way it also scares me a little. All of these couples have been together longer then Remi and I. It’s hard not to look at them and say, “Could that be us in a few years?”
Back from the shadows for one more second… I didn’t see anything after I posted my own last response, so this was all a big surprise this morning. For real. It gets late early on the East Coast..
After my last break-up, my ex and I negotiated a mutual friend each that would be the confidant of one side and not the other to avoid putting any mutual friends in the middle. To that friend, we also took great care not to trash the ex but to focus on personal sadness and struggle. We saved the previous friends of each (meaning: those you knew before you were a couple) for the actual bitter comments to avoid making our friends uncomfortable. It was hard to adhere to, for sure. But we managed it, and are actually friends to this day. Just got off the phone, in fact. And both in happy LTRs.
As for your worry if it will be you one day: length of time together (yours or anyone else’s) has nothing to do with the future staying power of your marriage. Communication and honesty does. The sad truth of my own mother’s words rings true: if they can’t serve as a good example, let them be a terrible warning.
I say that without blame or judgement! It’s a sad thing… don’t let it happen to you. Be kind, be honest, be considerate. Don’t put your friends in the middle. Do your best. That’s all you can do.
With regard to the break up of a couple I befriended, another good friend once said to me, “be a friend to them both, but stay at a safe distance”. That sounds so easy, but is so difficult for me to do. They were two people I loved, two people who shared equally, but for different reasons, in the failure of the relationship. I am the type of friend who wants to comfort when I hear a heart breaking. I am the type of friend who will do what she can in order to make a crisis a little easier to bear. I can’t just stand by with the neutral comments when there is something I can do or say to make it better. I am also the type of friend who will yell at someone to get off the tracks if a freight train is coming and they can’t see it because they are too busy crying their eyes out. I do all of this at my own peril because more times than not, I end up getting sucked into the drama, but I just cannot make myself not care enough to stay neutral. When I love someone, I love them, and if they are crying and heart broken, it is beyond me to just pat them on the shoulder and say, “there, there”. I am the type to stay up all night, as many times as it takes, listening to stories of being done wrong. I offer my home as a refuge. I will do ANYTHING to make the hurt less painful even if it is for just a little while. You’d think I’d have learned by now that all of this can, and usually does, come back to bite me in the ass. Someone usually eventually tells me it’s none of my business after I have spent countless hours giving my energy, my heart and myself to them in friendship because they came to me broken, bloody, and asking. It is not in me to be neutral. I should learn how to be, but that would mean I have to go against my compassionate and sympathetic nature and until now, I could not turn myself off like that. Something in me just wants happiness and peace for everyone, everywhere, and it’s hard wired into me to be a problem solver and a provider of solutions. When someone calls me barefoot from the side of the road while it’s raining and they have no transportation, I will try to find a way to fix the problem even if I am on the other side of the world. I realize the vulnerable state people are in during these times, even when they don’t know it themselves, and I will try to protect them from the vultures that pick at their weakness. I invest too much of myself, I realize that, and I am going to try to do something about that. I am going to try to turn myself off and not take the problems of people I love to heart. I will let them figure it out for themselves. I will stay neutral and at a safe distance. I will hang up the phone and they will still be on the side of the road, in the rain, with no coat and no way out. It has to be that way, it sucks, but it’s for my own good. I will not ever allow myself to be kicked in the ass again because I cared too much. The last go around kicked all the care out of me, and there just isn’t any care left. Let them make their mistakes, let them torture each other for all eternity, let them live their fucked up dysfunctional lives until they’re sick of it or dead. Just don’t come crying to me because I just don’t care anymore. I have become that neutral robot with no feelings that they took me for. That vending machine of compassion they plunked their tokens into. Never once do divorcing couples seem to stop and think what is happening to the people who care about them. Do they ever call me just to ask how I am or how all of this might be affecting me? No. The only time I am called is when they need me to lend an ear or a shoulder because they are so wrapped up in their life altering drama that no one else matters or exists, except for them. I will stop hoping that the land of happiness and freedom for them is just on the other side of the ridge, and I will stop allowing the walking wounded to lean on me as I practically carry them over the hill. I will stop painting pictures of how things could be once they are recovered, and I will stop giving them ideas of things to look forward to or work towards. This story is about no one particular, but again, it is about every couple I have ever loved and helped when they divorced. It’s sad and unfortunate, but I’ve read that story too many times, and now that book is closed.
If this were FB, I’d “like” KDL’s comment. Especially this:
“As for your worry if it will be you one day: length of time together (yours or anyone else’s) has nothing to do with the future staying power of your marriage. Communication and honesty does.”
Time spent isn’t a strong or important measuring unit for a relationship’s strength of validity, not to me. It’s what you do with that time.
Yeah. I understand that. I feel bad that I tried to step in and stop the fighting. I just HATE seeing people argue. I’ll even try to calm down a fight with two random strangers I see in the street. It’s a bad idea but I act before thinking on that one. I owe all three and apology. You, and the couple. I just… Well, I hate fighting. I grew up around it and I try to stop it but… I think I made it worse. So sorry.
About friend couples breaking up. It can be soo hard. Been there myself. I wasn’t real sure what to do besides just comfort both parties. They kept going through make up break up repeat. In the end, I just always changed the subject going all “Oh, let’s not talk about her. It’s too depressing. Hey! Is that a new shirt? No? Oh well it looks good. Oh hey, I gave you that! Remember that one time…etc.”
The love towards my friends never breaks up even if they do. I take them each for where they are coming from and I listen much more than talk.
As for the CCL broken up couple I respect, cherish and appreciate them both. I send them both peace and healing.
This is the reason I hadn’t written any blogs. Because I never wanted any of this. This is not anyone’s personal blog but yours Sasha. I have never treated it as mine nor have I overstepped any boundaries. I simply could not remain quiet as my personal life was being allowed to be splattered all over a place where people were not able to see both sides of the story because I DID what I was supposed to. Now I have been scolded and being put in timeout for being put in a fucked up position too. What exactly was I supposed to do here? Sit by and take it all? None of it should have been posted in the first place.
ya know what? this doesn’t need to go on. i’m outta here. it’s been real y’all. this is me resigning publicly.
i was Bitch In Heels..and the ONLY reason i went by that persona was because of my new attitude in finding myself again. i also did it because nobody would hear me knowing that i was Sarah M. it was my way of keeping this crap under wraps. because everyone had blindfolds on and taking sides…it was dumb.
NOTHING i have said or done was to EVER hurt Raye. End of story. fuck it…
Peace.
I’m done…it’s been real
By the way, thank you for deleting the blog. And thank you for putting a stop to all this. I do appreciate it.
As for you & Remi, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Your relationship is not a reflection of ours. You will be fine. I love you guys.
Thank you both for proving my point yet again. Instead of just letting it be done with you both have to whip up some new drama. Please stop. And don’t attack me or blame me for posting things. One minute you say I have every right to post what I want and in the next breath, you say it should never have been posted.
I made a call based on trusting BOTH of you to be tactful and act like adults. I didn’t realize it was necessary for me to babysit either one of you, to check in with both of you at every move and to coddle both of you every single moment.
You both have used some of your friends without any thought to how you’re making us feel and I for one am tired of it. I’m done. I don’t hate either of you. I’ve tried all I can to be your friend, even when you stepped WAY out of line Raye, one night over the phone and even Remi had to tell you to back down. Do you remember that? Did I hold that over you? No. I just moved on and understood you were going through a hard night. You never even apologized! And I just let it slide. You spoke to me like shit and I was still your friend the next day.
Well … Im done being used and treated like shit and disrespected by either of you and if you can’t see how you’re doing that, then it’s even further proof that you’re so wrapped up in yourselves you wouldn’t notice the world burning down around you because you’re already engulfed in your own hell.
I was going to let this go as well …. I was going to just move on and let my blog move on but Ray and Sarah you just wouldn’t stop. So I’m going to stop it.
I wish you both well in your life. I hope you find whatever you need and I hope you find love and peace. But please leave me and CCL out of it from now on. It’s so sad its come to this, but I actually think neither of your will see your part in this and will blame everyone else. That’s fine. But as far as I’m concerned I’m done. Please don’t bother reading CCL anymore. I’m breaking up with both of you and it hurts my heart. But you guys are poisoning everything around you and I can’t let you keep doing that here.
Goodbye both of you.
Good for you, Sasha. It’s about time. Damn, dyke drama.
For the record I didn’t mean it was your fault for posting it. I meant you should never have been put in the position to have to police it. And I never wrote any blogs you had to police. I never wrote any about the breakup at all. I am sorry it has come to this too. I hadn’t been texting you or bothering you with any of my drama. I have pretty much kept to myself. It’s impossible to ignore what was going on here about me when people are emailing me about it at every turn. Anyway I am sorry this had to ruin our friendship. You were my friend first.
When we’ve had friends break up (and ugh, we have)…I always kind of disappear. I know it sounds mean, but I don’t want to hear the crap, and I certainly don’t want to be put in the middle of a battle. It ALWAYS comes back to bite you. If you have drama, keep it in your own house because I don’t want it in mine.
I don’t want phone calls at 2am, or hearing crap about the other person. When it all blows over, you are both apart, you are no longer crazy, and the dust settles…then, I have no issue with either of you. I usually just send them each a card,with the exact same message – I explain that I wish them well in their break, and that when it’s over, to call but I am withdrawing from the fight. If they don’t like it or don’t understand my position, no big deal to me.
I have a happy, well-adjusted, healthy relationship…and drama is infectious and toxic. I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but when a couple is unhealthy, it just drags everyone around them into the dirt…I mean, look at what happened here on this blog.
Withdrawing is the best strategy…you can regroup when it’s over. That’s what I’ve been doing for years now, and sure I’ve lost some friends who thought I was ‘cold’ or ‘not there for them,’ but in the end, it’s worth it. I don’t mind talking to friends when they are in the ‘not sure what to do’ phase…but once it is in the ‘we are breaking up and hate each other’ stage…I’m out.
@Jul – You sound like myself with the withdrawing behavior and “disappearing act.” I do exactly the same thing and I don’t say a damn thing. All you know is that I’m no where to be found all of sudden. I can’t deal with drama, my life is very uncomplicated, simple and very easy and I love that about my life. It’s also my belief that a lot of people create drama when they don’t have to (for some people that’s all they know). I know that for myself, it comes down to a few simple steps: Withdraw (isolate myself from the toxicity), reflect, change what needs to be changed (from my point of view), then move on to greener pastures aka “door slam.” So far, it’s been flawless. *knocks on wood*
A break up is between those who are breaking up. I fully support my friends, however there is a difference between supporting friends who are going through a hard break up and being twisted into the middle of an explosion between the two who are breaking up. The second is completely unfair to the one who was just trying to help in the first place.
Sasha and Jul, you have both earned a round of applause from me
I agree Jul, getting in the drama can be infectious. It can ruin you when you get lost in it. See, this is why I cut off all contact when me and someone break up. I may start talking to them again later, but for a few months, they cease existence in my eyes. I guess it’s just part of growing up. I admit when I was younger I did the whole “Boo hoo, I hate her. She’s a bitch. Stay away. BLAH BLAH BLAH!” Now, it’s just “Oh, things didn’t work out so we split.” and that’s the end of it when people ask.
Wait Sarah you were pretending to be Bitch in Heels in your comments and then you turned around and accused ME of “trolling” LOL on Jul. Are you fucking serious with that?! Whatever. Beat wishes.
::blinks:: Dude. Y’all are having some intense stuff happening over here.
On topic: I just let my friends know that I love and support them and that I’m there but that I’m not there to hear shit about the other person. Which has worked fairly well. I also try to have non-break up conversation/activities with them (if they’re living in my area) so that we’re doing something other than sitting on our butts moping.
Also on topic: Sasha, I’ve been reading for a while now and drop a comment every now and then (but being bi I don’t feel like I have pertinent comments so often, lol) and I just have to applaud you for taking what’s yours back. It’s so difficult when people you’ve cared for and trusted stop treating you with respect and it takes a lot of strength to do what you feel is best for you. I hope that the hurts in those relationships can heal.
So. I’m dealing with this right now. The catch is it’s been 2 years. My ex and I split and it wasn’t pretty. That being said, there is a couple that I became friends with thru her. As time went on, I became really close friends with the wife. My ex “works” with the husband in a capacity, and her father is his boss in 2 different places. My ex now , after 2 years(she’s with the girl she screwed around on me with) is still causing drama. It sounds ridiculous, but it started with the husband opening a Facebook account. He and I became friends, and had been hanging out for the last week because we happened to be on vacation at the beach in the same place. The wife stayed down and he went back to work. My ex and her gf both unfriended him on Facebook and the ex’s mother wouldn’t even speak to him. The level of immaturity disgusts me. Strong arming someone into picking sides is bullshit. I’ve never put them in any position like that. My ex was letting her friendship with the wife lapse while we were still together and had a total fit when they still talked to me after she gave her version of our breakup. After I had kept my mouth shut for awhile, people started to realize that something’s weren’t adding up and came to me for the rest of
The story. Moral of all this crap I just told everyone is ACT LIKE A BLOODY ADULT. If you feel you are adult enough to be in a relationship , be adult enough to deal with the shit that happens when that relationship ends!!!! People start hating you one, for lying to them and two, for making their social lives hell!!!