Part Three Of The Threatening Female Friend (And All The Hateful Stuff She Said About Me To The Guy I'm Dating)

If you remember from the last part of this unique three-part-post, I had been struggling to get comfortable with the very close relationship that the guy I'm dating, has with a female friend. Where we left off, The Guy had come to the realization that maybe the relationship he had with this female friend, was not as platonic as he had previously thought. Attempting to rectify the situation, he took it upon himself to email her (cringe!) without my knowledge, and tell her that he needed to redefine the boundaries of their friendship. 

If you have not yet read parts one and two, I suggest you read those first! You can find Part One here, and Part Two here.

As for the rest of you, enjoy the conclusion!

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Her response to his email was quick, and it was brutal.

Actually, her first response was to offer “a listening ear and a friendly hug, because I’ll always be here for you if you want to talk about any problems that you are having with Eden," but when he declined and reiterated that he needed to step back from the personal conversations the two of them had been having, she lashed out in a way that reminded me very much of my mother.

She ranted and raved that “obviously Eden is a mental case if she doesn't want you talking to me,” and went off on a tangent about how I must be some kind of psycho. She repeatedly stated that if "Eden were a secure human being, she would have absolutely no problem with you sharing your relationship details with me." She continued on to say that I’m clearly abusive, and that I had brainwashed him into cutting her off as his friend.

It ended with her telling him how disgusted she was that he would put his relationship with me before his relationship with her, and told him that for his own sake he needed to break up with me immediately.

Many of the emails were mostly in caps, full of more swearing than I care to rewrite, and they came one after another, after another.

Now mind you, I didn’t know about any of this until hours later, and by then there had been multiple email exchanges back and forth. He continued to be respectful and insist that he was making this decision all on his own, and respectfully attempted to calm the situation by profusely apologizing for hurting her. When she continued to demand that he break up with me, and tell him that she was disgusted that he was putting his relationship with me before his relationship with her, that was when he came to me and basically said “I tried to make things better, but I think that I made them a whole lot worse. And to add to it, I think you might have been right all along, because this is not a normal response.”

No, no it was not.

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Sitting on my couch later that night after my kids were in bed, he asked me what he should do, and I told him that it was up to him. You see, I wasn’t unsympathetic to his situation. They truly were friends (whatever her intentions may have been), and I felt bad for him. I actually told him that if this was too much, that my offer still stood and that I would happily walk away; that maybe we weren’t meant to be, and I’d be alright with that. And I wasn’t martyring myself for him, I was just too emotionally exhausted to defend myself anymore against this entire situation. If he wanted her, then I would happily step aside with the full knowledge that I wasn't losing out on anything or anyone, because I clearly deserved better.

He was insistent that things with her were over, that he felt like he needed to stand up for me, and that he just needed to figure out how to really end it with the least collateral damage. I asked him what he hoped to gain from this, and he seemed to be struggling the most with how badly his friendship of 24 years was ending.

Ironically this blog is what came to mind when I told him what I was thinking. 

“Well," I said calmly. "Obviously I don’t like what she is saying about me, but I’m not going to get all riled up about it. What she thinks of me is of no concern to me, and in fact, thanks to the commentors on this blog, I’ve heard much worse. Come to think of it, she isn’t even being that creative with her insults. Amateur.”

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He laughed.

But it was true. I really could not have cared less what she thought about me, nor did I have any desire to tell her what I was thinking about her. As I said, her opinion of me was of no concern to me, and I didn't feel the need to defend myself to someone whose roll in my life was getting smaller by the minute.

Then, keeping with the blog theme, I went on to tell him something that we have talked about on this blog before. “If you need closure, I can respect that. I’ll respect however it is that you want to handle this, but if you’re looking for me to tell you what to do, the only thing I can do is to give you the same advice that I give to my readers when we talk about disowning family. If you are really prepared to end your relationship with her, take one last opportunity to say what you need to say. Do it calmly and with respect, but be prepared that she might not be in a position to actually understand the message that you are trying to convey. Say it because you need to say it, and understand that there is a good chance she won’t hear you. You cannot control her response, and you cannot turn it into a battle where you continue to fight back and forth. Give it one last shot so that when you look back at how things ended, you can find peace in knowing that you did what you needed to do, and you left the rest up to her. Then, when you walk away, you can do it with your head held high; not because you have won a fight over her, but because you know that you did what you could, and it was time to move on.”

I then left the rest up to him, because this was not my battle to fight.

I’ve spent enough time in my life vying for a position that should have been mine by default, whether it was as a loved and cherished child, or the one and only love of my husband’s life. I was sad that The Guy was going through all of this, but I still stood firm with the realization that I had come to; I won’t fight for what I deserve, because if it’s not freely given, then I deserve better.

I deserve someone who is willing to fight for me because they know what I’m worth.

Her attacks on me never let up, and in the end, The Guy walked away….

From her.

He wrote a final email saying that he felt bad that it had gone down the way it had, but that this was just more proof of how inappropriate their relationship had become. “It really hurts me that you would treat me like this" he wrote to her. "After all the time that I spent helping you with your relationship, you have completely disrespected mine."

As I kept reading his email (and am actually re-reading it as I type this), I chuckled a little because I saw a few things written in there that I know we had talked about previously, and it made me feel good that he had really processed our conversation. He confessed, “you two [her and her husband] are always fighting and you drag everyone around you into your relationship, and if I don’t want to end up like that, then I need to do things differently. I can’t sit around and claim that what we are doing is healthy for our partners, when the proof is in your failing marriage and how often you turn to me about the issues you are having, instead of turning to him to work things out. I can’t have a healthy relationship with Eden if I’m in the middle of yours, because I need to focus on protecting what Eden and I are trying to build. I didn’t want to make a choice. I asked you for some time to figure things out, and you wouldn’t give that to me, so if you are drawing a line, then I’m standing on the side that has Eden.”

And I swear to you, looking back, it was like the entire blog opened up and fell out onto the situation; Learning to trust with healthy boundaries, coping with a traumatic past, effectively communicating your feelings, standing up for what you deserve, realizing when a toxic relationship needs to go, disowning someone you care about, and in a new lesson: Learning that the most important way that someone can show you what you mean to them, is by making sure that you never have to wonder if you mean anything at all.

I really wasn’t sure how this whole thing was going to turn out, and I would be lying if I said she didn't continue to email him, but he has never responded back. Emails go to his trash and he unfriended her on Facebook. Her number is now gone from his phone, and the friendship is over. This wasn't the ending that either of us wanted, and I honestly do feel terrible, but unfortunately life doesn't always work out like it does on TV. At the end of this episode, some people are still hurt, some are still sad, and this didn't tie itself up with a pretty little bow where the credits begin to roll.

I was truly prepared to walk away, but I didn’t, and he didn’t, and so here we are. What this will turn into, I still couldn’t say (and I still don’t call him my boyfriend), but whatever we are, we both know the position that we hold.

I’m a priority in his life, not because I fought for the spot, but because he gave it to me.

In life there are some things that you will have to fight for, but your position in someone’s life should never be one of them. You are worth more than having to fight to be seen, and if someone can’t see that, then you deserve to find someone who can. Because trust me, there will be someone who can see your worth, and as I have often joked over the years about my dating life, “dude, if you are not the guy that should be standing tall in my life, then I’m going to need you to sit down so that I can see the guy behind you.”

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If you have to fight to be important, then begin that fight, with you. Fight for what you want, what you need, and what you deserve, and when the right person comes along, you will know it because they will fight alongside you, for you.

The right people — whether it be a parent, a friend, or a significant other — will never make you have to fight for your spot in their life, because they will be too busy fighting to create one for you.

And if they’re not, then maybe it’s time for them to sit down.

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Well, that concludes my first ever three-part-post. Thank you all for sticking with me through it and I hope that it was worth your time!

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If You Liked This, Here Are A Few More Relevant Posts!

“He Loves Me, And I Love Him… Not”

"Boyfriend Application"

“Is It Time To End This Thing?”