We all talk about how relationships leave us brokenhearted, but nobody talks about how friendships can break your heart too. Everyone, at some point, has been the single friend, which is okay. However, there has been many a time when that single friend has been seen as bitter and envious even when that is truly not the case.
Sadly, when people are in a relationship, priorities and interests change, and that is completely understandable. We’ve all been there. But it’s never cool when people take you for granted or even dismiss you for their new SO. There is never a good reason to push away or dismiss your friendship because a new person has recently entered your life. And I’m not saying that you should be more focused on your friendship than your relationship, just that there needs to be a balance, now more than ever.
Maybe instead of believing that your lifelong best friend is jealous of your relationship and hates your boyfriend, you should reevaluate the situation and think that maybe, just maybe, something else is wrong. We’re all going through our own sh*t, and there is truly nothing worse than counting on someone and having this person leave you hanging for someone who hasn’t been in their lives for more than a few months. And more often than not, our intentions are not to keep you single and at arm’s reach, but to look out for you and to keep you from settling on someone who doesn’t deserve you. There is literally no reason why we wouldn’t want you to find someone that makes you truly happy. Instead of seeing us as bitter, try to hear us out and understand our point of view. If we say something feels wrong, it’s for a reason. Don’t dismiss everything we say so quickly because you don’t agree with it, instead think about it because, sooner or later when you get tired of your SO, you might see that we were right all along.
And if you are in this type of friendship where you don’t feel validated and important to your friend, it’s better to step out for a while and let them be. Either they will understand there is something wrong, that you don’t feel comfortable or appreciated and they will try to fix it, or they simply won’t care because they have their hands full. In either cases, you got the answer you were looking for. I’ve been there several times, and my best advice is that you move on. You truly don’t know how toxic a friendship is or how people use you for their benefit, until you find real friends who accept you and love you for who you are. Keep looking, and don’t be afraid to burn all the bridges necessary to find the right people in your life.