I actually cut loose my best friend of 21 years last May. It was a very difficult decision, but honestly it has been so rewarding. We met at church when we were both 5 and clicked instantly. We we’re attached at the hip from then on. When we were in our teenage years we went through similar things at the same time. We were both diagnosed with migraines around the same time. She has bipolar and I have depression. We we’re a match made in heaven, or rather the netherworld. Despite all these things, she was incredibly bossy and would constantly hit me in the head. She would say how much better she was. She would even date the guys I wanted to date to prove she was better than me. Even going to college was a competition.
I got married in 2016, and had her be my matron of honor. Everything had to be her way, and if it wasn’t she’d get upset. She didn’t like the dresses, colors, or venue I picked out. She was already spiteful towards me because I graduated college, then got married 2 years later, whereas she never graduated and chose to get married and have a kid. She resented that I had a good job and made a decent living for being straight out of college. I decided to cut her loose shortly after I started wedding planning because she was just atrocious to my bridesmaids and tried to make it her day. She called the day before my wedding and said she didn’t want any shed blood between us, so she showed up.
The 6 months or so after I got married were a very tumultuous time in my life. My depression took a nasty turn and my husband’s Tourette’s was becoming overwhelming. On top of that my migraines were becoming more frequent and my Grandmother died (we were super close). I really needed to step back and take some space and process things on my own for a bit, and she didn’t really respect that. A coworker of hers died the same day as my Grandmother, and she said that it was selfish of me to process things alone, and that she was more important than anything I was going through.
A few months later her and her husband came to spend a few days with us, and it blew up. I had enough. I was struggling with grad school and my current job. I was unsure if accounting was something I truly wanted to do in life. She berated me the whole stay to just be a nursing assistant and that my student loans weren’t a big deal and I’d manage somehow. On top of that, she put down my entire life. She was commenting on the small size of our apartment, our car, and shaming us for having two good jobs. She either wanted to be better than me or worse than me. She could never let us have our separate lives. She always had to outdo me.
She went back to Ohio, and I haven’t talked to her since. I didn’t even tell her. She knew for years what bothered me most, and it didn’t matter. Talking to her wouldn’t have done anything because it never did, so I just stopped answering her calls and texts. Almost one year later, and it has felt amazing to not have to be dragged down all the time. Your true friends will want to build you up and see you succeed, no matter what. True friends don’t mean you talk every day or even every month. It means they are there for you when life is at it’s worst, and they help build you up into the best version of yourself.