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Friend pushing me away

friendfriend
Community Member

One of my best friends (he’s male, I’m female) has suffered from pretty severe depression and anxiety for a few years now, for reasons I am not aware of. I tried my best to have his back and support him through everything, I never gave up on him and we got along very well. He always had my back too, anytime I struggled with certain aspects of my life he always knew what to say. For a long time he was in a sort of not too serious ‘relationship’ with my sister, which I’m guessing gave him more reason to get along with me, but that retain my wasn’t the thing that defined our friendship. Sadly, a few months ago he made a more serious attempt at harming himself and his depression became much worse. I got very scared and emotional and I still am worried about him, but since the incident he has completely cut me out of his life. My sister and him have since fallen out, he cheated on her and began trying to make her feel bad for what he did. He acts like we never even knew each other, gangs up on me to pay me out and say nasty things, blocked me from social media and always puts me down. I have no idea what to do, I feel betrayed in a way, but more overwhelmed with sadness that our friendship is all of a sudden just gone. Especially because he has helped me with so many problems that I am currently still dealing with and he is not there to help me anymore.

How do I build our friendship back and apologise and make him see that he is still so important to me without sounding stupid and without him pushing me away and embarrassing me? I have no idea what to do or what happened between us to ruin our friendship but I want it back so badly. Please help.

1 Reply 1

james1
Community Champion
Community Champion

hello friendfriend,

I sometimes tell my partner that I don't need people and only need animals, because animals are so much easier than people. I am only half joking.

It's so hard to navigate friendships and relationships. They can go sweet to sour with one small act, and we often don't ever understand why.

I am not sure what is happening with your friend, but can I ask why you feel like you need to apologise?

It sounds like something happened which broke your friendship and you are trying to rebuild that.

They sometimes say that forgiveness is a virtue. It takes a lot of character to truly forgive, and unfortunately it is not always given. It sounds like you have forgiven him for hurting you and just want to reconcile, but perhaps it is not reciprocated.

I do not think there is much you can do except be direct and ask what happened and why he feels the way he does. Ask if he can forgive. If he cannot, then I'm afraid that is that. It may change one day, but you don't earn forgiveness - it has to be given freely.

Do you have other friends you can confide in?

James