Why is my friend pushing me away?

[Jade]

my best friend moved away 5 months ago, though she did not want to. or said she did not. We are both adults (in our 30's) Since that time I have felt pushed away and tossed aside. she said she was going to try it where she was for a year and if things were not good move back. Here is the thing. We used to talk all the time on the phone, several times a day. she told me that she never had a BF until she met me. (we have only been close friends for 2 years). She said I helped her like no one else, etc. When she was debating on weather to move or not we talked about things before she moved and she even asked me what I thought would happen to "us" if she moved. i said just what I thought would happen, we would go from being close and talking daily til we started drifting away. she said we would not. so she knows how I feel. It is weird, she as always said that she pushes people away. I just cant get that.
one week it is like she wants to talk to me lots and then one week she acts as if she dont. But yet she will fuss cause I dont call her. I dont because everytime I do i feel I get the blow off and I have told her that. so what is the deal with that? why would she push away someone she says has helped her an made her feel more confidance about herself than anyone? Any clues to this? when is she like this and why do I keep feeling so pushed away?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few possibilities:

1. she may find the geographical distance from her friend distressing and be finding that when she talks to you she misses you more - thus, she avoids or limits her conversations to avoid the distress

2. she may be finding what many people discover - that close friendship is often based on shared experiences and that living at a distance makes it difficult to continue that aspect of the friendship - over time, some emotional distance emerges because there is no longer the shared experiences - even though you may remain friends, there may not be the same level of intensity in your friendship

3. she may be worrying about the financial aspects of trying to maintain a friendship with long distance phone calls

4. she may have met new friends in the new town who are taking up more of her time as time goes on

 

[Jade]

Thanks. I can rule out # 3. I can see # 2 and #4. That is what I hate. The feeling that I am being replaced. She will text or call and say she misses me so much one week and harding want anything to do with me the next. That is why I feel like if she is busy with something or someone else she is not missing of me. In fact when she first moved she acutally said, she could not sit around all day thinking of me and missing me and had to do something to get her mind off things. It just seems like if she missed me and wanted to be here like she says at times she would want to talk with me all the time like before. I know I feel that way. When we met she live 30 min from me, when she moved again it was over an hour away, but we still kept things like they were before. Now, her sistuatuion is diffentent and I feel like she is always looking for a replacement, )A replacement husband and a new best friend)

I hate feeling this way. I just feel that if she way still living here or would come back here things would be like they were.

It is just weird. one day she seems like things are good there and says nothing about missing me, etc. the next or next week or when she is having a bad day she talks of movign here and even told someone if things did not get better she was moving in the summer. A week later when I asked here something about how seroius she was about moving here she said I don't know. I can never get a straight answer from her. Maybe she really dont know what she wants.

How do I get past feeling jeaulous that she may not want to talk to me as much because she is confiding in others and how do I get past feeling repalced? Also, how do I know if what she is telling me about moving back is really true? or is she just telling me what I want to hear.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

If you are correct, she is moving on with her life. That doesn't mean you won't have a place in her life but it won't be quite the same place you had before.

When you think about it, she is moving on with her life instead of sitting around feeling lonely and miserable. As her friend, would you really want it any other way for her?

You need to move on with your life, too. And again, this doesn't mean writing her out of your life - it just means changing the significance of the roile she has had in your life up to this point.

Everything changes and evolves. Whether we like it or not.

 

[Jade]

I totally know all of this and do understand it to a point. but let me explain this. and maybe your insight can help. I am not the only one she pushes away from time to time. She relizes she pushes people away and even told me that when we first met. She is a needy person, told me that too an d I came to see, hates to be alone, I saw that too. She has emotional issues. I have never had any one in my life with sistuiations as hers maybe that is why this is so hard to undersstand. I guess what I am trying to understand is why would someone run hot then cold. Like it is friendship on her terms now when it was not before. She will fuss cause I dont call but act as if she dont want to have anythign to do with me or has nothing to say when I do. (and i told her this when she finally asked me why I did not call anymore) May be she feel the same way about me. Maybe she feels I am pulling away. I do think you for providing this online outlet. i have never posted to a fourm before.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Without knowing your friend and her history, one can only speculate. Often, when people push people away it is protective - perhaps she has been hurt before and tries to keep people at a distance to avoid experiencing again. Then, she feels lonely or disconnected and tries to reach out again and if you respond she gets frightened/anxious and she pulls back again. That would certainly be experienced as "hot and cold"...