Friendship Emotional Neglect
Signs of Emotional Neglect in a Friendship:
You are left feeling angry, confused, guilty or resentful when you have contact with the friend.
The friend is always busy and does not make time for you.
You are left feeling like you are continually chasing the friendship.
You offer the friend support when they need it, but this is not reciprocated.
The friend continually says we should meet up but does not put the work in to make that happen.
In 2019 I had varicose vein removal surgery which triggered my preexisting dystonia in my left leg to move to my right leg. A few months after surgery I noticed that my driving leg would go into spasm or be in a lot of pain when driving. I decided the ethical and safe thing to do was to give up my car. Rather than just a stick, I started to walk with a walking frame and then Covid struck us all. I have never wanted my disability to define me, I am fiercely independent and like most humans I don’t like the vulnerability of asking for help or being treated differently due to having a disability. I know I sometimes am my own worst enemy in getting help, but this has been a time where I also noticed friendships that I have given a lot of myself to, have been very absent and that has led to friendship emotional neglect.
Like many of you, I found the isolation and loneliness of Covid very hard.
At first, we all made the effort of propping each other up during that time - at first it felt we were creative and then we just all got burnt out by the many lockdowns and sense of unsafety of who had it or has it. In some ways during Covid where everyone was affected by either getting it or needing to isolate from it. I sort of hoped that people would start to understand what it was like to live with chronic physical or medical conditions. Where if we have flare ups our physical needs are our priority and what it is like to know the isolation and loneliness that comes with knowing that the world out there is enjoying itself whilst those of us in flare up are home in exhaustion, fatigue and pain. It is often those that have family or a close friend that get it and those who don’t witness it or experience it that don’t.
Now that we are out of Covid lockdowns and whilst Covid has not gone away we have been programmed to think it is now just part of our daily lives. Over time I have noticed since my physical needs have changed that some friendships have been emotionally neglectful.
A friend asked me two important questions:
Is the friend willing to accommodate my needs? Are they able to be there when I need them?
A friendship broke down recently as they lived only 10 to 15 minutes’ drive away but our friendship had moved solely to WhatsApp. They made time for work; indeed, I could pay to attend one of their workshops if I did want to see them and they made time to see their other friends but made no time to see me. When I tried to state my needs, they said, “when friends challenge their availability that is often when the friendship is over”. I guess I should have taken note of those words the first time they were said as it got rather painful them repeatedly demonstrating their lack of availability and commitment to the friendship over time. I tried to write a letter to them stating my needs and they made me feel that they wanted to repair the relationship in their WhatsApp reaction. If they had even made time for a catch up by phone, then that may have let me know they were there for me. And with both of us going through personal challenges, they made it impossible for me to offer them support too, which I was left feeling confused and guilty for; throughout the friendship we had always been there to offer each other support at hard times. This led to me not feeling able to let them know that I needed their support, as they were always too busy and had little time for me. The friendship dissolved due to the fact I could not trust that the friendship was wanted anymore and whilst I had made it clear all the way through that we needed to talk about where we were, they said they could not handle the intensity coming from me, could we just meet for coffee and not talk about it. You can’t work through what’s happening in a relationship without talking about it. It was the not talking about what was happening that was causing the problems in first place. So, the friendship broke up!
Friendships - like any relationship - are not a one-way process.
Yes, we can all have challenges that make us want to take some alone time and that is okay, but I feel when they become emotionally neglectful, they may not be worth keeping if you are continually feeling like that you are chasing something that is not reciprocated. Any healthy relationship needs to be a space where you feel safe, respected and that you can move through difficulties and change shape in your identity in the relationship together. No relationship is smoothing sailing, because all relationships involve feelings. Friendships that last can talk through those feelings, because we can’t and don’t develop and evolve in relationships if we can’t. We are living in a heavy world and sometimes it is our friendships more than any other relationship that get us through the tough times.