The death of a friendship

It’s hard to watch a friendship fall apart. I’ve seen a number of them come and go, but I’ve probably never stressed out about one as much as I am stressing about my failing friendship with J.

It’s hard to know where it all went wrong. It started with personality differences. Once I got some perspective, I realized I didn’t really like the way she conducted herself.

Then I felt that she didn’t support me in the right way with the infertility stuff. To be fair, I didn’t really know how to articulate my needs and I recognize that she was in a tough position.

Then she and her husband started TTC and that was the first major nail in the coffin. I couldn’t handle it and she showed an enormous lack of empathy. She had the guts to complain about how tedious sex was on her second TTC month, while I was gearing up for my first IUI and mourning the loss of sex in the baby making process.

In January she deeply offended me by pushing her religion on me. I responded too harshly and she was hurt.

Then she, understandably, went radio silence for a while when she found out she was pregnant and hadn’t told me yet.

When she told me she was pregnant, I thought I reacted very well. In fact, looking back, I probably reacted too well. She thought she could talk to me about her pregnancy and I wasn’t ready.

I told her I needed space and she honored that for a week or two and then stopped giving me the space I needed.

I was too firm with my demand for space.

She kept trying to make the “break” on her terms, and about her. I was in a dark place after my second IUI failed and she didn’t respect what I needed.

Then I emailed her inquiring about a mutual friend. Apparently, she didn’t like that. She was short with me in her response.

So I gave up.

Gearing up for our group dinner last month, I texted people and said “please don’t bring up my infertility. We can talk about it one-on-one if you’d like an update.” That was the agreement: no pregnancy talk, no infertility talk when J and I were together.

Then she stomped all over the agreement by talking about her pregnancy almost exclusively.

I was so mad when I left that I was trembling.

So now we pointedly do not talk. We do not communicate.

I am not going to her baby shower, although I will send a gift card. I’m not callous enough to let it pass by completely unnoticed.

Looking back, I’m not sure if I could have done anything differently. Some things are just meant to end.