Friends or Frenemies?

[stardust86]

Okay let me briefly tell you what the past is... Past is a guy in my life who cheated on me. I was introduced to this guy by these friend by the way. Anyways, they bring this up over and over and over and over again to make me realize how stupid I was. Yes, I get it. I was damn young, made stupid mistakes. I have learnt from them, moved on and tried to make a better life for myself.

The convo's you mentioned. Both of them occur. The mistakes I made AGES ago and the nice part. Everytime, it's like that. Every time.

I can't just let them go, I still have some hope that they will come around. Maybe that is selfish of me or naive of me, I don't know but I'm being honest. I do have some hope. I just know that I have stopped sharing much with them. It's funny you talked about the approval thing. I do share things with them and talk about certain things because their approval does mean alot to me. It's just this time, I haven't really gone about asking for their approval only because I'm really happy, masha'Allah and I don't feel the need to put my life decision in their hands. I did that once and it resulted badly.

I'm just really tired of always trying to make the effort. It gets draining. It is sad, I totally agree with you but I guess it's life and things won't always work out.

^ Hmmm, Stardust, what do you mean that they bring up your past? Does it go something like this?

You: Talk to friend about them staying quiet and not reacting much to your good news.

Friend: Gets defensive. Starts bringing up mistakes you made in the past. Mistakes that might not be related to the issue at hand and took place AGES ago.

You: remain quiet because your friend won't let you speak.

If that's the case...............then that's not a very good friend. This sounds like a person who instead of being open-minded enough to reflect over her behavior and consider your concerns.................would rather get defensive and distract from their mistakes by focusing ALL the attention upon a negative past.

OR.............by "past".........do you mean that this friend gets defensive and reminds you about all the NICE things she's done for you in the PAST??????????? If that's the case....then even that is unreasonable. Because the issue at hand is her reaction to your CURRENT GOOD NEWS and not her reaction to some good news that you have a long time ago in the past. This means that this friend of yours doesn't want to make any recent efforts to be happy for you..............and has the "Oh I showed my happiness years ago and don't need to show it anymore" attitude.

Again, what do you mean by past?

If you've tried talking to them.....................and they're not understanding the problem...........and if you don't want to drop them as friends.......................just don't share many things with them. Sometimes, Stardust, people think we're being "needy"...........and they enjoy the fact that we want their approval. It gives them an ego boost to think that we need their word of approval or blessings. So, if you act confident and tell yourself that you don't need their approval and that you're happy with how life is turning out for you...................................then maybe they'll become curious about why you haven't shared anything about your life with them. Maybe if you back off a bit...........they'll be more curious/interested in what's going on with you.

^It's sad that you should even have to do this. Sincere friends should make the effort to be happy for one another.

[stardust86]

You're right. I know I get taken advantage of cuz I'm too nice and generous. My parents always tell me, the world will eat me alive! I'm trying to change but it's hard cuz I've always been like this.

Maybe with time... they will realize. I still have some hope...

I don't want gift or present or anything like that from them. I just want them to be there with me. I don't know... Maybe I'm asking for too much.

I've always understood them no matter what the situation is, or at least tried to understand and hear them out. I don't know.. Blah. This sucks. I always somehow get the kick in the butt and all I did was try to be happy.

I'm just going to have to accept what life throws at me because it's Gods will. He knows best.

The only other possibility I can come up with is that perhaps your friends are being protective of you. Maybe they're afraid of getting your hopes up........because they don't want you to get too excited in case things don't go well in the future. Kind of like...........let's say that you get nominated for something. And you want the prize. But your mom, who loves you very much, will encourage you.............but she won't get too fired up and overexcited because she doesn't want you to get hurt in case you don't win, or in case things turn out differently than you dream/imagine. Is that possible?

Also, when we act tooooooooooooooooooooo nice/generous to people............they take us for granted. Human nature. Some people get so used to your "giving"...............that they only expect "getting" all the time. If you back off..........and don't lavish so much generous attention on them.........they might snap out of it and realize that a relationship needs to have mutual consideration. ********* But keep in mind that there are people who are just not good at realizing these things.

**********And people have different ways of showing affection. Some show affection through material things like gifts. And others show it through spending time with you. How do you measure which is better?

^^^ If neither of the above are possibilities..........then they don't sound like good friends, sweetheart. When we've been with people for so long..........we're so used to them that we feel uncomfortable with the thought that they may not be good for us. So, you either maintain a distance from them. OR, if you still want to keep them in your life in spite of the fact that they don't understand your feelings.........then just accept how they are. Take the good with the bad.