Breaking up with your best friend of 10 years is an all-encompassing grief.
I look back at the moments we shared and can pinpoint exactly where it all went wrong. When principles don’t align anymore and the feeling of being mistreated becomes too much to bear, I realize that the boat we’ve sailed through life together on is sinking from the damage he’s done, and I just couldn’t go down to the depths of the ocean with them.
It wasn’t as if it were a sudden decision. These recent years, I saw the quiet crumbling of a friendship I had adamantly believed to be unbreakable and thought it was just something that could eventually be fixed through patience. After all, we witnessed each other at our worst and helped each other get through our lowest points. We fought and made up, trusted each other with our secrets, and didn’t need to constantly text to know that we’re always a call away. There was no problem we couldn’t survive together, no matter how long it took to solve.
And that makes it even more painful—how low someone you’ve trusted for a good chunk of your life could make you feel.
Photo from Instagram/bojackscenes
There are no words to express the heartache of realizing that your best friend isn’t exactly a good person. I couldn’t admit it because all I kept thinking about was how they had been a great friend to me. But maybe they weren’t that either. A “great” friend wouldn’t constantly use you as a moral compass. They wouldn’t invalidate your experiences as if they have more wisdom than you do. And they most certainly wouldn’t attempt to take advantage of you (even if it had happened long ago).
It’s easy now to think of all the wrongs they’ve done to me. And still, I can’t help but imagine how it could have partly been my fault. There is guilt within me, wondering if my not trying hard enough to stop their bad decisions all these years has made me complicit in their actions. There is regret for treating their consistent refusal to listen to my advice as a mere character flaw instead of a red flag. I fear I could have done so much more, but didn’t; had I been more attentive and firm and caring, I could have helped them become a better person.
But sooner or later, I have to understand that all these were conscious choices they’ve made, and it’s not my responsibility to save them.
At a certain point, I knew I had to take off the rose-colored glasses and see my best friend as the toxic person they are. Now, the path we’ve tread on together these past 10 years has abruptly diverged; heartbreaking as it is, I knew the only way forward for me was to preserve my peace and let them go.
My other friends tell me that it was a good decision—in fact, it might be the only decision I could make.
I think there will always be a part of me that wishes it could have gone differently. But we each deal with the consequences of our choices.
I know 5 years later, when I reminisce about my years in college or the beach trips I’ve taken, the grief from our split will continue to echo within me. I will come across a song, or an art piece, or a thing that will remind me of what I’ve lost. I hope by then I can find it within me to be grateful for all the time we’ve had and the joys we’ve shared, and how we once helped each other grow and become.
So to you, who also mourns our severed thread: Thank you. And it’s going to be okay. And I’m sorry.
Photo from Bojack Horseman
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