dialoguing is a newsletter from an off-duty psychotherapist keeping the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. if you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋 this week on the docket is an advice-esque segment, called dialogue league, where we take a reader question…
Friendships are one of the most precarious things I see people trying to navigate in my office. Romantic relationships and family seem to feel more concrete—less like a choice and more a fixed entity. When we feel choice, as we often do in friendships, indecision is not far behind. Of course, the truth is that we often have some amount of choice, even with family. However, that doesn’t feel as true. With friends it’s innately different. The expectation is that you have several, not just one or a couple in the case of family members and partners. You know many friendships can, and likely will, end throughout your life. I believe this makes them inherently stickier AND shinier than all the other relationships we have.
If you want more info and my full disclaimer check out the about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hiiii, dear one!~still not a session 🙂 dialoguing is an educational and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment. If you’re new here, a great place to start is my first ever edition of this newsletter.
(Editor Note: This is a very complex topic. I recommend utilizing the footnotes for additional nuance and resources.)
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dialogue. (verb) take part in a conversation or discussion to resolve a problem.
league. (noun) a collection of people, countries, or groups that combine for a particular purpose, typically mutual protection or cooperation.
-Oxford Languages
Dear dialogue league,
I’m writing to you about what I feel is a lopsided friendship. I’ve invested a lot into this relationship and I’m not feeling that reciprocated which has led me to feel constantly let down. I wouldn’t describe the friendship as toxic or broken, however I’m feeling disheartened and lonely. This friend says I’m their dearest friend, but I don’t feel I’m seeing that in their behavior. I’ve brought this up to them before and nothing is changing. I hate feeling resentful, but I also worry about appearing needy, whiny, and pitiful. Help!
Sincerely,
Asking For a Friend 😉 About a Friend
(Note: This question was reconfigured to protect anonymity at the request and with permission from AFAFAAF.)
Dearest AFAFAAF,
I’m so glad you asked this question. One, because I can hear your agony over how this feels and the uncertainty around what to do. And two, this is such a common struggle right now. I see it all the time in my therapeutic practice. All. The Time. When we’re younger, we are more or less in the same season as our peers. I find things get particularly hairy as we begin to enter phases of our lives at different intervals as our friends. A disconnect threatens. Also, as is often the case, what I see in my office is a microcosm of what exists outside it. Just yesterday I spoke with a friend about a conundrum similar to yours–I know I feel hurt AND I know I care about this person AND I don’t want to do anything to threaten our relationship AND that feels hard to resolve.
Which leads me to what I hear. While your question is succinct and I don’t have all the facts in terms of what precisely feels lopsided in this friendship, here is what I sense:
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You’re confused
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You’re hurt
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You care about this relationship and don’t want it to go anywhere
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You’d like some things to change in order to protect the viability of the relationship
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You worry about how you’ll be experienced if you ask for accommodations
Let me start with what may seem obvious, but we always seem to skip: All those feelings are valid. No need to explain them away–although we give that the ol’ college try every time, don’t we?
As I wrote about last week, parts language can be incredibly helpful in us making sense of ourselves and what we need; and it can loosen the fusion with our feelings. Parts language is sort of just how we talk (e.g,. “A part of me likes working remotely, and then another part misses getting out of the house.”). It’s also foundational to the Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework1. IFS is a therapeutic model that presumes we are not a unitary being, but rather we have a system of different, but interconnected, parts of ourselves with their own thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, and worries.
If we were to use IFS language for your question, those above assertions could transform:
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You’re confused —> becomes—> A part of me is confused
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You’re hurt—> becomes—> A piece of me feels really hurt
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You care about this relationship and don’t want it to go anywhere —> becomes—> A part of me doesn’t want to lose this relationship
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You’d like some things to change in order to protect your ability to stay in the relationship —> becomes—> A part of me knows something needs to change if I’m going to remain in this relationship
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You wonder about how you’ll be experienced if you ask for change—> becomes—>A part is worried about being perceived as needy
I suspect those revisions may feel like an oversimplification of this delicate experience. At the same time, I invite you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask yourself if any of that rings true. If so, we proceed. If not, you can ask for clarification from these parts, “What about that doesn’t land? How would you say it?”
Then we validate, if we can. If we can’t, it’s because our parts are fighting. I could see how the part of you that wants to preserve the relationship plays tug of war with these other parts.
Part that is hurt: I’m so annoyed and resentful. I do so much for this friendship and I’m just not getting that in return. UGH.
Part that wants to protect the relationship: Yeah, but it’s not a bad relationship. It’s not like it’s toxic. There is something here. We can’t just throw it away because you’re annoyed. You’re being too sensitive.
Part that feels something needs to change: Are you serious?! Are you actually serious? Do you hear yourself? Why are you protecting them and not yourself? It’s not that hard. Just do something.
Part that worries about being needy: Don’t make a big deal out of nothing. You can handle this.
And so on and so forth. I took some creative license there, but I’d be willing to guess that isn’t too far off. Not because I’m clairvoyant, but because I know this internal chorus intimately.
I’ve been on both sides of this equation. This dynamic comes for us all, not just some of us. In certain friendships, I’m you. In others, I’m your friend. I’m positive I have friends reading this right now, nodding along like “Yeap. Kaitlyn has let me down like this.” I’m honestly just learning how to be a genuine friend. Not that I was bad at it before. I wasn’t. I was probably mostly decent at it. The problem was largely that I wasn’t me at it. I was guarded. I people-pleased and read every signal I could find to determine if I was performing OK, rather than turning inward to wonder “How am I feeling in all of this?” I am a pathologically noncompetitive person, excepttttt when it comes to the part of me that wants to be the more proficient person in any relationship I’m in. I don’t have a real good sense of what that even means, but I know it’s true.
I love that you use the word “reciprocated,” because reciprocity isn’t about the expectation of sameness–e.g., I would NEVER do that to you or I do MORE than you. It’s about all parties being able to share their needs and experiences with the other under the premise that we will do our best to respond, adapt, and react without dismissing. It’s the innate intimacy in saying, “I work like this. I get hurt like this. Are you able to be mindful of that? Or, at the very least, understand that?” and vice versa. It’s also the difference between equality and equity2. We all need different things in our relationships to feel healthy.
This reminds me a bit of a concept from The Gottman Institute, called a Love Map3. The idea is that we intentionally develop a deep sense of our people, or a map in our minds, of their dreams, hopes, worries. His work is mostly about couples, but if you’re anything like me, friendships are just as dear as our romantic relationships. Gottman’s research has shown that when these maps are present (and fostered), couples are more able to traverse difficult moments. I reckon the same is true for our friendships.
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Contents
Up For Trying Something New?
To be fair, I don’t know what you’ve tried, so it’s possible none of this is new. What I do know is that when I’ve been the you in friendships, I’ve felt disenchanted with the possibility of anything changing. Which often resulted in me trying to find a way to tolerate things the way they were—shrinking myself and growing resentment along the way. These are the approaches that help me feel centered, clear, and capable.
Check Assumptions
Without judging or policing yourself, check in with how you are making sense of this lopsidedness? This may be a good moment to try your hand at parts language.
You indicate you’ve brought up these feelings of inequity before. Do you feel the person didn’t understand you or just simply doesn’t care? How are you interpreting this lack of responsiveness? Really try to be honest about what you are hearing from your parts.
When I’ve been you in this friendship equation, I often hear my parts say things like, “They’re taking advantage of me.” “They just can’t do better.” “They are narcissistic.” “They want to hurt me.” “They just don’t care about me.” “This is just who they are.”
It’s both important to drill down on what exactly feels inequitable AND generate some distance from those thoughts by noticing they are only a part of us. For me, this allows a different type of engagement with my thoughts. I can wonder about those assertions. Do they still read true when I look AT them rather than THROUGH them?
While reading ’s The Book of Boundaries4 (which side note, has superb scripts for setting boundaries) I was struck by how important it is to track any value judgments about the other person. My parts above have stories about the other person—stories about intent, stories they feel are protecting me from something. I don’t fault them for that. They have their reasons. But, the truth is I’m not generally in relationship with people who want to hurt me5. The person doesn’t need to be a villain for my hurt to be valid and worthy of addressing.
Another type of assumption to notice is your expectations around communication. My personal rule of thumb: I trust people will tell me if they are upset with me and I will do the same. That being said, I love to bitch, so I also give room for people to just bitch. Maybe they don’t really want to voice every minor frustrations they have with me. Which, fair enough. Picking your battles and all that. However, on the whole, I have instituted a belief system that if someone wants me to know they have been hurt by me, they will tell me. To be clear, this is far from a perfect system. People don’t always tell me. I often still preempt: “Are you upset with me?” “Did that hurt you?” (You can hear me do this live with my husband on the pod last week).
That is the thing with this kind of belief system, at least for me, I don’t need 100% success rate to live by it. I learned this was true about myself after resonating with a story I heard Brene Brown tell about her husband. The way she tells it he said, “I’ll never know whether people are doing the best they can or not, but when I assume people are, it makes my life better.” Similarly, I can’t really know if my system is objectively “working,” in fact, I’m certain it doesn’t all the time, but believing that people will tell me when they are hurt leaves me more peaceful and empowered. It’s not my job to infer how people experience me6 AND it is my job to share when I’m hurt. I don’t always do this perfectly, but it is my north star. When it’s my turn to share what is and is not OK for me, that is my only job. My job is not to make them change. And thank goodness for that.
Lastly, checking your assumptions about yourself and your needs may be useful. You mention the fear of being perceived as “needy.” Explore that, with curiosity. “Where is that coming from? What makes me think this is needy?” When I notice an inner-critic, I have a history of jumping in with reassurance,—“That is silly. It’s not needy to want more from your friendships”— rather than wondering with openness. It’s tempting to interject (partly because I believe that aforementioned statement). However, if we glaze over the critic, we lose the opportunity to learn something about our system. This speedy reassurance can also lead to further polarization among our parts. I suspect we have all felt how flat platitudes can fall when they are rushed.
Put the Tension Between You
Last year, I listened to a five episode series from the podcast, Therapists Uncensored, called Disarming Human Defenses7. If you can make the time, I’d recommend everyone listen to these. They are incredible. The biggest “Aha!” moment I had while listening was about where we let the tension reside in relationships.
Caretaker-types have a tendency to hold, hold, hold, hold it all. Hold it, hoping the other person may notice. I may be the guiltiest person in the world of this offense. When my son was young, I felt like it was so obvious I was drowning. I was seething inside. “WHY IS NO ONE HELPING ME. THESE MONSTERS.” Turns out, I looked totally fine from the outside. I would get help when I asked (most of the time), but it was unwelcome news to me that I had to notice the distress and name it aloud nearly every time. I would liken it to me constantly having to remember I can’t just exercise once and reap mental health benefits forever. Each time I want that dopamine rebound effect, I have to do the thing to get it. I find this deeply unfair, but I’ve mostly surrendered to this reality. Now, this has improved with time, I don’t have to ask and name it EVERY time, but I do have to more than a part of me would prefer.
Another thing that comes to mind for me around this is the extent to which we are direct. As a therapist, I tend to lean wayyyyy too much into saying things in a manner people can hear them. While this is a skill I’m glad I have learned, I can also be very heavy handed in the delivery. My therapist once said to me, as we role played me sharing a grievance with my husband, “I can see you empathize with him and you get this will be hard for him to hear, but you don’t need to dilute it that much. If you soften it to that degree, it barely resembles what you said you felt.” This is a sign my parts have come in. My “preserve the relationship” and “caretaker” parts. They are so worried that my pain will hurt him and/or drive him away. They feel the only solution is to minimize it into a small, digestible offering. Au contraire, my dear sweet parts. If I don’t make it abundantly clear how hurt I am, he assumes I’m fine, but I’m not fine. And it sounds like, neither are you.
By naming what goes on in my body and brain and sharing that with the people I’m feeling aggrieved by, I take the tension that previously only I’d been holding and put it between myself and my loved one. I’m not putting it solely on them nor am I shouldering it alone. It’s between us. For us to look at together.
Faith and Trust
There is a level of faith and trust necessary to have with our people—that they can handle difficult feelings. Otherwise we are always doing that work for them. In some ways that is nurturing, and yet, in other ways, it’s condescending.
There are things in people that evoke a lack of trust in us. Sometimes that is because they are demonstrating behaviors that suggest to our system they can’t really be trusted and we should, nay HAVE to, do all the heavy lifting in the relationship to keep it afloat. Other times, it’s reflective of our own challenges giving people the chance to show up. It’s so vulnerable to stand there with your heart in your hands, showing people where it hurts and what it needs to heal and flourish. It’s a wish, a hope, but not a guarantee.
If you can’t summon faith and trust—that they can handle their own discomfort about this and they ultimately care about you, want to know you and do better—I hate to say this, but it may be time to revisit the question of if this relationship is toxic or broken.
My hope is that with a little bit of listening to your system of parts–what they are worried about, what they want for you, what they are protecting you from–you may find more clarity in where you have agency to make changes. Friendships are one of the greatest joys of being a human person walking this planet. You deserve to feel reciprocity and alive within your friendships.
One of my favorites in the therapy realm, Terry Real, says in his frustratingly great book Us8 that there are fights worth having. I can’t help but wonder if this is a fight worth having for you.
Sending love, warmth, faith, and trust.
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Questions for you:
(1) How have you managed lopsided friendships—on either side of this equation?
(2) How do you know when it’s time to call it?
(3) How have friendship breakups gone?
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The reader mentioned how their friend says they are their dearest friend, but that isn’t felt. It made me think of this scene from The Last Kiss9 between Zach Braff and the late, and infinitely great, Tom Wilkinson. This is going to be another romantic relationship example, but I DON’T CARE. It’s not that romantic relationships and friendships are interchangeable to me, but they aren’t that far apart either in their impact. My friendships have saved me. lit me up. challenged me. broken my heart. I wouldn’t want to do this life without them. I love seeing them honored and explored more lately, like in this interview on Culture Study titled, Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Anyway, back to the scene…
Zach’s character has cheated on Tom’s pregnant daughter. They’re arguing on the porch. Zach is insisting he loves Tom’s daughter. Tom replies, with a finger to Zach’s chest, “How you feel, only matters to you. It’s what you do to the people you say you love. That is what matters. That’s the only thing that counts.”
FADE OUT.
know someone who needs to read this?
If you’re interested in submitting your own question for dialogue league, please email me at [email protected]—or if you’re reading this via email you can just hit reply and send me a message. Love hearing from you for any and all reasons!
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I’ve written about IFS several times on dialoguing—here is one with a Taylor Swift lens, another about my relationships to wanting and disappointment and one from last week about parts and parenting. Going Gently also has a great introduction on the model. You can find an outline of the model here. IFS Directory: List of therapists who practice IFS and what level of training they’ve had.
2
Equity v. Equality by the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley
3
The Gottman Institute’s Love Map
4
The Book of Boundaries by Melissa Urban
5
If this doesn’t ring true, then consulting something like the Power & Control and Equality wheels may feel useful in identifying abuses of power. I find that we feel disempowered either because there IS an abuse of power or because we’ve given too much power to the one we are in relationship with. What I mean by that is, in the latter scenario, we’ve found ourselves believing the other person has the key to our peace. But, in my experience, the more you understand what is happening within you (e.g., what is hurting, what doesn’t feel right and why), the more power you will feel to speak to that and make decisions based on that (and sometimes that decision is bringing a relationship to a close).
6
I do my best to read social cues, nonverbal behavior, and integrate what I know about a person when interacting. Saying it is not my job to infer how other people experience me is not about neglecting those considerations, it’s more about avoiding creating narratives solely in my head by interpreting feedback that isn’t there.
7
Therapists Uncensored: a five episode podcast series on Disarming Human Defenses. I listened to these over a year ago, but I remember feeling so much of the information was novel and challenging (in a great way) to me. I may not be getting the putting the tension piece exactly right all this time later, but that it what I took.
8
Us by Terry Real. Those that have dialogued from the beginning know how much I wax poetic about this book. It’s a must read.
9
Scene from the The Last Kiss (2006). It’s so good-watch it!