"Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do."
This is a true story. It is long, it will probably be a boring read for you. I wrote this so I can read back in the future to remind myself the pain and stress I went through. Lesson is, having a long history with someone is not an excuse for you to suffer through a toxic relationship. By allowing it, the relationship will only get worst causing unnecessary stress upon yourself.
I had a friend, someone I considered as my best friend. We were friends for about 20 years. We stayed very close in elementary school and were very similar until she moved after the 6th grade. We would keep in touch and her mom would pay for her to fly back about once a year to visit. I never had allowance and asking my parents for money to fly out of state was out of the question. When I turned 16, I got a job at a pizza place saving every penny and was able to afford a plane ticket to go see her.
Ever since I've known her she hasn't really changed, like at all. She never really took risks or had any phases. I, on the other hand, went through many phases. Every year she would visit, I would be a different person and had a different mind set. One year I'm all goth into heavy metal and the next year I'm hip hop gangster queen. We both had dreams going into the medical field, she is currently in medical school and I decided it wasn't for me.
Senior year of high school, she gets accepted into a University back here. We were so excited and believed we would see each other a lot. When I entered college, I was involved in so many activities and organizations. I was also working full time and balancing that with school. I was only able to see her maybe once every other month. Every meet up was just catching up on each others lives and it was a good time. At this point it's been 15 years of friendship and we never clashed.
College graduation comes around and she's in love. She found love here and didn't want to fly back home. My career started at the time, making good money and I was able to afford to live on my own. She was a newly grad and had nothing. As her best friend, I took her in to live with me so she could stay here. Now I can see my best friend everyday, I thought this would make me happy.
In the last 10 years, I've discovered and accumulated a lot of skills and talents. From dance choreography, event planning, hair and makeup artistry, photography and film to even managing restaurants. In the last 20 years of friendship, I was able to always offer her so much but she was never able to do anything for me and I was okay with it. You cannot blame someone for not being able to provide something if they don't have it. One thing she was good at was listening and cooking. She at least did her best to give me what she could do. I was completely fine with it but admit there were times I literally stressed myself out and accommodated to her much more. This is when it started going down hill.
She hasn't changed much since we were kids. When we were kids, our parents taught us to just study, don't curse, don't drink, don't party, go to church, no sex before marriage etc. We are 24 years old now and she still practically lives by those rules. I'm not saying those things are wrong but majority of people in their 20s don't really follow those things, I know I don't. So it was very difficult for me to hangout with my friends and then adjust to hangout with her. Best friends should be able to tell each other everything but with her I couldn't. She would always judge me and made me feel guilty. When I lost my virginity just last year (I know, I'm very late) I was SO scared and waited a bit to tell her. She made me feel horrible and disgusting since she was able to wait until marriage. I don't plan on getting married for another 6-7 years, shit, and I wonder why I had a hard time dating as a virgin.
I saw many signs that it was a toxic friendship but somehow still dealt with it because I didn't want to throw all those years of friendship away. She finally end up moving in with her fiance because she didn't like my lifestyle and my roommates (that's a whole different story). We started going back to occasional meetups and things were good again until she started wedding planning. I gave her some insights and told her how much her wedding may cost from everything she wants and she didn't believe me. Her fiance is a guy who just graduated with no real job waiting to get into graduate school. She forced him to finance her a ring that even I, as a working professional, would not even consider. Her wedding came out to about 3-4 times more than she expected where she used her medical school loans to pay for on top of credit cards after credit cards. I don't know about you but that is unreasonable for two students. I would understand more if parents paid for it but using your education loan? Of course her mindset is that she'll become a doctor and pay it off later. Everyone makes decisions differently and I respect that but don't come complaining about how you are so broke and have no money to do anything. Being the nice friend I was, of course I pulled out the cash to make our time together more enjoyable by always covering everything. "I got this, you're a student. You can repay me in the future when you are my pediatrician for my kids."
Finally, I had enough. I had enough with doing everything for her. I had enough of being nice and submissive towards her. I had enough of stressing myself out to please another person who couldn't return anything to me. She just felt like someone on my checklist I had to make sure I made plans with once in a while. I finally had to courage and attempted to end the friendship a few times. She would call, write, text and leave me messages fighting for my friendship. I really don't have a backbone and fall for it every time.
I planned her bachelorette party for her and her new medical student friends. Medical students are the poorest students because school is so expensive so I made it affordable for them by covering a lot of the cost. She got her dream bachelorette party with the Vegas corner suite and all this cute accessories. Most of her "friends" were not as accommodating to her as they should of been, it was more like their own Vegas trip. There were like two girls I liked but the rest I can already tell they will not be friends with her for long.
Then comes the wedding day. I woke up at 5:30am to be the first one to shower and get ready. I wanted to be ready so I can take care of the bride for hair and makeup while my makeup team takes care of the bridal party. I went to reach for a towel after my shower and the towel rack broke causing me to lose my balance and fall. The ambulance had to come and take me to the emergency room. All I could think about was getting back to the hotel and walking down that isle as her bridesmaid. I rushed the nurses and doctors to finish the test and discharge me. I bruised and fractured my ribs, I was in pain but was still able to walk. When I got discharged from the hospital, no one wanted to pick me up. There had to be quite long discussion about who was going to pick me up which resulted with her dad finally coming. If my best friend who was a bridesmaid was in the hospital, I would of been there and not even hesitate to go get her.
I get back to the room 4 hours before the ceremony and there is another girl in my dress and shoes. Can you believe that? I'm furious and crying at this point. My makeup team did the bridal party and one of them had to do the bride. This is originally a $300 service that I was supposed to do for free so I had to pay my artist. I packed up my stuff and prepared to leave but was able to calm down. Everyone convinced me to stay and understand that she really thought I wasn't going to make it.
The bridal party takes a limo to get around but because I wasn't part of the bridal party anymore, I had to ask random people to drive me to her ceremony and reception. On top of that, I had to find an open seat at the reception because I wasn't on the bridal party table anymore. I was miserable and still able to put on a smile. I was asked to be the MC for the reception so I was excited to be part of the wedding somehow still. Next thing you know, some guy is announcing the bridal party to come out. Wait, that's my job! She replaced me as the MC without any warning! I couldn't bare it anymore, I went to congratulate her with a hug, got picked up and went home.
I was crying all the way home because I truly believe if you've never been a bridesmaid/groomsmen in your life at one point, you were never a good friend. I invested everything and all my efforts into her, I don't know if I even have any other close girl friends where I would have the opportunity to be a bridesmaid. Thing that hurts even more is we both always told each other that we would be each other's maid of honor growing up and for her wedding, I wasn't.
It's been over a month since that last hug and she still has not called me. That's when I finally figured it out. She fought for my friendship so hard because she wanted the perfect bachelorette party and wedding. Once she got everything she needed from me, she disappeared. As hurt as I am and dealing with anger for weeks, I am now relieved that I have a valid excuse of why I cannot be her friend anymore.
I can give so much and I gave everything to her, it is finally over. Every year on July 20th, she will be celebrating her anniversary and I will be celebrating freedom.
"Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do."
