It Took Me 30 Years To Realize My Best Friend Was Also My Bully

I thought my best friend and I would grow old together. I know that probably sounds corny, but it’s the truth. I pictured us as gray-haired women getting together for yearly vacations on the coast, laughing about all that had transpired over the many, many years. But this won’t happen. We will grow old apart. Because after more than three decades of friendship, I severed ties with the person I thought would be my ride or die.

I met her when I was a scared 17-year-old, living alone in a city I barely knew, reeling from a traumatic relationship and subsequent abandonment by my much older boyfriend. She helped me through all of that, and she stood behind me when I battled other demons, too. A loyalty was forged during those years — a reciprocal one. I was there when she left her husband, when her daughter stopped talking to her, and when, one by one, her other friends dropped out of her life. Because that’s what best friends do, right?

The actual break-up was ugly but short. It happened at my house, and it happened in front of my son. As someone raised in a very chaotic household with a lot of fighting between my parents, I find it extremely important to have a peaceful home. We don’t yell at each other. We work out disagreements as healthily as possible. So, when my friend began screaming at me in front of my 10-year-old, my inner mama bear roared.

Not in my house.

I went into protection mode: for my son, yes, and although I didn’t realize it then, I went into protection mode for myself.

I’m not going to list all of the gory details that led up to this fight (been there, journaled the sh*t out of that) because I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you probably know how these things go. There’s miscommunication, hurt feelings, jumping to conclusions, and frustrations. And a whole lot of gaslighting, leading you to question your own instincts. Your own right to say anything at all.

But for more than 30 years, I bore witness to a person who was abusive toward others but rarely me, so I stuck by her. For more than 30 years, I suppressed my reactions when she said something cruel that hurt me deeply. For more than half of our friendship, I was aware of these things and did nothing. Because, after all, we had history. She had seen me at my worst and loved me anyway. I needed to do that for her.

We spend so much energy teaching our kids about stranger danger and body autonomy, yet so often skip over the psychological warfare of toxic friendships.

We warn our kids against playground bullies, but we fail to address the simple fact that sometimes bullies are our best friends.

I booked her flight home and a taxi to the airport less than half an hour after our blowout. It was the last time I saw her, because I left the house with my son while my husband waited calmly for her to leave. But it wasn’t the fight, or the 48 hours of strained text messages prior (she refused to come out of her room and talk face to face), or even the years and years of warning signs that gave me the ability to recognize the true toxicity of the relationship. It was that car ride with my son when I suddenly had to explain what had happened.

Faced with the choice of distraction or frank discussion, I really wanted to choose the former — to grab an ice cream and pretend everything was fine. But instead, I pulled the car over, facing the lake, and said, “Let’s talk about what happened.”

While I gave my son the reassuring broad strokes (“She’s angry, but not at you... or even me”), our conversation helped me accept things that I hadn’t fully realized until that point. That I felt an obligation to her. That every time she did something horrible, I justified it by the fact that she had once been there for me. It was a toxic relationship, one that kept going for all the wrong reasons. We’d been friends for so long.

But perhaps most importantly, vocalizing the truth to my son made it finally click for me: Even when you deeply love someone, you have to let them go when they are no longer healthy for you.

We caution against abusive relationships and try our best to model healthy romantic relationships. But unlike physical abuse, emotionally toxic relationships aren’t as easy to “see.” We have examples of gaslighting and narcissistic behavior regarding our spouses or partners, but we rarely investigate the toxic relationships that disguise themselves as “friends.”

I’ve gone through all the emotions since this happened: hurt, anger, disgust, fear, confusion. Toward her, but also toward myself. Maybe she’s gone on to realize that I was a toxic friend to her — that ours was a toxic friendship. But above all, there’s one feeling I have when I think of this relationship being over, and I hope she feels the same.

Relief.