It is not always possible to take away someone’s legitimate pain…but it is always possible to give that pain meaning.
I have had friendships that were as deeply part of my life as my marriage. They have lasted years and then foundered.
On a bad day when work is not going well or for some other reason I am in a low state all these relationships that failed to survive crises and transition leave me feeling diminished and ashamed as if there as something I should have done better to avoid this situation.
Every friendship has its own story, some are meant to be profound and some are only meant to be fleeting.
The ones that cause me the most pain when they fail are those that were based on a commitment to truth.
What I mean by this can be explained in a story.
I remember a group of women friends I had who were always supportive of their fellow women friends when they were let down by men.
One day we were confronted by a situation where a woman friend was faced with her partner ending a relationship because she wanted to marry and he didn’t.
Suddenly the man became demonized as if he had been caught cheating on her.
Actually they had simply reached a point in their relationship where they both wanted different things and although it was painful it was legitimate for the man to be able to say no to what my friend wanted.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable being part of this women against men conversation but needing to go and think about why.
I then realized we were speaking about this man as if with a template that had been cut to fit any situation regardless of its subtle reality.
The situation needed specific diagnosis and we had become instead general in our response.
We had become tribal.
She is ours, you have made her unhappy and we are against you.
As a group of women we were very interested in the poetry and writing of Adrienne Rich.
She is a person who has written a lot about a longing for truth in her relation to herself and to those she calls friends.
The possibilities that exist between two people or among a group of people are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting things in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.
When relationships are determined by manipulation, by the need for control, they may possess a dreary, bickering kind of drama, but they cease to be interesting. They are repetitious; the shock of human possibility has ceased to reverberate through them.
When someone tells me a piece of truth which has been withheld from me, and which I needed in order to see my life more clearly, it may bring acute pain, but it can also flood me with a cold, sea-sharp wash of relief. Often such truths come by accident, or from strangers. It isn’t that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everthing, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibility of life between us.
Adrienne Rich.
Women and Honour, Notes on Lying (in Lies, Secrets and Silence)
These words were very much part of our lives as a group of friends. Faced with the conflict that arose between us because I wouldn’t demonize a man who hadn’t done anything wrong most of those friendships foundered in my life.
There were those who were for the friend and against the man and that was the only viable position for staying in the group.
I was too young at the time to be able to describe what had gone wrong.
Now I am older I can understand.
This situation contained the possibility of putting into practice our ideals as described by Adrienne Rich.
We could have comforted our friend and not demonized the man who had sensibly ended something where both parties wanted different things.
It would have been possible to be a good friend to the woman with the broken heart and to be fair to the man who couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I now know how to express this and describe what was happening.
At the time lack of life experience meant I just had an uncomfortable feeling in my tummy and so we parted ways.
Some friendships survived that particular drama at that time.
They survived because we were able to speak about what had happened and put right the demonizing of the young man.
What was set up between us then was the beginning of a biography of depth.
We had all had an experience of trust that we could go wrong and then talk about it and redeem the situation.
The ones who wouldn’t talk about the situation where they had taken part in bullying someone out of an unthinking tribal sympathy wouldn’t speak together because they couldn’t bear to loose face, to be wrong , to have behaved in a way that merited remorse and truth and reconciliation.
Those friendships fell by the way and the others lived on to meet new challenges as we all grew older.
The grief and diminishment I felt at my failed friendships comes about from thinking I have not managed to do enough to save the friendship.
I begin to see more and more clearly I cannot save a friendship unless both parties are prepared to be united by wanting to find out what is actually happening, the truth of the situation, rather than a kind of group consciousness that fails to have empathy and interest in everyone’s experience even those who are not part of our group.
Friendships come and friendships go. WhIt is not always possible to take away someone’s legitimate pain…but it is always possible to give that pain meaning.
I have had friendships that were as deeply part of my life as my marriage. They have lasted years and then foundered.
On a bad day when work is not going well or for some other reason I am in a low state all these relationships that failed to survive crises and transition leave me feeling diminished and ashamed as if there as something I should have done better to avoid this situation.
Every friendship has its own story, some are meant to be profound and some are only meant to be fleeting.
The ones that cause me the most pain when they fail are those that were based on a commitment to truth.
What I mean by this can be explained in a story.
I remember a group of women friends I had who were always supportive of their fellow women friends when they were let down by men.
One day we were confronted by a situation where a woman friend was faced with her partner ending a relationship because she wanted to marry and he didn’t.
Suddenly the man became demonized as if he had been caught cheating on her.
Actually they had simply reached a point in their relationship where they both wanted different things and although it was painful it was legitimate for the man to be able to say no to what my friend wanted.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable being part of this women against men conversation but needing to go and think about why.
I then realized we were speaking about this man as if with a template that had been cut to fit any situation regardless of its subtle reality.
The situation needed specific diagnosis and we had become instead general in our response.
We had become tribal.
She is ours, you have made her unhappy and we are against you.
As a group of women we were very interested in the poetry and writing of Adrienne Rich.
She is a person who has written a lot about a longing for truth in her relation to herself and to those she calls friends.
These words were very much part of our lives as a group of friends. Faced with the conflict that arose between us because I wouldn’t demonize a man who hadn’t done anything wrong most of those friendships foundered in my life.
There were those who were for the friend and against the man and that was the only viable position for staying in the group.
I was too young at the time to be able to describe what had gone wrong.
Now I am older I can understand.
This situation contained the possibility of putting into practice our ideals as described by Adrienne Rich.
We could have comforted our friend and not demonized the man who had sensibly ended something where both parties wanted different things.
It would have been possible to be a good friend to the woman with the broken heart and to be fair to the man who couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I now know how to express this and describe what was happening.
At the time lack of life experience meant I just had an uncomfortable feeling in my tummy and so we parted ways.
Some friendships survived that particular drama at that time.
They survived because we were able to speak about what had happened and put right the demonizing of the young man.
What was set up between us then was the beginning of a biography of depth.
We had all had an experience of trust that we could go wrong and then talk about it and redeem the situation.
The ones who wouldn’t talk about the situation where they had taken part in bullying someone out of an unthinking tribal sympathy wouldn’t speak together because they couldn’t bear to loose face, to be wrong , to have behaved in a way that merited remorse and truth and reconciliation.
Those friendships fell by the way and the others lived on to meet new challenges as we all grew older.
The grief and diminishment I felt at my failed friendships comes about from thinking I have not managed to do enough to save the friendship.
I begin to see more and more clearly I cannot save a friendship unless both parties are prepared to be united by wanting to find out what is actually happening, the truth of the situation, rather than a kind of group consciousness that fails to have empathy and interest in everyone’s experience even those who are not part of our group.
Friendships come and friendships go. When they are lost because of this dynamic, just understanding what happened give me some peace of mind.
en they are lost because of this dynamic, just understanding what happened give me some peace of mind.
The Hospital for lost friendships
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