Latest Online Counseling
Latest Online Counseling
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The Counseling SituationThanks for
the email reply as to how I should begin with my problem. I think that the
biggest issue one with me this moment is my relationship with my friend in another
city. The problem arose because of several things; I was in
that city for 6 months. I wished to meet my
friend during that time but she was either working or busy doing something else.
I was disappointed that she didn't give me any of her time beyond speaking to
her by telephone when I could actually get her because I only had her mobile
number, the battery of which kept cutting out. She told me things close to
her heart and allowed me to support her emotionally when she began
encountering problems with her husband's attitude to her job, which she had
already been doing when they first met. They married in a relatively short
time from their first meeting. I was
trying to help her to save the marriage from break-up and felt guilty
at advocating a temporary separation in which time they could work things
out. He moved out and 2 days later he was in a serious road accident,
which put him in intensive care in hospital in coma. I wrote to her a lot
to give her love and support, for which she was grateful. I cried quite a lot
about it when she let me know what had happened. I spoke to her as much as I
possibly could, but she wasn't able to talk when she heard me and hung-up
crying. Two months
after the accident, I was on a trip and felt uneasy about things even on
the day that she later told me that he had died. She told me by email a few
weeks later. In the meantime I sent her post-cards as I went along. I had
hoped to go and see her as we had planned before I found out.
However, she implicitly said no, as in she didn't say anything about it
so I visited another city for the next little while. All the while I felt
really sad about her. I went
back to the city she lived in and stayed there for 5 weeks in the hope that I
would see her. After arranging a meeting before I left, she forgot and stood me
up. I tried to get her to commit some time to meet me because I was due to
leave soon. I found it hard to accept that she wasn't in that personal
space to see me even when I was over for a limited time-frame. Over the
next 2 years I sent her quite regular emails to give love and support. In the
middle of last year I wrote an email to her and was about to send it to
her. However, I waited for a moment and then inserted a hurtful statement
rejecting her as the closest friend I have ever had this life. I actually
think that it was a self-rejection based on my personal issues. She
replied by mobile to say she'd been in hospital and just found the email. Of
course, the statement made her feel betrayed and hurt. She cried on the
telephone. I heard her on the message on the machine and it haunts me
still. She emailed me saying that she felt betrayed and couldn't trust me. She
asked me why I called her on the mobile but didn't let her answer me. I was
anxious that she would reject me back. I was scared of the outcome even
though I didn't know what it would be. I wrote to
her to try and fix our friendship again. I have written to her several
times since then and for her birthday I sent a present on which I
placed conditions of acceptance rather than as a gift itself. I have asked her
subsequently to open her heart to love me and to heal herself where I am
concerned and in all else too. I see her in light always when I think of her.
I have been getting mental pictures of other lives I have had. When I think of
her I also get flashes of times when we have been together as either sex. I
don't want to lose her in this life even though I know I continue to have
contact with her at a higher level of being. Since I have been working with
this person near me I have changed to an incredible extent on the inside. I trust this is probably enough info. Please let me know if you wish further clarification.
The Counseling Response
One
of the most important aspects of a relationship is communication. Most
people, tend to make assumptions about other people. We decide
that we know how another person feels based on our fears. Yet our perception of a situation may not
be right. People have preprogrammed behavioral responses. For
example, if as a child, you associated a frown on your parents face with anger,
as an adult, you'll experience a frowning person as angry. The person frowning
may be thinking about
something else, but you wouldn’t know because you learned to interpret a frown as anger. In
your situation it appears that there’ve been times
of inconsistent and one-sided communication in your friendship. In the
beginning, the communication was open, sincere, and
intimate, and at other times, especially later on, there really was no
communication at all. You made assumptions about the level of interest from your
friend and now you feel hurt that she’s not responding to your attempts to
communicate with her. If you
look at the beginning of the relationship, the problems
started the first time you visited your friend. She was unable to
communicate what she wanted and you found you really didn’t know what she wanted out of your friendship.
You filled in the blanks about what she wanted based on your desire to keep the
friendship alive. Her actions suggest that she was
comfortable having you as an online confidant, but not necessarily day-to day. People
who are afraid of hurting another person’s feelings, don't say how they feel outright, they try to send messages in other
ways instead. In any relationship you need to ask questions, and if
they are avoided, to ask why the questions are being avoided. A question you needed to ask your friend in the very beginning was
why didn’t she want to see you and spend more time with you. She said she was too busy, that her career was very demanding, and
that was something you needed to question. She
may have felt uncomfortable that you had come a long distance for a
long time primarily to see her. She may have thought that your
interest ran deeper than friendship, and being married, was uncomfortable
with the idea and afraid to express her fears. But I'm
guessing here. The only way for you to know for sure is by asking all the
questions you're afraid to ask.
To avoid possible rejection,
it was easier to accept that she didn’t answer you or explain why she didn’t
take the time to see you more and hope that her distance from you was temporary.
For relationships to grow, you must take risks. If you have fears and you
ignore them, they build up out of control. A healthy relationship is based on trust and
honesty. If you were afraid to share your vulnerability and
fears, the relationship had little to grow on. It’s easy to share the good
times, but the challenge comes when you are faced with each other's insecurities. Ask her what she wants, while you express
what
you want. Respect her decisions if her interest isn't the same as yours.
If she isn’t sure, give her time to decide. She may be willing to still have a long distance
friendship, but you have to find out from her. She has many overwhelming emotions with the death of her husband and needs to have the space
to deal with it. In your clarification email, you described another situation where you had experienced a lot of hurt and disappointment. In that situation and the one above, you’ve been faced with many unanswered questions and fears. Personal growth is about exploring those fears. When you identify your patterns and negative belief systems, you can replace them with new ones, your life becomes easier and more full of the positive things that you want. Take the steps to make those changes in your life.
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