Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [68]
ASSESSING THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Monica, 40, is married with three kids who are involved in sports and other activities that consume most of their free time. Over a period of four years, Monica and her husband developed a group of friends with kids the same ages. Her closest friend in the group was Susan.
Monica’s and Susan’s families also became close, and took two very pleasant vacations together. When the two families went to the beach together for the third time, another family joined them. “It was a terrible trip,” says Monica. “Jenny, the other mother, was a bore and ruined much of the weekend. She ganged up against me and, afterwards, my best friend Susan ignored me for an entire month. I finally confronted Susan at a baseball game. She called me names and said she was tired of defending me to everyone.”
Susan tried to patch things up, and eventually Jenny started being friendly. But when summer was coming around, Susan asked Monica if her family would think about a “separate” house at the beach. Making that comment drew a proverbial line in the sand between Monica and her “friends.”
“I wish these people didn’t bother me, but I feel terribly betrayed,” says Monica. “Our kids are all in the same activities and I can’t get away from them. I’m even considering moving our family to another state.” Just because these women are behaving like girls in junior high school shouldn’t mean Monica needs to play in a different playground.
When a couple breaks up, there is often forethought about the division of properties they once had in common. In considering a divorce, parents usually think first about the consequences for their children. One common oversight women make when ending their friendships is considering those kinds of collateral losses, and how they might be dealt with.
One potential loss to think about if you are considering ending a friendship: not only will you be ending the relationship with your friend, but you may also be cutting yourself off from other collateral connections you have made through your friend—her family, her friends, and her acquaintances—which, to some extent, may now have become yours. You need to consider the spillover or damage of the breakup to all the other relationships you share—mutual friends, children, spouses you thought of as friends, or coworkers who will be dragged into the drama.
If you have a circle of friends in common, will they feel the need to align themselves with either her or you? Will she be likely to trash you to the other women? Will you have to explain the falling-out? Can you handle the gossip that may ensue? If you are mothers and your children are playmates, will it make the kids feel uncomfortable that their moms are no longer talking? Will you be able to go with your friends on that girlfriend getaway to Vegas if you just ditched a friend who is going on the same trip? How will you feel about going to your high school reunion if you know she will be there, too?
If you are couple friends (two friends who are friends as individuals as well as couples), what effect will it have on your partner’s relationship with his or her friend? Will you be inadvertently destroying other people’s friendships? If so, is the breakup worth sacrificing your partner’s friendship as well? It’s probably worth discussing this as a couple beforehand so you know in advance if your husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend feels their relationship is too important for you to risk or if they’ll be able to sustain it without you.
If you’re contemplating ending a friendship with a colleague at work, whether she is a peer, supervisor, or subordinate, you need to be certain you don’t unintentionally provoke her (or any special allies she might have) to undermine your role at work. You may also risk creating a hostile work environment, or an awkward one. Will it seriously impact your productivity or