Dr. Michelle joined Hoda Kotb on Today to discuss how to get rid of toxic people in your life including your boyfriend and friends.
Relationship rules for the modern family
Psychologist Michelle Callahan offers relationship advice for families who are trying to maintain friendships with another family, especially when all the people in both families don’t get along.
My Friend Stopped Talking to Me Because I Had a Baby with My Boyfriend Who Cheated
Ask Dr. MichelleNo Comments »Answer: Should she have cut you off cold, especially after having a baby? Absolutely not. If anything, she could have told you sooner how she felt and what she wanted to change about your relationship. She might have felt happy about the baby but allowed herself to distracted by who you chose to have your baby with and that’s not her decision to make. Yes, you should be disappointed in how she handled it and who knows what else was going on in her head that made her think she should just disappear from your life like that. She may have even been jealous that you two were able to recover from infidelity and work things out.
Now, let me shed some light on why I think she might have disappeared. Sometimes we have to be careful about how much we share with our friends. Even though we don’t mean to, sometimes we frustrate them out by over-sharing our problems. It may have been too much for her to go through all of the cheating with you and then for you to say you were having a baby with the person she probably dislikes given all that you’ve shared. She probably didn’t understand or respect your decision.
In the ideal world we want our friends to be there for us through everything and under all circumstances but our friends have lives and feelings too and they get frustrated when they see us making what they see as poor choices (and they may in fact be poor choices). When you want to go through the same problems over and over and then talk about them everyday, sometimes friends can’t handle that.
I’m not excusing your friend. I’m saying you have to be careful about how much of your business you share with anyone, especially about your partner if you plan to stay with him through a lot of drama and expect your friends to still be cool with him. Most people’s mothers, sisters and aunties wouldn’t be happy about your decision either. They probably wouldn’t cut you off cold turkey because you’re family, but they might back away from you for a while so that they don’t have to ride that emotional roller coaster with you.
You may have let your romantic relationship problems become almost 100% of what you talked to your friend about so that your friendship became little more than a venting session about your relationship. That’s when your girlfriend sees you calling and doesn’t take your call because she doesn’t want to hear anymore about “him” again. When we don’t work on our friendships they start to fall apart. I bet if you two could get back to focusing more on your friendship and less on your relationship with your boyfriend, you could patch things up.
Hopefully, you’ve both learned from this situation, and if you want to, you can still be friends (unless in your time apart you’ve realized that you are better off without each other). When you’re friends with someone a long time you have to “grow-up” and mature with them over time and that may mean disappointing them along the way but it doesn’t have to be the end of the friendship. This was a learning experience that you can recover from and rebuild if you choose.
Good luck!
Copyright 2010 Dr. Michelle Callahan. All rights reserved. This article on friendship was originally published in Dr. Michelle’s online advice column at www.drmichelle.com/ask-dr-michelle
Dr. Michelle stopped by LXNY to discuss her new book Ms. Typed: Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships and Find Dating Success and to offer tips to singles on how to have a Happy Valentine’s Day.
Dr. Michelle appeared on the CBS Early Show to offer her Do’s and Don’ts for how to have a fun and happy Valentine’s Day.
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