Lost a close friend

I’m a volunteer Firefighter down at my local Fire Brigade and whilst in training, one of the new people and I got in to a great friendship right off the bat, which lasted around 3 years. We had everything, well almost everything in common. Even things like our birthdays were the same. It was strange to meet someone so like yourself. It was quite uncanny.
Our friendship developed and more often than not he would see me more than he would his own wife, which I could see was becoming a problem. Apart from doing our Fire Brigade training together, we’d go to Rock concerts, Rugby League games (In Australia) and I’d quite often put on the Barbecue and he’d join for some beers and beef or just generally out for a quiet beer.
At the time he was my best friend or so I thought… After about 2 years, he started to become distant, from texting or calling everyday to texting or calling once a week. During our training which was once per week, I’d bring it up and ask if there is anything wrong, but he would completely deny the fact that there was something going on or that there was indeed something wrong.
It bothered me that he couldn’t talk about it to me, as I thought we were much closer than he thought.
After around 7 months of this going on we got drunk at a party of a mutual friend and I took his wife outside to ask her what was wrong with him and she said “he does this to all his family and friends” I couldn’t accept that so I gabbed him and we went somewhere private and asked him if he honestly still wanted to be mates with me… after 30mins of trying to get it out of him, he finally said No.
This broke my heart almost instantly. I went back inside and everyone could immediately see what had happened and what was wrong. I was on the outer. I quickly gathered my things and walked the 30mins home crying like a little baby. Once I got home, I turned the computer on and played the Top 40 songs on Youtube and it was just my dog, Cooper and I and I remember a song came on, and I broke down in to tears. I couldn’t stop crying. The pain was worse than anything I’ve ever felt before. Even worse than heartbreak. A kin to that of losing a family member as I considered him a brother to me. The pain so bad I looked in to the mirror in my bathroom, grabbed the scissors and was about to do something stupid. Cooper came in to the bathroom and jumped on the sink to get some water. I looked in to his eyes and I couldn’t do it. I gained his strength.
Three days later, I see Haydn at the Fire Brigade and he comes up to me and says “Don’t worry about what I said, it was the drink talking” so silly me goes ahead and believes him.
His prior behaviors continued and eventually we stopped contacting each other.
3 months go by without having said a word to each other, I find out that my Mum had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and with that I contacted him as I needed a friend and he was my closest friend at the time so I went to him, only to be completely ignored and have no remorse or mercy for my mum. This made me very upset and very angry. I’m not generally an angry person, but then sent him some of the nastiest text messages I’ve ever sent another human being before. It all came out at once and I am sorry for that, I really am. There is no reason I should have abused another human being like that for any reason.
It’s been 2 years since that day and after multiple attempts at making amends with Haydn, I have received nothing back. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t think about it all the time. We live in the same area, so I am always anxious that I may see him down at the shopping center (mall) or elsewhere. I am always thinking of texting or calling to break the ice, which I tried late last year to no avail. I even wrote him and his wife a handwritten letter apologizing for what I said, but it wasn’t even opened. I got back in my mailbox with a big “RTS” (return to sender) on it.
I don’t know what to do. It’s been so long but I cannot let it go.
I have recently befriended a new person who is awesome and seems to be a really good person. We have a great friendship building and I look forward to further building our friendship, but I guess the friendship\bond Haydn and I had is still strong and I don’t know what to do. I have a tight knit group of friends who all of them tell me to forget about him and move on, but I honestly don’t know why… I think it’s because I can’t leave without saying Goodbye.

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First off… Thank you for what you do for the fire team. I can’t begin to imagine the relationships you make in that area. I’ve been there with people I thought were my best friend. I had a friend called Sophie, we were inseparable for more than 11 years… Since she got with her boyfriend she started to change and not for the better. We ended up distancing and that hurt me. I confronted her, and she became hostile pretty fast… Instead of rationalising, I sent a whole load of angry messages to her… Which, in return received the same response… I know there were other ways for me to say those things that mean we could have maybe helped out relationship, but, it happened. I’ve recently started having regrets over the whole thing and having nightmares around it all over again - last night was particularly bad.
But… Say goodbye if that’s what you need to do. It sucks that they won’t reply, but, send that goodbye text if it’ll give you that peace. Write a letter… Speak it out loud. Just because they wont reply doesn’t mean you can’t say that goodbye… It won’t be the same, but you’re still taking the step to that peace.

You’re not alone.
Use your friends. That’s what they’re there for.

Hold Fast
Kayla

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Hey there friend,
I want you to know that I’ve been there. I’ve tried to reconnect with a friend that I lost and they weren’t willing to. I finally came to terms with that. No matter what it’s in the past. You can’t change the past, but you CAN learn from it. It’ll all be okay I promise. You’ll be okay.

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Video Response:

I also want to send you an encouragement sticker

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Thanks a lot guys. It means a great deal to me. You are right. Thank you.

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Hi Cr00xy!

if I’m being honest, it sounds like you were in a toxic relationship. Your friend shouldn’t treat you like that. I think you guys had some really great times and you had fun together, but what type of friend tells you they don’t want to be your friend and then afterwords laughed it off like everything is OK. They hurt you and what they did wasn’t OK. I think it’s a wonderful thing to forgive and to MoveOn but it sounds like they did stuff like that all the time. You deserve to have friends who are there for you during your worst moments. You deserve a friends who love you and who treat you with kindness even when they’re drunk. Losing friends sucks. I had a friend who was like a sister to me. But things changed and she started spreading rumors about me. She was so cruel and nasty to my face and I kept wondering what the hell it was I did. I did everything to try to make her like me, to want to be my friend again, to treat me with kindness. But eventually I did the same thing and I called her some bad things to her face. We weren’t friends after that. And I felt so guilty and so upset. But I had to realize that the reason I snapped like that was because there was so much emotion build up in my heart and in my head. We can’t take back what we said, but maybe we can take a step back and analyze why we said those things. I think that you were in a toxic friendship that constantly made you feel worthless. And your emotions got the better of you and you sent that text. I think it’s a wonderful thing that you realize what you did was wrong. I think it’s great that you apologize and that you want forgiveness. But sometimes people don’t want to give that and we have to be OK with that. But you should also realize that what they did was wrong as well. I’m so happy that you have this new friend hopefully they can show you what it means to be a real friend. We don’t always get the goodbyes in life, sometimes things just end and it’s a painful painful ending. But hopefully you can look at that as a lesson and in your future you will know what a true friend is. You deserve someone who loves you. Hold fast.

Love,
Cassie

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Hi Cassie. Thank you very much. You’ve brought tears to my eyes.

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Hey cr00xy,

Thanks for sharing your story about Haydn. I am so sorry to hear about this painful loss of friendship. I can’t imagine how hard that must of been. It sounds like you two had a real good friendship. That is so hard to come by. I can attest to that. I have only had one friend who I truly felt was almost exactly like me. We just got along perfectly. Then we had a falling out and it took over 2 years to finally be friends again. He was eventually in my wedding party because I knew I needed him there.

It sounds like you tried really hard to maintain and rebuild with Haydn. Unfortunately, we can’t control other people. I know it’s hard. It really is. Hopefully in time you two can be close friends again. You never know.

I wish I had more advice or something but I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. You have a great community of people who care right here. Sure it’s not the same as an in-person friend, but it’s people who genuinely care about you.

By the way, Cooper is an awesome name for a dog!

Stay strong and hold onto hope :slight_smile:

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@cr00xy

I’m sorry your friendship ended horribly. The hardest lesson we need to learn is friends come and go. We wish we want to have the best friends forever type of people, but in reality, it’s not like that. It is for the best. Thank you for sharing.

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