De-Friended

It's National Unfriend Day, but I got de-friended by the ex and members of his family. A little background, to be fair: I de-friended his sister and her girlfriend last week because his sister had decided to comment on our relationship on Facebook. Something to the tune of:

"Saddened to see how quickly love can turn to hate."

Excuse me? Who would do that? So of course my ex has to defend himself and get a little dig in saying that from his end, he doesn't hate. So I defriend her, in an emotional state because I am staying with friends and didn't have a key. So I'm sitting in my car and reading Facebook and I happen upon that statement. So of course I stew. And then I'm feeling homeless and sad when I have a perfectly good home to go back to with the sweetest dogs ever. More on that later in a future post.

So the next day I start defriending the sister and the girlfriend and all members of his family I really never talked to anyway. About four hours later, I get a FB message and new friend request from her. "Why did you defriend me? I didn't break up with you." And being the person I am, I didn't want to go back on FB, so I had her number and I called her.

She picked up and was shocked to hear from me, I think. "I need to let you know why I defriended you. You took something that's between me and your brother and made it public when it wasn't yours to do. And that's hurtful."

"Well, you have to understand, I'm an emotional person."

"That's why you don't put things on Facebook!"

Then more "blah blah blah" the family's sad and my son's devastated (it took everything in my power not to say: "I bet not more than me.") And then I made an official statement.

"Since I have you on the phone, I want to make something clear. My silence is not a reflection on how I feel about you or your family and the respect and love I have for them. But I'm not in communication with your brother, so I won't be in communication with the rest of the family." And we ended our conversation. So I did add the sister and the girlfriend back in because I didn't want to create more drama.

But when I had lunch with my friend Amy and she said you could hide people instead of defriending them, I decided to do that. I really don't want him seeing my posts right now. So I defriended the ex, the sis, the girlfriend, the dad and then I went to defriend the mother.

DEFRIENDED!

Wow. I just sat there for about 30 seconds in complete shock.

Then I got over it. Certain dynamics were being revealed, which we had discussed while in our relationship. And I also discovered during the conversation with his sister that he hadn't been in communication much with the family, which was contrary to what I had heard. So it was clear that if he made it clear with his parents what the contributing factor was to our breakup, they had not shared that with her.

And then I got really appreciative for my relationship with my Mom. My Mom is the most patient person I know. And I know now that I've mirrored a lot of behavior from her, which is why I was in the relationship for five years despite some awful things. And I'm now saint either, but some of what I did was in reaction to what was happening around me. But I didn't talk about it or confront as much as I should have. That much is clear now.

Anyway, my Mom is also crazy and a nutball. And I can tell her ANYTHING. Like "You're a crazy nutball, Mommy. Now let's go shopping. And let me tell you about my balls." My relationship with my Mom is pretty singular and unique. She told me once that because she couldn't share things with her mother, she wanted to raise children to be totally open with her. And that means everything. She's very honest with me, but totally loving. And she hasn't had a mean thing to say about my ex. Not once.

So the mother's defriending was followed by my ex defriending me and then the sister and girlfriend defriended me as well. And this is my feeling about it. I wasn't hurt. It really needed to happen. This is a clear ending of a relationship that was everything I wanted at the time. And a lot of what I thought I deserved. The conclusion I came to, at a certain point in the relationship, is that I was recreating my parents' marriage, which when I was a kid wasn't good. They are still married and my Mom's gotten tougher. But when I was a kid, she took a lot of verbal abuse from my Dad and I watched it, perhaps more intently than I thought.

And in therapy once I said that I was afraid I was becoming my Mother in her relationship with my Dad from when I was a kid. It was then I realized that I couldn't do that. And I tried not to do that in my relationship. Ultimately, what I started to realize was that I couldn't change the dynamic in that relationship. It had to end. And now that the dynamic has changed, the other stuff is falling away.

What's next?