Back in May, I went to a coworker's wedding, and as it was the same day as my college graduation, I asked my best friend (who would already be visiting) to go with me. I made it clear when I asked her that it was a coworker's wedding, with lots of other coworkers invited, and that we should keep drinking to a minimum. I believe I specified "one or two drinks". We both work in high schools, so I was fairly confident my best friend would understand and behave appropriately.
The story actually starts earlier in the day, when we were driving home after my graduation. I was driving, with my older brother in the passenger seat and my best friend and her boyfriend in the back. My best friend was apparently bothered by the open window, but rather than rolling it up she took off her seatbelt to slide into the middle seat, and didn't put her seatbelt back on. I happened to glance into the rearview mirror and saw her in the middle back seat without a seatbelt on, and had a panic response. (Some background: around 4 1/2 years ago, I was in an extremely traumatic rollover car accident during which my spine and both my hands were broken and significant damage was done to my face and head from the windshield glass. I was in the middle back seat of the car when the accident happened. My best friend knows about all this; she visited me in the hospital during the accident). I told her to "put her fucking seatbelt on" with what I hoped was a joking tone. She did not take it that way. The car ride was spent in silence until we got to our destination, and I immediately apologized once we were alone. She forgave me eventually, but it took some groveling on my part and a lecture from her about respect.
Later that night was the wedding. It was in a tent outdoors in the pouring rain, and unfortunately was pretty cold. The bride was about an hour late (understandably), and my friend used this as an excuse to have three drinks on an empty stomach in the span of that hour. (I don't know how many drinks she had after that). I should mention that we were sitting at a table with one of my students and her mother, and that my friend knew this. She spilled 2 different drinks, one on me and one on another person. She could barely stand up at points in the night. She was dancing and talking inappropriately in front of my student. I didn't say anything during the wedding because I didn't want to cause a scene at my coworker's wedding. I got her out of the wedding as quickly as possible, which was difficult since we had been shuttled to the location.
The next day was my graduation party, so I didn't say anything to her at all about it, but after she left I texted her saying "we need to talk about what happened at the wedding." Nothing else. She texted back after leaving me on read for a full week with a paragraphs-long diatribe that simultaneously excused her behavior and pinned it on me for "not telling her not to drink", as well as pinning it on the bride for being late to her own wedding. I attempted to be calm and factual, but she began to fling really hurtful statements about my personality. I ended the conversation by saying we shouldn't talk for a while.
It took 2 weeks for her to text me again, and because of that I had a lot of time to think about our relationship over the past 7 years. I started to realize how miserable I've been for the past 3 of them. She was incredibly supportive after my car accident, during my rehabilitation, and during the year or so afterward that I struggled with depression and had to leave college. Once I started to piece my life back together, however, things have changed. Over the past 2 or 3 years, every time I've visited her, we've ended up fighting. I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells, watching what I say around her, afraid I'm going to make her angry. No matter how careful I am, I make her angry anyway. I refuse to be a passenger in a car with her anymore because of how dangerously she drives, even though she knows about my history. One time she pulled out her phone and started texting while driving, and when I told her I could take care of that for her, she yelled at me. When she calls me on the phone, she gives me perhaps five or ten minutes to talk about what's going on in my life, and then the rest of the one to two hour conversation is about her. Even when I am talking, she constantly interrupts me with her own anecdotes. This is also not the only time she has become inebriated to the point of sloppiness at "my" events. On my 21st birthday, she got so stoned that I had to spend the whole night taking care of her, and then said it was my fault since I gave her the brownie, although others also had the same batch and they all were able to function.
She's only ever known abusive relationships with people, which is why I think I've excused a lot of those things. She's NC with her emotionally abusive family, and has during our friendship had 2 extremely shitty boyfriends. Her current boyfriend is absolutely wonderful - I adore him - and she talks a lot about "unlearning abusive behaviors". She's in therapy. I think she doesn't realize that abusive behaviors don't just affect romantic and familial relationships. She has lost quite a few friendships in the past few years, but it is always the other person's fault, and I believed her about that. She has made it clear to me several times that other than her boyfriend, I am the only person she has.
TLDR: My best friend got very drunk at the wedding of one of my coworkers, behaved inappropriately in front of a student of mine who was there, and blamed it on me. In the weeks of radio silence I've realized she has been treating me poorly for years.
My question is: can these behaviors be addressed? Can she change? She was once a really excellent friend to me, and I'm not quite sure what happened. I hate to throw away a 7-year friendship over her getting sloppy at a wedding. I'm still angry, don't get me wrong, I just want to know: is this person actually toxic/abusive, or is she just totally un-selfaware?
Submitted August 29, 2018 at 11:37AM by extrafancyrice https://ift.tt/2N2Cvqv
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