q: a good friend of mine suddenly got dumped by her live-in partner of two years, just over a month ago. she was upset for about a week, and since then, she’s had this “everything is fine, thanks for asking” attitude. she has even started dating someone else! i know everyone deals with traumatic events differently, but it feels weird hanging out with her now, because the conversation is very light and only occasionally makes any reference to the breakup. i’m torn between wanting to ask her how things are REALLY going and not wanting to force her to have a serious talk if she doesn’t want to. i don’t want to imply she’s handling the breakup in the wrong way, but i worry that she’s not giving herself a chance to really deal with her feelings and move on.
if she’s doing fine, then that’s great and i’m happy for her, but it just seems too fast. as far as i can tell, she’s not talking to any of our other friends about the breakup, either, so it’s not just that she doesn’t want to talk to me. is it time for an intervention, or should i take her at face value and not pursue it further?
- really, i’m just worried!
a: this happens. what may seem out of the blue and sudden to you may have been something your friend knew was coming. even sudden breakups are usually preceded with signs, so maybe your friend was prepared for the breakup and really ready to deal with it quickly when it happened. the ends of relationships are generally a sad time, but with a little bit of perspective they can also be new beginnings, and maybe that’s how your friend is already looking at it.
if she doesn’t want to talk about it, don’t try to force her! and for that matter, don’t snoop around your mutual friends to find out who she is talking to about it or if - that’s really none of your business. if she needs to have light conversation and not talk about her breakup, let her have that! you can tell you’re concerned, why, and that you’re there if she wants to talk, but then you have to respect the fact that she says she’s fine and drop it.
it’s good that you’re worried - that’s what friends are supposed to do. the best thing you can do is be there for her as she needs you to be. as much as we need friends to be there when we’re down, we also need them there when times are good to celebrate together, and when things are somewhere in the middle, or when we’re still figuring them out.
