One of my closest friends died a year ago and it killed my relationship. I can write about this now—nine months after the breakup and days away from the one-year anniversary of my friend’s passing—because I understand it all better now. I met my friend when we were young teenagers and unlike many of my friends from that period of my life, we remained friends into our adulthood. He was always the ear I went to whenever I was having relationship problems—both with my boyfriends and girlfriends. He was an amazing listener and one of my biggest cheerleaders. Although we were so different in how we chose to live our lives and what we chose to pursue, his love, acceptance, and encouragement were unfailing. Outside of my immediate family, I have had few constants in my life—but he was one of those few. By the time he was diagnosed with tumors in his brain we lived on opposite coasts, but our phone check-ins became routine and I was able to visit him about a month before he passed. He didn’t look good, but man, I had no idea that would be it.
On a Sunday morning in mid-September my heart broke. I got a call from his father telling me that he had bleeding in his brain and had slipped into a coma; it just was a matter of hours. I walked through that day completely out of my body—numb. That evening I managed pull together enough to call his father to confirm what I already knew—he was gone. The heartbreak was profound and visceral. I loved and love him so much.
At the time I had been dating a guy for about nine months and things were going well. We were settling into our “post-honeymoon” phase and our relationship felt good. I usually talked to him daily, but that Sunday I couldn’t. I sent him a brief message to the effect of that day being a rough one and ignored the subsequent calls. For some reason I knew that I couldn’t share that pain with him and I was right. That night or perhaps the next day, I told him what was going on. He feigned empathy with an anecdote of how hard it was when his cousin passed away, but he didn’t get it and I didn’t expect him to. I didn’t want empathy; sympathy and understanding would have duly sufficed. After about a week or so he began complaining: I was being distant, his sexual needs weren’t being met, I had “changed.”
He wasn’t a bad guy, but he made my loss about us when it really had nothing to do with him. Perhaps he couldn’t or wouldn’t understand my grieving because I was grieving for another man (albeit with whom I’d had a completely platonic relationship) or that he just didn’t understand loss. After a month or so with his nagging, impatience, and pouting, I checked out. I was in pain and he was only making it worse. Not only had a lost a dear friend, according to his continued grievances I had become a bad girlfriend. The relationship dragged on another three months or so, but I was over for me long before.
I am finally able to put into words what I felt during those months. I realized then the level of selflessness there needs to be in a relationship for it to work through ups and down, happiness and grief, the “for better” and the “for worse.” We must be willing to put our partner before ourselves even when we aren’t getting what we want, or even need for a time—particularly if our partner is unable to reciprocate. Everyone has, or will experience an event that breaks our hearts and sends us spinning. We all possess the resilience to eventually pick up and move forward, but it is important that the people that are there to love us, support us through the heartbreak and the grief—even if it is not them that our heart is breaking for. This is a lesson I am taking with me for the next time around. It is true that love is patient and kind, it waits, it listens, it supports, and it understands what humans can’t.
