What to do when a friend lets you down

HSPs often feel that their giving isn't reciprocated. Having realistic expectations helps.

Welcome to my weekly newsletter building a supportive community for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). Please note, I am planning to devote time over the next few weeks to developing a planned membership community for HSPs. I’ll be emailing out the next edition of The HSP Revolution on Wednesday, August 24.

Nobody likes being let down. And when you count the person among your closest friends, that sinking feeling is even worse.

I hope this doesn’t sound like a gloomy topic for this week’s The HSP Revolution. But problems in friendships have been coming up a lot in my coaching work lately, and I’ve been thinking about how HSPs can respond.

I’m going to start by outlining a common pattern I see — one that I’ve experienced in my own life. And then I’ll talk a bit about what we can do to learn from these experiences, and empower ourselves to enjoy healthier ways of relating.

A common pattern

When I was starting out as a clinical psychologist, I assumed that tensions in intimate relationships would be a much bigger source of concern for people than friendships. But over the years, I’ve learned not to underestimate the amount of upset that strained friendships can cause.

For HSPs, problems often arise when we feel like we give a lot without our generosity being reciprocated. We may find ourselves asking:

• Why don’t they seem to care about me as much as I care about them?

• Am I the one who’s wrong?

• Am I being overly sensitive?

• Should I just stop overthinking this?

• Am I being a bit petty?

• Have I just created this story in my head?

Of course, relationships can be complicated, and it’s important that we own our own reactions and behaviours. But sometimes we know in our gut something isn’t quite right, and it’s important to take a clear-eyed look at what’s really going on.

HSPs like to see the best in others. Combine this with the challenges we sometimes have in putting in boundaries, and our people pleasing tendencies, and you can see why we may end up in unsatisfying friendships, and then have difficulty speaking up.

It can be months, years or even decades before we realise quite how long it’s been since we’ve felt truly respected or seen.

For HSPs, this realisation can be particularly painful. We often invest a lot of energy and time into friendships. If we feel all this energy isn’t being reciprocated, then we can be left feeling hurt and lonely. We can start to question why people don’t seem to treat us with the same level of care that we have given to them.

At the same time, our strong sense of ethics and justice can make it hard for us to forgive and forget when we feel people haven’t acted with integrity. We hold onto things, but the problem is that our suppressed feelings and unsaid words can start to fester, and we become the ones who suffer as a result. Instead of stating clearly how we feel, we then question whether we’re taking things too personally.

Many HSPs I work with want to break the cycle and learn to let things go.

My experience

There was a time in my twenties when I was struggling to come to terms with the loss of several people close to me. I realised that a number of people whom I had considered close friends weren’t there for me. I remember finding it all the more upsetting because I could think back to the times when I had been there for them in their hour of need.

It was the first time I had felt truly let down in a big way, and I began to question whether I could really trust people outside a very close-knit circle of friends and family. The cliché is true: It’s only when you go through the worst of times that you learn who you can really depend on.

Even after years of training as a clinical psychologist, I hadn’t realised how little capacity many people have to handle other people’s trauma. I concluded that it would be better to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible.

The problem with being too independent is that it can stop us letting new friends into our lives who may genuinely nourish and inspire us in the long-run. I’ve since recognised that rather than falling into a victim-trap, we can use these disappointments as opportunities to learn.

Looking in the mirror

It may be true that friends have let us down. We may have every right to feel angry. And if those feelings come up, it’s important to honour and acknowledge them.

But the real wisdom lies in holding up our friends as a mirror to look more deeply into ourselves.

If we find we are surrounded by fair weather friends, that can reflect our own low self-worth, our need to feel needed, or our desire to fix or rescue other people. Often we repeat dynamics in friendships that played out in our family systems during childhood. Ruptures in friendships can be a valuable prompt to take a closer look at how our past might be playing out in the present.

We can ask ourselves what part of ourselves drew in a situation where we knew unconsciously that we would eventually be let down. In this way, the moments when we feel most disappointed can also be the moments with the most potential to help us evolve. By bringing greater awareness to what’s going on for us, we can make healthier choices in the future.

Going within

Developing our capacity to relate deeply to others is the work of lifetime. Nevertheless, it can help to think about the broad areas where you can bring greater awareness to how you are showing up for other people — and yourself.

• Inner work — We can cultivate an awareness that many of the challenges that arise in our relationships indicate that we may need to gently look at healing wounds from the past and what patterns may be being repeated.

• Boundary setting — We can work on communicating our boundaries more clearly. That may include finding ways to clearly state that we feel let down — rather than stuffing down our feelings and letting negativity build up over time.

• Reciprocity — If you find yourself giving too much, and the other person is happy to keep receiving from you without giving back, then you can easily end up feeling drained and used. Be honest with yourself: Are you giving so much because you’re expecting to get something back? This can lead to growing resentment which eats away at you. Give with an open heart without any expectation that you’ll get anything back — or don’t give at all.

• Manage your expectations — Ask yourself: Are my expectations of this person too high? Do they have the capacity to give me what I need and want? Am I trying to offload my problems on somebody who is simply not in a position to provide the level of support I want? Be realistic about the depth of exchange you might reasonably expect, given your friend’s other commitments and circumstances. Every friendship is unique — and it’s important to not to place too much expectation on people who simply can’t reciprocate in the way you might hope.

• Accept that relationships don’t stay the same — Some friendships may last a few months, and others for a lifetime. But one thing they all have in common, is that they change and evolve, and sometimes end. Whatever happens, it’s important to honour your own feelings and any sadness and anger that comes up. And remember, friendships can go through phases. Periods of distance can be a prelude to new levels of intimacy as well.

Friendships can hurt — if you’re going through a tough time, I hope some of these reflections might have proved useful. As always, I love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

I’ll be sending the next newsletter on August 24.

Enjoy the next few weeks!