You ask, our man for love answers. Today: The best friend and the partner no longer talk to each other. How to deal with it?
“Friendships and romantic relationships are fundamentally different, even if it often doesn’t look like it at first glance.”Westend61/image
Anna-Lisa, 31: My boyfriend got into such a fight with my best friend that I can’t see them together anymore. We used to travel as a trio, now I have to split my time between the two. As for a reconciliation, both have been totally obdurate for three months, insisting on an apology from the other. Is there couples therapy for friendships?
Dear Anna-Lisa, I imagine that to be really uncomfortable. The two don’t manage to get along again and you have to endure and balance their tension. Now friendships and love relationships differ fundamentally, even if it often doesn’t look like it at first glance. Both are important and close. However, the love relationship wants to become a family and aims at a common, unconditional everyday life with children – even if of course not every couple actually wants or has to have children. Love also wants to be exclusive and forever, even if it often doesn’t quite live up to its own standards.
Friendship and love sometimes get in the way
Friendship is different, but just as important. It touches us a tiny bit further out on the soul. It is friendship, not family, even if we would like it to be different with particularly good friends. Friendship wants to bow to love, but often doesn’t quite manage to do so. Love and friendship try to dance together, but in real life – in real dancing – they step on each other’s toes every now and then. This seems to have happened between your partner and your girlfriend.
I write about love and friendship because the fight between the two may have something to do with those differences as well. If two people don’t get along again for more than three months, there will be a bigger cause behind the occasion. How did you experience the three of you together when you were still traveling together? Were you equals or was one of you more the center of attention and something of a hinge for the other two? Is the underlying reason for this argument – whatever it was about – perhaps an imbalance in your triangle? Are there unspoken jealousies between the two for your favors? Was your best friend there first and your boyfriend came later? Does she feel neglected? Or does your friend have to compete with her over and over again? Talk to both of them about it – and let’s see what happens then.
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