Dear Jessica,
I have a friend who has been in a secret “friends with benefits” relationship, but recently they decided to go back to being just friends—no benefits. She keeps telling me she is fine, but I can tell she is struggling. How can I help her get over him and move on from the situation without sounding too pushy?
Sincerely,
Tainted Love, a Junior at UO
Dear Tainted Love,
If it’s clear to you that your friend is having a hard time with this, then chances are that she accidentally let herself get hooked on this guy, meaning that she’s now stuck in the unfortunate position of trying to swallow her feelings and recover from her “phantom break-up” (that’s what I like to call break-ups that aren’t technically break-ups but still really suck). In my opinion situations like this one can sometimes be the toughest, because if your friend ends up with feelings for her beneficial friend and then whatever’s going on between them ends, she gets to deal with all of the heartbreak that accompanies a break-up without the luxury of calling it one.
As for helping her move on without sounding pushy, I’d like to start by reminding you that the only person who can decide when your friend moves on from the situation is your friend. As someone who’s stood on both sides of the fence, I admit that it can be really hard to be in your shoes – watching someone you care about pine over someone they can’t have, and in some cases shouldn’t want to have – and not want to meddle and do everything in your power to get them to move on. But most of us have also been on the other side of things, and it is through that experience that we learn that we aren’t going to really hear what our friends have to say about our love life until we’re ready to.
At this point, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get to the advice part of this article. Sorry for dragging my feet! I just wanted to preface my advice with the important note that whatever you try to do to help your friend, you need to do it with the understanding that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. In other words, you can try to help, but you can’t expect your help to be effective right off the bat. As a good friend, you are welcome – and encouraged – to be there for her and offer your support, but it’s not your job to decide how much time it takes for her to get over this. If you keep that rule in mind, your attempts to help your friend through this break-up (whether on a large or small scale, that’s essentially what this is) are far more likely to be successful!
Now that that’s out of the way, here are three tips for how to help a friend through a break-up without being too pushy:
Let her come to you about it. I don’t know about you, but right after a break-up, I’m the type of person who gets seriously down in the dumps whenever someone talks about my ex. Quite possibly the worst feeling in the world is when a friend goes, “I saw _________ today. He looked really stupid.” Your instinct might be to trash talk the ex to make your friend feel better, but the last thing you really want to do is plant an image of him in her head. You don’t really know what’s on her mind. Though your intentions are of course good, taking it upon yourself to bring up the break-up isn’t always a good idea because all it does is make her think about it at a time when she may not have even wanted to. For this reason, it’s best not to talk about the ex-FWB or the break-up at all unless she brings the topic up herself.
Lift her spirits covertly. Notice that I said covertly – this is a top-secret mission that requires subtlety on your part! One of the most effective ways that I cheer my own friends up is by doing things that make them happy when I can tell that they’re sad without making a big deal out of the fact that they are sad. Sometimes, we have a tendency to think that the way to make a friend feel better is to ask questions and pry and “talk it out,” because for some reason that’s what a lot of us girls were trained to do. If you see your friend and you can tell that she’s really sad, instead of assuming that you know what she needs, just do something to cheer her up or distract her like taking her to a movie or renting a funny one and getting snacks from the store. If it’s appropriate, find a subtle but gentle way to let her know that you’re there for her if she needs to talk – if she drops a hint by commenting on her depressed mood, take it as an opportunity to say something like, “we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do I’m all ears. Or we could just watch John Tucker Must Die. You’re the boss!” In any case, the goal here is to recognize that there are ways to be there for her without making her talk about it, because she may not want to.
Remind her what she’s worth. Part of the reason that ending anything intimate makes us feel awful is because our self-esteem takes a bit of a hit, so it never hurts to remind your friend how special she is and what kind of a man she deserves. If she decides to open up to you and talk about how she’s feeling, take it as an opportunity to give her an ego boost by reminding her of the qualities that make her a great friend and by the same token a great person deserving of great love. Be careful here, though, and don’t fall into the trap of delivering her ego boost in a negative light – i.e. “you are WAY too good for him,” “he doesn’t deserve you, you deserve SO much better.” This doesn’t need to be—and shouldn’t be—about the reasons that the ex sucks. Instead, try saying something that highlights your favorite traits of hers, like, “You are really special to me because you’re one of the most caring people I know, and it may not feel like it right now, but someone will see that in you, and he will treat you like the beautiful person that you are.” This makes her feel good about herself, and can actually help to rebuild her confidence and help her to arrive (on her own) at the understanding that the other guy didn’t deserve her.
I hope that your friend feels better soon. Walking away from someone you have feelings for is never fun, but it’s a part of life that we all have to face a few times before we get it right. I’m sure that with a great friend like you, she’ll pull through in no time!