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The double-crosser friend
This negative friend betrays you big-time. It could happen when someone does something to hurt you, such as spreading a malicious rumor about you. Or it could be an emotional double-cross; for example, when a close or best friend stops speaking to you and you never find out why. That's what happened to Jill, who is now 47. Although angry words were never exchanged between Jill and her friend, the silence, the betrayal of their commitment to be friends and to share, was just as real as any harmful action. Jill explains:
"She was the only real friend I ever had. I didn't make friends easily. I wasn't allowed to have friends. When I got to high school, I met Dale and we became very close. The one time I ran away, I ran to her house. It was a very special friendship. We went to nursing school together. Then one day she met another girl.... About a week later, she stopped speaking to me. I'd call her; she'd hang up on me. I'd write to her; she'd return the letters, unopened."
Ten years later, they resumed their friendship, although they still have never discussed why Dale stopped calling. The wounds from her friend's emotional double-crossing are there, however. "We're close, but not as close," Jill explains. But then she qualifies her description of her friendship with Dale as "close." "For me, for the type of person I am, it's close. For somebody like my sister, it's not close."
The double-cross could be something even more concrete, like the betrayal experienced by 43-year-old Susan, a homemaker. Susan was betrayed by a married close family friend who was attracted to her sister:
"He continued to express his desire and love for her, and when she insisted that he put an end to the numerous phone messages at her office and she told him of her disgust at this attitude, he turned around and told his wife that my sister was coming on to him. It was a real fatal attraction. I personally phoned him and ended our friendship. I'm talking real betrayal. Our family felt totally betrayed by this man, whom we had all known since childhood."
Susan shares other betrayals, by another friend: "One of my girlfriends is now using my sister and myself as an alibi while she carries on extramarital affairs. This is very upsetting. She has also repeated some things to another friend which were said to her in confidence." This second friend is putting Susan in a compromising position, and possibly even an ethical bind, over the cover-up of her extramarital affairs. By blabbing privileged information, she is also acting like the Discloser (described below).
The Double-crosser may have some real emotional issues that need to be addressed if you are to continue a friendship with her. If your friend was betrayed by a parent or sibling during her formative years, she may have a need to repeat that behavior with her friends. The betrayal could have been as subtle as being disappointed by her parents or as blatant as being the victim of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Your friend may need outside help to reverse the cycle she is in, of doing to others what was done to her.
If you have been double-crossed by a particular friend, you may want to consider ending the friendship. If you have not been directly harmed by this friend but have evidence that she has hurt others, you have to decide if you are risking too much by maintaining the friendship.
If you do decide to walk away from this friendship, do it in a low-key way that avoids incurring the wrath of the Double-crosser. You do not want to be her or his next victim.
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