Three of my closest friends have had major life transitions in the past four years. Including the significant life changes that have happened for me since my wife died, that makes four of us.
I don’t think the timing is a coincidence. We’re all in our early 50s. Career changes, family changes, yearning for love, a search for purpose and meaning have driven all of us to question our lives. My friends have all expressed various levels of dissatisfaction with their current situations and a desire to change it. I’m sure age has something to do with it. We’ve all been able to experience the upsides and the downsides of our youthful decisions. Our love lives have been good and bad. We’ve had long term relationships and breakups. Careers progressed, stagnated and in some cases disintegrated. We’ve had financial successes and disasters. We’ve had health issues and aging issues, parenting issues and family problems. We go to more funerals than weddings.
This is all the normal ups and downs of life.
One friend left his wife to began a new relationship with a woman. This new relationship came with a significant amount of chaos and strife. I did my best to support support him as a friend for several years. Eventually, I had to tell him about my concerns, even at the risk of losing our friendship. He didn’t want my advice or opinion, but I am happy to report that it did not end our friendship. He’s still in the relationship. My concerns with the issues proved to be fairly accurate. But he’s found a way to accept them and live with them – even if I would never do that.
Another friend had a complete meltdown when finally accepted that he would never become a tenured professor and left teaching. His career transition, plus a horrible relationship with a crazy, narcissistic woman left him spinning out for several years. After trying to help him for a long time, I finally had to back off by refusing to listen to him drone on about his “relationship” and his “career”. For at least a year, I would only talk to him once a week for 1 hour because he’d exhausted my capacity for sympathy and support. I’m happy to report that he eventually found his way to a better place with the help of therapy, medication and a more satisfying job.
And now, it’s my 3rd friend’s turn.
He has been whining for years about what he “used to be” and the career he once had. He wants the people in his life to recognize him, applaud him, admire him and respect him.
But he’s been frozen in fear for so many years that he doesn’t do anything about it.
He hasn’t worked in decades. He lives with his elderly mother and deceived himself that he’s her “primary caretaker” when in fact, it’s the opposite.
He wants to be respected as a man, yet he lives like a child.
This friend is someone who’s been there for me for nearly 20 years. He helped me when my stepdaughter died and again when my wife died. He listened to me whine, cry and complain for hours on end. He offered good advice. He helped me get my camper on track when I was on the road. He listed to me as I rebuilt my life over the past three years.
I’ve done my best to listen to him and offer support, kindness and love.
Now I’m done.
It’s time for some hard love.
My friend is stuck. To get unstuck, he has to take action. Get a job. Clean up his apartment. Stop pretending he’s “the caretaker” and instead be a caretaker. Better yet – be an independent man and take responsibility for his lot in life.
Otherwise, he’s just going to continue to be miserable.
It’s his choice. I know I can’t make anyone do anything.
But I’m not going to offer a sympathetic ear anymore. I’ve heard his stories for far too many years without seeing him take any concrete steps to change his life.
He can change and I will listen. But if he doesn’t, I’m done listening.
To an outsider, this might sound harsh. I’m not even convinced that interventions work for the person who is suffering.
But having done this several times with friends and several times with family, I know one thing – the intervention will work for me. My frustration and my concern will diminish and I’ll be able to think of my friend in a more compassionate manner by distancing myself.
And, if he’s fortunate, this might help bring him a little more pain that could nudge him to take the actions that will solve his problems.
Here we go.