I just read "My best friend has let me down for the last time" and boy can I relate. In my case it wasn't a friend but the love of my life. We were together for almost six years. I did all I could for her and received only betrayal in response. I bent over backwards to establish a future together, only to have her throw it all away like garbage. She calls me to this day insisting that she loves me, wants to have children with me, etc... But it's all a bunch of bullshit. She has always seemed SO sincere too - I kept going back for more, hoping that 'this time' she would back her words with actions. It never came to pass. I'm still extremely angry and bitter about it, still seeking a way to let it all go so that I can get on with my life. It's just that she destroyed so much... I lost my house and my retirement savings because I trusted her, again and again. Now she doesn't understand why I resent her so much - in her mind, it's as if she has done no wrong! I've read that 'needy' people oh so often destroy relationships so that they can remain needy. Do you have any information about these needy people Cary? Needy people (at least the one I'm referring to) are INCREDIBLY selfish - A few years ago I gave PBS a donation of $365. It was the first time I donated to them (the first time I could too, lol). I had learned to read watching PBS and I had watched them for over 30 years at that point, it was the least I could do. As soon as she found out, she became angry and yelled at me, 'you could have spent that money on me!'. And so it goes... The thing that bothers me most is that I feel like I may never be able to trust anyone ever again. What a sad thing to say, it breaks my heart. Any advice for me, Cary? Any advice for all of us that have suffered at the hands of these needy people? I know I could really use some - I'm not sure I can get over this and I am being overwhelmed with resentment. It's too much to accept right now... Anyway, thank you.

Best regards,

Danny

I rarely write letters. But this letter and the response both struck a chord in me. I've been through a similar experience with two other women on two different occasions when my daughter went through surgery. Neither friend showed up at the hospital to support me. Because I am single and both women were close friends this was especially hard and angering. Neither friendship in fact survived. Neither of these women have children and I suppose neither could quite grasp the level of pain and terror one feels when one's child is sick and in danger. In fact the terror is so great you hardly dare speak of it for fear it will make the situation more real. I did confront one woman, but by then the list of my grievances was long and frankly I did not want to spend to much time discussing my daughter with her. I did not, metaphorically speaking, trust her with such a tender subject. I tried even more briefly to discuss the matter with the other woman too. Neither really grasped it. The inability I have come to see lay with the narcissism evident in them both. I think airing the grievance is a very good advice. But don't expect any satisfaction. The same qualities that made this woman unable to come through will also make her clueless. What can you do? Pick better friends. Learn to read the signs of narciscism and stay away.

I rarely write letters. But this letter and the response both struck a chord in me. I've been through a similar experience with two other women on two different occasions when my daughter went through surgery. Neither friend showed up at the hospital to support me. Because I am single and both women were close friends this was especially hard and angering. Neither friendship in fact survived. Neither of these women have children and I suppose neither could quite grasp the level of pain and terror one feels when one's child is sick and in danger. In fact the terror is so great you hardly dare speak of it for fear it will make the situation more real. I did confront one woman, but by then the list of my grievances was long and frankly I did not want to spend too much time discussing my daughter with her. I did not, metaphorically speaking, trust her with such a tender subject. I tried even more briefly to discuss the matter with the other woman too. Neither really grasped it. The inability I have come to see lay with the narcissism evident in them both. I think airing the grievance is a very good advice. But don't expect any satisfaction. The same qualities that made this woman unable to come through will also make her clueless. What can you do? Pick better friends. Learn to read the signs of narciscism and stay away.

Danny,

There's no solution, in a sense. There's no way to fix yourself to "trust again". It's one of the reasons why our society, sick as it is, still places so much value on the word, trust.

No one's situation is the same as another's, but I have been in similar ones. Not for as long as you, but for two years during which my partner was constantly snooping through my life, reading my letters, reading my e-mails, doing "research" on me and my life (I'm not paranoid -- but near the end, I got suspicious and set a few traps, online and off, and involved a few other people.) To make it worse, she was keeping a diary, or better call it a "log book" of what she was doing; I found some of it snooping on her PC when she was at work.

It's so shocking because it's so easy. We trust each other all the time. But it was so fantastically easy for her to get away with what she did. It was almost magical; it was like "here's what you thought your life was like! Put it into the hat! Here's what it really is!" A magic show or a horror show, a fine line.

I spent a long time after that "relationship" using people. I discovered how easy it is to manipulate people. It is -- there are even books on it, not the least of which is Dale Carnegie's. Another author is a guy called Robert Greene, who wrote a book on seduction and a book on power; that sounds really tacky, but trust me when I say I'm a huge book snob. It may help to read these books, because you will discover what this person did to you -- they probably didn't read a book, though, just figured it out solo. It's simple stuff, it's not magic. You can boil it down to a receipe, people are that dull.

After I discovered how easy it was, I used people. I used people for sex (but there wasn't much -- I didn't have the appitite), to ease my lonliness, to feel powerful. I don't think I did any major damage, but there are certaintly people walking around who I've "tricked" in ways my ex tricked me (but not of course to the same extent, or in the same manner.) I did that for about a year, maybe more. Ironically, my work life improved.

I guess I feel "ready" now. I'm done. I've played out the game. I've seen how it works. It's lost its power to shock me, what happened. How do nations make peace after the bomb? In a way, it's almost easier. You know how much power people have. And you value the trust even more than when you started. You just know how to take care of it better.

Yours,

Definitely not Cary