Is a saboteur lurking in my best friend?
 

Here is a typical diolog with my "best" friend. WE have both gained weight together over the last 10 years of being friends. When one of us loses, the other seems to get depressed instead of genuinely encouraging. I have felt her be extremely condescending and aloof to me when she loses weight, but maybe it's just jealousy on my end. Ten years of insufficient babble like the above, makes me wonder. I can't help but suspect if we have hidden saboteurs in our friendship.

Kind of wondering if there's others out there with the same or similar situation. What do you think?

I'm guessing you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned jealousy. We girls are SO good at that, aren't we?
Like when one of your best friends gets engaged and you are SO happy for them, but also SO jealous. (Though now I have been married for 10 months, and now I can just be happy!)
Anyway, try to be truly happy for her when good things happen. Focus on encouraging her for awhile and finding things to do to help her. Then after awhile, if you still feel she is condescending or rude to you, then be honest and try to talk to her about it.
But it really is amazing how things change when we focus on doing our part right!

I see nothing condescending in your friends reply.

Ummmm.... I'm not sure I see where the problem is. :?:

From reading your post, it just sounds to me as though your friend is being self-deprecating about her own weight issues (and minimizing her own accomplishments in this area), while at the same time she is trying to be sympathetic and encouraging to you.

But tone of voice expresses much more than written words, so maybe the way she said these things struck a nerve with you?


Moving on, though.....

To address your concerns about her being aloof, condescending, or unsupportive of your weight loss: I know that I have felt jealous of other people around me who have lost weight. I would also feel as though the person losing weight were making silent judgements about me, like "I'm losing weight. Why can't she?"

Also, it's more comforting to be in the same miserable boat with someone. When the one person starts to change, the other person can easily feel left out or abandoned.

Maybe there's a competitive aspect to it as well for you and your friend. Women do it all the time: we get all dolled up to impress each other more than the men!

So, if you are losing weight too, maybe she sees it as competition in some way. Like, who looks better, is losing more weight, is doing better on their plan, and so on. Losing weight brings attention to people, and maybe she (or you) doesn't want to share the spotlight.

Just some of my thoughts on it, FWIW. :^:

Change is difficult for anyone, no matter the change (even good change). And it isn't just changes we make either, but changes that happen in our lives, changes our friends make... Change is tough and causes mixed feelings all the way around.

I think the problem with labeling people as saboteurs is that it implies ill intent, which very likely isn't there. Also, when you're on the look out for saboteurs, you will find them (often a more accurate description for them would be excuses).

It is true that jealousy, resentment and other wide-ranging emotions are often a natural reaction to a friend changing (and possibly moving away from us, or at least altering the friendship in a profound way).

I think that the way to prevent a friend's apparent reaction (which you may or may not be reading correctly) from becoming sabotage is more within you than within her. You've got to change your reaction to her reaction (whatever that is). For her to be successful, she would have to do the same thing.

It's going to be difficult, because we humans are such a bag of conflicting emotions on a GOOD day.

For me, it helps to see the crazy behavior (mine and others) as silly, crazy, "human" stuff, rather than a true desire to do me harm (either when directed at me from others or even myself). When I "sabotage" myself it isn't because I want to be fat, it's because change is difficult and intimidating. I think the same is true when that "sabotage" comes from others. It's not a desire to hurt me, it's a desire to maintain the status quo. I have to know that and work around it (easier said than done of course).

Yes, you all are right, it's more within my own sense of hyper reading between the lines. Hearing a good friend complain about their weight when you are 30 pounds heavier still, can be annoying, especially when they thought they looked like a pale slug at a weight I'd love to be right now. No mallice from girlfriend , I know, just subtle paranoid undertones maybe on my part. I dunno, then she tells me when I lost weight she felt competative.... which crushed me. Those very hollow compliments , you know, when I *do* lose, rather annoy me. I know the conflict is within myself, but that she must have them too, but still, I distrust it so much that I don't like telling her that I've lost anything, or been riding my bicycle a lot ~ as not to hear those hollow compliments. Maybe the problem is all in my head. Maybe attaining best friend's *genuine* admiration is the core issue, and that my need for approval in a broad sense, socially, is sabotaging my success?

WOW i so feel the same! My bff started her journey about a month before me and has gain 10lbs since (she has no motivation to do anything). I have lost 25 so far and am pretty proud of myself until she tells me she cant tell. Or that i need to start "eating like a normal person" or when she told me the other day that i am taking this "diet" thing way to seriously! UGH i just wanted to cry and choke her at the same time. She may just be insecure about something or upset that your success is not hers.

I don't think you have to see them as "hollow compliments" (either those she gives you, or those you give her). Rather, realizing that her feelings (like yours) may be mixed, you can recognize that genuine support is in the mix as well.

So, a compliment may be 90% genuine good feelings and 10% resentment (or even if it's 10% genuine good feelings and 90% resentment), you can choose to feel good about the part of the compliment (no matter how small) that is genuine. Also, since you're never going to know the actual proportion (even your friend may not know), it doesn't hurt to assume that the better part of the compliment is genuine.

Perfectly stated. I'd like a best friend just like you. :hug:

I completely understand where you're coming from. My sister and I work out together; I joke that she's my 'trainer', but she really does have a degree in exercise physiology, so in essence she *is* my trainer. She's also 130 pounds and two inches taller than me, so in the beginning when she'd make comments about how 'fat' she was, I wanted to deck her. It took me a long time to realize that for her, those extra ten or fifteen pounds *do* make her feel uncomfortable, and it's not a reflection on me in any way.

She never meant any malice, though it was sort of thoughtless of her to say. Now it doesn't bother me at all when she says stuff like that, because I know that a) she's genuinely happy that I'm losing weight, and b) she hasn't lost an ounce since we started, which is really frustrating for her.

But she's my sister, and we are stuck with each other no matter what. I have another friend who had WLS a year ago, and she's lost a ton of weight while not really eating right and not exercising at all. I can tell she's jealous that I'm doing this on my own, without surgery, because she's said as much many times. Every success I have she makes about her and her weight issues, and sometimes I want to punch her too. But I remind myself that we all deal with this stuff differently, and that sometimes when I'm not losing I get jealous of my friends who are as well.

So that's my long-winded way of saying I understand where you're coming from. I hope that you continue to be successful, and that you don't let your friend's perceived negativity affect your journey. You know the chicks at 3FC will always be happy for you!

I, too, don't see what the issue is... :dunno: My take on it is that she is trying, in a clumsy way, to say that she understands how you feel and often feels the same way. I don't see any sabotage.

Sabotage is when you tell someone you're on a diet and they bring you cookies... ;)

You don't have to think that she can't feel the same way because she weighs 30 pounds less. People of all different sizes can feel bad about their weight, and everyone has a "right" to feel however it is they feel.

If you don't like her responses, maybe the two of you should make weight loss an off-limit topic. It sounds like when you're upset about your weight, she becomes an easy target... So it might be best to avoid this issue.

Jay

I agree with both kaplods and JayEll.

I think .. said with all possible support ... that the problem here is in your OWN feelings and interpretations of her words, rather than her actual words.

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Ditto the other ladies. You know how we look different to ourselves than we look to other people? Same goes for how we sound. Lots of times what we think we are saying and what others hear is quite different. I seriously don't think she was intentionally trying to be hurtful.

I am agreeing with the more sympathetic voices... now, after reading. Just wanted you all to help me see it . Thank you all.

My friend is as good as they come, and I think weight loss is something we both struggle with, maybe yeah... leave it off limits for now. Thanks again ! :D