“Tell me more about loyalty. Why is it so important to you? Who taught you loyalty?”

I’m not sure how to answer to this. It’s always been there and like I said before, I bond for life so I’m always the last one to leave a sinking ship. I try to make things work even at my own expense once I’ve bonded with somebody and I tend to put up with a lot, perhaps too much at times.

“How did you feel when he threatened to kill himself if you cut contact? And how did you react? Resumed contact?”

He didn’t outright voice such a threat but did something which could be considered rather suicidal (driving at night while on substances and no intent of coming back) and communicated it to me.

I felt a strong worry of course and resumed contact. However I’ve been very stern and distanced with him after that, which he didn’t take well.

“You said that he was possessive and controlling, and I assume he was like that throughout your friendship. How did his possessiveness manifest (if you care to talk about it)? Was he jealous of your other friends, your career, or other achievements in your life? You did say he recently endangered your livelihood…”

He always tried to monopolize my time/attention and highly disliked it when I spent them on somebody else. He was also always critical of my other friends.
There was a project to which I invited him, that would then support my living. There he mostly alienated people with his reckless behavior and tried to defend himself when I told him to stop. He also kept making promises of helping me with this and that but never actually did anything I asked him of, even simple tasks, then complained about me “leaving him out of the decision making” when he himself barely engaged, had no idea about what was going on, encouraged me to drop the project and even went MIA for months.
So to say, the concept of personal accountability is mostly alien to him and he’s quick to anger.

“How did you feel about your friendship? Did you feel some guilt around him? I am asking because it may help you understand what made you susceptible to someone as possessive and as it turns out, toxic, as him.”

Perhaps I did to a degree as he often complained that I wasn’t giving him enough of myself even though he was trying his hardest to be the best friend. What I felt though is that I had to erect barriers to fend off his possessive behavior. Yet I still cared a lot about his wellbeing and such.

“I hope that we managed to pinpoint the main problem, and that things are a bit clearer now.”

It’s been very insightful so far and I appreciate everybody’s help. For now I have no choice but to wait and see. I’ll update the thread when there’s a new development.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tineoidea.

“Your former friend sounds quite manipulative and toxic. How come he was your friend for such a long time?”

I assume because he was never able to exercise such influence over me even though he was quite possessive and such in the past, or perhaps this kind of behavior was new to him, only happening after I cut him off and he got very upset at me.

I wonder if there’s anything I could do right now. Just let it be and see if she contacts me in the future? Try to actively but subtly engage with her perhaps through e-mails? I feel like any little misstep could just make her gain even more distance or become even more angry. She’s been disregarding all my observations, feedback and counsel during this conflict after all.

One more things, when I attempted to talk to him and told him our story, he constantly said that the story she told him is quite different, that I’m lying and making things up, that he trusts her and not me. Here I couldn’t help but to wonder what she’s been telling him and she’s an accomplice in all of this. Previously she pretended to like something she loathed just because he shared it with her.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tineoidea.

“she saw you as part of that dangerous world and sided with the boy she needs to protect.”

This part makes sense I guess. At first she said that we’re still friends, that she cares about me and will support me. After a few days everything changed and now she no longer saw us as friends and dropped all her care an support but still wanted to keep some contact. Then later on she became very abrasive and angry and decided to cut the contact entirely, saying that it’s too painful and sad to interact with me (?) and also that she doesn’t want to stay in contact with me because she doesn’t want to do that to him (?).

It seems I became some sort of boogeyman in her eyes when it comes to him, and she was also suffering and crying a lot from what she lost; our relationship and her closest friend. It feels like she’s trying to force herself into that mood of separation and to “move on” from me as if what we had could be just swept under the carpet.

I wonder if she’ll come to senses and disengage herself from him soon, or it’s only going to get worse. Her friends mentioned that she’s been very quiet and evasive, acting unlike herself, barely engaging with them and she also kept everything about my former friend a secret from them.
But apparently she’s been sharing all my “flaws” with one of them and some things were either heavily twisted or just plain lies.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tineoidea.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tineoidea.

Another thing is that she began to spend disproportionately large amounts of time with him, going as far as pushing away her friends and me. Likewise she’s been “babying” him a lot as well as excusing him of everything bad he did and fiercely defending him against any criticism. It seems she sees him as some sort of “victim” who needs to be saved.

All of it is very unlike the healthy yet deep relationship we two had where our friends were never neglected and we always exchanged fair criticism.

Because she exhibited complete lack of empathy and care towards me, who was also her closest friend when all of this went down. I’ve been discarded as if nothing had happened in between us, treated very poorly and emotionally abused for weeks.

What happened with my friend and her, is uncanny similar to the “triangulation” performed by narcissists where they put your friends against you and then may use them as their next supply.

In the end it was like she became a completely different person.

This may be the last update. I believe I had managed to unravel the mystery.

After countless hours of reading relevant information, ruminating, revising logs and consulting other people, I came to the conclusion that she suffers from the Covert version of NPD (Narcissist Personality Disorder).
What happened with my friend was probably just her procuring her new supply beforehand by separating him from, and putting against me.
Feeling candid now, I’ve realized just how much she manipulated, led on and gaslit me. Those things you ignore while blinded by love.

To everybody who’s currently suffering in a situation which doesn’t seem to be making any sense, where their loved one did a complete 180 on them, do read on the various forms of NPD, how they conduct their “relationships” and how they pull apart and triangulate your friends.

I’ve had a very heated conversation with her recently, with a lot of emotions, mixed signals and her saying that it is her who chose to engage with him actively and let him in. Not sure if that was just her way of defending him but it projects and even worse scenario, that she actively chose to betray me.

It also seems like she’s missing me a lot still and cries over the loss of both her lover and best friend.