Imagine: Your friend Dan just cancelled your dinner plans for tonight. It�s the fifth time Dan has broken plans at the last minute, and you had forgone other plans for this. You�ve never confronted him about his past behavior, as he tends to respond defensively and you haven�t wanted to make waves. Now you�re furious. You might find yourself lashing out at Dan in a more hurtful way, venting your frustration to a friend (�Dan flaked on me again!�), or pulling back from Dan emotionally�perhaps even ending the friendship.
This happened to me exactly! I had a friend who was constantly late or broken plans, etc. and I attempted to talk to her about it but she didn't really get it. That was the only major attempt I made and after taking her poor behavior a few more times, I just ended the friendship. And then I was sorry that I did. It's hard when you try to talk to someone and they don't listen. Or they don't get it. Or you don't explain well enough.
I'm like acs. I've always been one who wanted to try to fix myself, not other people. It was really hard for me to say anything to her in the first place but I had gotten to the place I couldn't take it any more, and our talk didn't go badly, but she didn't stop treating me that way.
I definitely agree you can't fix problems if they aren't brought out in the open. But somehow, on this occasion it didn't work for me. I probably should have tried harder or just switched my expectations of her. That's what I've always thought, that I should have just reassigned her friendship catagory to "acquaintance" instead of just dropping her completely.
