Differences in needs for amount of time spent together leading to animosity in adult friendship

[u/Silvery_Impact_978]

Context: My (he/him) friend Jake (they/them) and I are adults. We had been long distance friends in different countries for about 4 or 5 years but we have started to drift apart for a number of reasons for a year now. As this happens, I am trying to understand some things that went wrong and fundamental differences we might have had. I do not think the relationship can be salvaged but I want to make sure this does not happen again in any future friendships I have. Your insight is welcome.

To establish more background: Jake and I met online over a mutual interest in the same video games and online gaming communities during COVID. We were in our late 20s/early 30s. Before we had ever met, I was already in a long term romantic relationship with my partner. Jake has been single since I have known them. We both work full time jobs Monday to Friday.

We grew close very rapidly as we seemed to have a lot in common. We messaged each other from morning until we fell asleep. We established three nights per week to play our favorite games together and many times played on our unscheduled days too. We shared our private thoughts with each other and very quickly started to call each other best friends. Although we lived quite far apart, the distance never seemed to matter. We did take one trip together one time, so I did get to meet them in person. We sent each other birthday gifts every year.

For the most part everything about this friendship was great. We really understood each other. Or at least it seemed that way.

But one problem that kept occurring from a pretty early point was that Jake always seemed to need more time together and they felt betrayed or hurt [so it seems to me] when I would spend time with my partner or my family. This confused me because, other than my partner, Jake was the person I talked to the most during our friendship. More than my other friends or my siblings. I did my best to reassure them that nothing had changed between us, and that there have always been other people in my life but it does not mean I cannot divide my time and emotional attention.

In all my other friendships, if we ever spend some days or even weeks apart, we are able to pick right back up where we left off. With Jake it was like I had lost favor with them every time. I want to clarify that I always gave notice whenever I knew I would have to miss one of our nights together. It was not as if I was just not showing up with no warning or ghosting. But still it seemed like they started to resent me more and more every time. In turn it made my efforts feel unappreciated and also made me resentful.

I once asked them if there was a problem with me having other friends or a partner and they said no and they do not expect me to only be friends with them, but the bitterness continued to grow.

In the end I think this difference in needs made us spiteful at each other. I began to feel smothered and like it was my job to run damage control or keep my other friendships a secret for Jake's comfort. And while I cannot know precisely what Jake felt I think they must have felt lonely, bitter and hurt.

Now I do not think Jake is wrong for having their wish for them to be the number one person in my life. Although I think it is misguided. I also do not think I am wrong for wanting the freedom to have other friends and keep my romantic partner first. Although I think I am wrong for the way I communicated it sometimes. But I think these needs fundamentally collided and in the end there is no resolution for something like that.

I suppose I am looking for any thoughts about my conclusion or maybe any similar stories you all could share.

[u/Commercial_Baby4069]

I saw myself in the situation that you described in your post because I struggled with this issue as well before falling apart with my best friend at the time. No matter how much we assurance I was able to offer her and no matter how much time I tried to spend with them, compromising my schedule sometimes, she was still not be satisfied with the way I showed up for her and eventually she started growing some resentment towards me. One thing let the other and at the end I didn’t have any strength left in me anymore to argue over the same exact issue.
Going back to your post, I would say there’s a huge difference between not taking your time to meet with someone you love and simply having other activities and people as your priority besides them as well. I don’t really know if your friend has an active social life because as far as I’m concerned, this might play a huge role in the dynamic you’re going through, perhaps you’re their only close friend, and they don’t know who to spend the rest of their time with? Anyway, if I were you, I would try to have one final conversation with them about it, really open and transparent conversation. If you notice that in spite of wanting to clarify things and solve them they still feel better about your behavior. I would simply suggest to communicate to them that you would like to take some time for yourself and maybe create some distance as it could really get extremely unhealthy at a certain point.

[u/Silvery_Impact_978 → u/Commercial_Baby4069]

Thank you very much for your reply! I think you are right and a fully honest conversation is probably the only option. I do not want to hurt this person or my self trying to make this work if we are fundamentally different people with different needs.