Helping friend(s)

pbsuxok1znja4r

Okay something here I need advice on. Maybe, just maybe, I'm making a bigger deal of this than is really necessary. Better to be safe than sorry though.

Recently two good friends of mine who were going out broke up after just over 1 year together. They were very close, and one of the cutest couples you'd find. She's 24, he's 21. Anyway, they're both quite sensitive people and it seems to be a rough break-up for both of them; they saw each other as the love of their lives, etc. Now I'm still in frequent contact with both of them, one moreso than the other and also somewhat seperately, as we all live in different countries now.

Well, here's the thing. I worry about both of them. Not like, something terrible's gonna happen to them or anything, but, I worry about how they're doing. They're both dear people to me. There doesn't seem to be anyone else that she can really talk to other than me, and there doesnt seem to be anyone at all that he talks to, as we don't even talk much of late. (Though I wish we would). Between both of them they have just one parent, no siblings. Her dad. His parents both passed away; the mother this year. Both seem to have drifted away from their local circle of friends or else their friends are for the most part too busy for them. So it seems like this is a very rough time for them both. I think I might be the only person that either of them have, that they actually can really talk to. (They seem only to be in very infrequent contact with each other...)

The thing is, I don't know how to make them feel better, except for like...be there for them each. I feel so helpless to cheer them up. I try to say every encouraging thing, but what doesn't help is the fact that, I myself don't really have any positivity to even share... When they say "life sucks" or something...I struggle even to think of a reply beyond that of "ain't that the truth". They say no-one loves them, and I of course say I do, but...it's not enough; I'm just one person; I'm not who matters. He's said he wants to just leave everything and hide. He says he doesn't talk to anyone anymore and I know that even though I've told him I'm here, he probably won't reach out or anything.
Like I said, I just feel helpless to encourage them and it's getting me even more down. Today, fool that I am, I even ended up whinging about my own problems to one of them, which is just selfish and not helpful. I've told them I'm there for them to talk to a thousand times and I've mentioned that other people are always there to lend a sympathetic ear.
(To add to matters, this is super-freakin' stressful time for me and at home. I'm going into debt to repeat a year of college, my parents are sick of even having me in the house leeching off of them by using their phone line to actually talk to my friends...it just does not help to put me in the right frame of mind for cheering anyone else up...)

Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of nothing and they'll both each be fine soon, I do hope so. But I just could really use advice from some more experienced and more positive-thinking people than myself...what should/can I say/do?

Thankayou!

LundiMardi

Well, it seems they're going through what life has to offer them, everyone goes through the same, breakups, parents passing... There's nothing more you can do except offering a shoulder to cry on. They have to move on with their own lives, and so must you. You can't be everyone's shoulder, if you have problems then you must look after yourself before focusing on anyone else, and you should certainly not feel bad by asking for a shoulder in return today, i'm sure your friend offered you advice and was more than happy to do so.

Ruu_Old

All you can do is be there best you can as you have been doing. Let them know this and tell them how great they are, what a wonderful person they are as they need to hear things like that. Make them feel good about themselves.

pbsuxok1znja4r

:mad: Gah, if I was only ****ing there. I know she's probably in tears, as we've just been talking and she got very upset thinking she is entirely un-lovable and I tell her emphatically otherwise and of course she re-buffs that by saying how, as much as my opinion 'matters', we've only ever spent really a week in person with each other (Like I said, we all live in different countries, though we've known each other 2 years). The implication being that I don't even know her well enough to say she's a, wonderful, beautiful person. And what can I say to that? Maybe she has a point. It's so frustrating.

LundiMardi

scouser.tommy wrote:

:mad: Gah, if I was only ****ing there. I know she's probably in tears, as we've just been talking and she got very upset thinking she is entirely un-lovable and I tell her emphatically otherwise and of course she re-buffs that by saying how, as much as my opinion 'matters', we've only ever spent really a week in person with each other (Like I said, we all live in different countries, though we've known each other 2 years). The implication being that I don't even know her well enough to say she's a, wonderful, beautiful person. And what can I say to that? Maybe she has a point. It's so frustrating.

to be completely honest, people like that piss me off... wallowing in their own self pitty... Maybe you should be straight up with them? Tell them to cop the **** on!!!

Ok, may not be the sensitive way to be, but if you don't, they may be always looking to you as a pick me up, and you can't ALWAYS be that!!