It can be less difficult to deal with hard life events with a close friend than by yourself. We all want to be there for our closest people and support them the best we can. It may also feel like you wish you could take all the pain away so your friend would feel better. It's hard, though, as every person deals differently and sometimes you may even make it worse rather than help.
More info: Reddit
If you are having a hard life event, that doesn’t mean that you can be selfish and put all your needs first
Image credits: mikoto .raw Photographer (not the actual image)
Woman asks the community if it was a jerk move to ask her roommate to leave the room while she was crying over her breakup
Image credits: u/breakupleaving
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual image)
Turns out her boyfriend broke up with her over text and the sobbing didn't stop for a while
Image credits: u/breakupleaving
After trying to console her for 1.5 hours, the woman simply gave up and asked her roomie to leave so she could get some sleep. They haven't talked since the incident
Not long ago, Reddit user "breakupleaving" asked the community's members for their opinions after she asked her roommate to leave as she was sobbing in the middle of the night over a breakup with her boyfriend. The post went viral and 12 days later it got almost 11K upvotes and more than 1K comments.
The author starts her story with a little introduction that she is a college freshman and has a roommate, who has a boyfriend and is on the phone with him 24/7. The author had a midterm the next morning, so she wanted to get a good sleep that night. This is when the incident began.
After around 3.5 hours she woke up due to her roommate’s crying. Well, more like screaming-crying. Turns out, her boyfriend broke up with her over text. Yeah, how mature. Being the good friend she is, the author tried to calm her down for about 1.5 hours, but the loud sobbing was not getting calmer.
The woman understood that in 5 hours, she had an important midterm, and she really needed to get some sleep. In the nicest way possible, she asked her roommate if maybe they could go to sleep and come back to this later. And of course, no way - the roommate couldn’t stop sobbing so there was no chance she would be able to fall asleep.
After running out of options, the OP suggested that maybe the roommate could go to another room to calm down a little bit as she really needed to get some sleep before the important test. This suggestion was met with a rude look from the roommate and the silence treatment since then.
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual image)
The author admitted that she is feeling terrible about the whole situation. However, the audience gave her “Not The A-Hole” badge and in the comments folks backed her up for doing the right thing. “NTA - you gave her an hour and a half to pull herself together and she couldn’t. It’s a breakup - not a death,” one user wrote. The last sentence caused a little discussion. A few users mentioned that a breakup can be as painful as death: “My third breakup hit harder than my brother dying.” The users agreed that human emotions can't be explained and the feelings are very different for every person.
Now, people online agree that even while texts can be awkward and breakups hurt, it's not appropriate to genuinely cry for so long without thinking about other people. “You did everything you could but even if she didn’t understand it at that moment, she should’ve realized it by now and perhaps apologized. That would be a grownup way of dealing with life. Not everything in this world is about her and her relationship,” somebody wrote.
Additionally, it is clear that breakups cause you to feel all kinds of emotions, including anger, sadness or confusion. According to the Jed Foundation, breakups are a form of loss, and it's typical to experience "breakup depression," or at the very least, a profound grief, after one. You might be mourning not just your former relationship but also the potential future you two had. Give yourself time to get past your unhappiness and allow yourself to grieve the connection.
Moreover, Robin Lang highlights a few ways that are the best to support your friend going through a breakup. First of all, give them room to speak. Be present without drawing comparisons or assuming what they should do. Well, probably it shouldn’t be in the middle of the night when a test is waiting in a few hours. Another thing is to listen to your friends' needs and help to rebuild their self-esteem. And finally, if it’s your close friends, you will know the best way you can help them.
So, guys, do you think was it an insensitive move of her to ask her roommate to leave the room? Or did the roommate cross the line and put her problems first, not thinking about the author's needs?
Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual image)
Folks in the comment section discussed and shared their opinions, mainly that the author of the post was more than right to ask her roommate to let her sleep
