Putting a name to this is so helpful. I was in one of these for over a decade with someone who was really gracious and generous with her beautiful, privileged life, but only when I was worse off than her in pretty much every way that mattered. I felt crazy for years, thinking I was imagining this dynamic, because she never seemed to be doing it intentionally.
It took seeing her be beyond callous to someone else with no self-awareness to make me finally realize how out-of-control she was and leave the friendship. She made a huge show of not knowing why I left, and how she's a victim. I'm shocked at how little I miss her, considering how much of my social life she had veto power over for so long. The only downside is that now I worry about sharing too much of myself with friends, especially the things she made me feel bad about.
I want to give you a huge hug! You don't miss her because you had to be a smaller version of yourself to keep the bond alive. I'd be like a butterfly missing its cocoon. Why would you miss that?
It sounds like you're still healing. These kinds of friendships can be so intense. It's like a drug. It takes a while to find your footing.
I cried when reading this. I just ended a long friendship because it felt so off and unbalanced. The moment I started showing up for myself and working on my own stuff, drawing boundaries I felt the knives come out. Constant subtle digs that would make me sound crazy if I bought it up, passive aggressiveness, resentment towards anyone else who would take up time and energy. I was always made to feel guilty because she would constantly point out how much of a ‘good friend’ she was. Really when I look back it was a lot of me doing labour for her, but not much for me. The conversation was never positive. There was never any genuine help when it came to me building independence or genuine self esteem. I always had to choose her, be loyal, be generous, be a friend. But when the roles reversed I didn’t really receive anything other than forced proximity and guilt. The moment I uploaded my branding on my Substack, she unfollowed…. Basically told me everything I needed to know. Thank you for articulating this. It’s so spot on. Actually it’s a relief. I was sitting here feeling guilty for cutting her off and this just reminded me why. Thank you
This is so well said, and it is truly a dynamic that can get its hooks SO deep into you and be so hard to deprogram yourself from. Like another reader, I am also curious about times that I have been on the other side of it, and how to become aware of that and break the dynamic.
I am in recovery and this post is putting to words the increasing discomfort and sense of diminishment I feel around my sponsor. When I was very low she was the person who cheered me on in every positive baby step I made. Now I find myself putting myself down around her to soften the blow of my wins and achievements. Positive developments are met with disapproving silence. It is so heartbreaking that her insecurities are expressed in ways designed to make me feel small and even discourage my relationships with other women in recovery. She even seemed angry when I told her I was proud of her the other day because I guess it threatens the order if things. It's a hard place to be because this woman saved my life and was there for me when noone else was. But I am grateful to have a framework for understanding what is happening here. I hope she will be able to grow through this- I am not ready to let go of her as a sponsor, but I am going to work on letting go of my need for her approval and invest more time in more equitable mutually supportive friendships.
I really liked The Wheel of Consent framework (Betty Martin, the Art of Receiving and Giving) to untangle relationship dynamics like this. One of the questions she encourages us to ask is: who is this for? Because it's not really giving at all if it's not for the other person in the first place.
I'm so sorry you experienced this rotten devotion.
Thank you for the comment, Hanna! I will check this out. I appreciate the recommendation. Let me know if there are any other texts that come to mind, too.
you're welcome! the book itself focuses on romantic relationships and I explored this framework in the context of friendship here on Substack over a few weeks. It's been eye opening!
"the friendship survives every low point and ruptures at the peak" reorganized how i think about a friendship i lost last year. "managed diminishment" is the exact phrase i could never find for it.
I had a "best frend" friend who graciously helped me pay for things throughout grad school because she was well-paid in her job (and in hindsight - rotted devotion). During my internship year I met my now-husband. As we prepped for the wedding she offered her support, and agreed to make the dessert we'd have instead of traditional cake. The more I grew into myself and relationship, the more unstable her support got - including an "emergency" that caused her to leave 24 hours before my wedding - she then had to drive to Oregon from SoCall AND make the dessert. She came through but after reading your article, I wonder if this was one of the first ruptures in her not getting that devotion from me anymore. Ultimately, we broke up a few months after my wedding (me writing her a letter and asking for a follow up conversation, and her ghosting me).
the "never so bright it casts its own shadow" line stopped me cold. i had a friendship that was exactly this and could never explain why i had to leave it, and you just handed me the name for it.
Interesting concept. I’d add that I have experienced this as a form of ‘fake business’ friendship. I ended one of these as well. If I can build - the objective of managed diminishment is very American in that it involves highly insecure, wounded people who need to feel superior to someone close as a grounding effort. The source of Rotten Devotion ties back to individualism run amok. I would also suggest that if the individual feeding off the subordinate friend does nothing to sustain the friendship when it ends..this proves my point…they have simply found someone else to play the role and they actually were not sincere at all in their ‘aid.’
Honestly I've been thinking about this concept for a few months and I think in almost every relationship you can distinguish the one who's dominant and the one who's a little bit more passive. So I guess good friendship is about balancing, being aware of who's lower here at certain moment and trying to make them equal (moreover it's a refusal to be one's psychologist). Basically it's caring about your friend and letting yourself to be taken care of. Me and my friend are same age, but sometimes we call each other "older sister" - but we take turns to preserve ourselves from feeling superior.
Good friendship is about the pleasure of caring for another person without dominating them. It's healthy for friends to have slight power imbalances, but it's not healthy if that imbalance is permanent and used to control the other person and make them feel inferior.
Anyone is susceptible to these dynamics because both people are giving and receiving something valuable (superiority and control for one, care for the other). Nothing is inherently wrong about that. It's just that this dynamic is doomed. It cannot last.
I'm sure we've all been on both sides, to some extent. The best we can do is have self-compassion and educate ourselves so we don't fall back into the same patterns.
This is so well articulated. I've been trying to name the reason a "great" friend of mine and I are no longer friends and this really summarized it. When my life started "working," it didn't work for her anymore. The strange thing is that even though we were friends for years (and btw had a lot of AMAZING times together), I don't miss her at all.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this. It's such a mindfuck to experience. The love is real, but it's in service of one person's ego rather than mutual growth. I hope that when people see this framing, they'll understand that no one was the villain. It's just that the appeal of the relationship was different for both people, ultimately.
It's a one-sided codependence, where one friend needs the other to be in a lower status in the status lane the dominant really cares about. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Putting a name to this is so helpful. I was in one of these for over a decade with someone who was really gracious and generous with her beautiful, privileged life, but only when I was worse off than her in pretty much every way that mattered. I felt crazy for years, thinking I was imagining this dynamic, because she never seemed to be doing it intentionally.
It took seeing her be beyond callous to someone else with no self-awareness to make me finally realize how out-of-control she was and leave the friendship. She made a huge show of not knowing why I left, and how she's a victim. I'm shocked at how little I miss her, considering how much of my social life she had veto power over for so long. The only downside is that now I worry about sharing too much of myself with friends, especially the things she made me feel bad about.
I want to give you a huge hug! You don't miss her because you had to be a smaller version of yourself to keep the bond alive. I'd be like a butterfly missing its cocoon. Why would you miss that?
It sounds like you're still healing. These kinds of friendships can be so intense. It's like a drug. It takes a while to find your footing.
I cried when reading this. I just ended a long friendship because it felt so off and unbalanced. The moment I started showing up for myself and working on my own stuff, drawing boundaries I felt the knives come out. Constant subtle digs that would make me sound crazy if I bought it up, passive aggressiveness, resentment towards anyone else who would take up time and energy. I was always made to feel guilty because she would constantly point out how much of a ‘good friend’ she was. Really when I look back it was a lot of me doing labour for her, but not much for me. The conversation was never positive. There was never any genuine help when it came to me building independence or genuine self esteem. I always had to choose her, be loyal, be generous, be a friend. But when the roles reversed I didn’t really receive anything other than forced proximity and guilt. The moment I uploaded my branding on my Substack, she unfollowed…. Basically told me everything I needed to know. Thank you for articulating this. It’s so spot on. Actually it’s a relief. I was sitting here feeling guilty for cutting her off and this just reminded me why. Thank you
This is so well said, and it is truly a dynamic that can get its hooks SO deep into you and be so hard to deprogram yourself from. Like another reader, I am also curious about times that I have been on the other side of it, and how to become aware of that and break the dynamic.
I'm planning to do a deeper dive into this, so stay tuned!!
I am in recovery and this post is putting to words the increasing discomfort and sense of diminishment I feel around my sponsor. When I was very low she was the person who cheered me on in every positive baby step I made. Now I find myself putting myself down around her to soften the blow of my wins and achievements. Positive developments are met with disapproving silence. It is so heartbreaking that her insecurities are expressed in ways designed to make me feel small and even discourage my relationships with other women in recovery. She even seemed angry when I told her I was proud of her the other day because I guess it threatens the order if things. It's a hard place to be because this woman saved my life and was there for me when noone else was. But I am grateful to have a framework for understanding what is happening here. I hope she will be able to grow through this- I am not ready to let go of her as a sponsor, but I am going to work on letting go of my need for her approval and invest more time in more equitable mutually supportive friendships.
I really liked The Wheel of Consent framework (Betty Martin, the Art of Receiving and Giving) to untangle relationship dynamics like this. One of the questions she encourages us to ask is: who is this for? Because it's not really giving at all if it's not for the other person in the first place.
I'm so sorry you experienced this rotten devotion.
Thank you for the comment, Hanna! I will check this out. I appreciate the recommendation. Let me know if there are any other texts that come to mind, too.
you're welcome! the book itself focuses on romantic relationships and I explored this framework in the context of friendship here on Substack over a few weeks. It's been eye opening!
"the friendship survives every low point and ruptures at the peak" reorganized how i think about a friendship i lost last year. "managed diminishment" is the exact phrase i could never find for it.
I had a "best frend" friend who graciously helped me pay for things throughout grad school because she was well-paid in her job (and in hindsight - rotted devotion). During my internship year I met my now-husband. As we prepped for the wedding she offered her support, and agreed to make the dessert we'd have instead of traditional cake. The more I grew into myself and relationship, the more unstable her support got - including an "emergency" that caused her to leave 24 hours before my wedding - she then had to drive to Oregon from SoCall AND make the dessert. She came through but after reading your article, I wonder if this was one of the first ruptures in her not getting that devotion from me anymore. Ultimately, we broke up a few months after my wedding (me writing her a letter and asking for a follow up conversation, and her ghosting me).
the "never so bright it casts its own shadow" line stopped me cold. i had a friendship that was exactly this and could never explain why i had to leave it, and you just handed me the name for it.
Interesting concept. I’d add that I have experienced this as a form of ‘fake business’ friendship. I ended one of these as well. If I can build - the objective of managed diminishment is very American in that it involves highly insecure, wounded people who need to feel superior to someone close as a grounding effort. The source of Rotten Devotion ties back to individualism run amok. I would also suggest that if the individual feeding off the subordinate friend does nothing to sustain the friendship when it ends..this proves my point…they have simply found someone else to play the role and they actually were not sincere at all in their ‘aid.’
Honestly I've been thinking about this concept for a few months and I think in almost every relationship you can distinguish the one who's dominant and the one who's a little bit more passive. So I guess good friendship is about balancing, being aware of who's lower here at certain moment and trying to make them equal (moreover it's a refusal to be one's psychologist). Basically it's caring about your friend and letting yourself to be taken care of. Me and my friend are same age, but sometimes we call each other "older sister" - but we take turns to preserve ourselves from feeling superior.
Good friendship is about the pleasure of caring for another person without dominating them. It's healthy for friends to have slight power imbalances, but it's not healthy if that imbalance is permanent and used to control the other person and make them feel inferior.
Sad to say I think I have been unintentionally on both sides of this. :(
Anyone is susceptible to these dynamics because both people are giving and receiving something valuable (superiority and control for one, care for the other). Nothing is inherently wrong about that. It's just that this dynamic is doomed. It cannot last.
I'm sure we've all been on both sides, to some extent. The best we can do is have self-compassion and educate ourselves so we don't fall back into the same patterns.
This is so well articulated. I've been trying to name the reason a "great" friend of mine and I are no longer friends and this really summarized it. When my life started "working," it didn't work for her anymore. The strange thing is that even though we were friends for years (and btw had a lot of AMAZING times together), I don't miss her at all.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this. It's such a mindfuck to experience. The love is real, but it's in service of one person's ego rather than mutual growth. I hope that when people see this framing, they'll understand that no one was the villain. It's just that the appeal of the relationship was different for both people, ultimately.
This is so good, Anna! Sharing as a link in my newsletter this week.
Thank you, Nina!!
the friendship survives every low point and ruptures at the peak
Fascinating! Are you thinking of this as something similar or distinct from co-dependence?
It's a one-sided codependence, where one friend needs the other to be in a lower status in the status lane the dominant really cares about. I'd love to hear your thoughts!