Help Me Hera: I think I need to break up with my best friend
Want Hera's help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz
Dear Hera,
I think I need to break up with my best friend. It's a long story.
Some time ago we almost got together. I made myself decline her advances since we were colleagues and I was fresh out of a longterm relationship. A few weeks later we had become even more situationship than friendship, and I decided fuck it, this is worth the risk. I told her I felt the same, only to get turned down. It was awful and we stopped speaking for months.
But time heals! We slowly started spending time together again and now we're closer than ever. She's my best friend. It helped that we both moved on and started seeing other people. We could go back to being mates without any pesky romantic feelings ever getting in the way.
Recently, she brought up the aforementioned mess, and it was a really good chat. We laughed a lot. But one thing came up that hurt. It turns out that the death blow for our 'will-they-won't-they' had been that she'd slept with someone else – a friend – and didn't want to have to tell me. I had suspected this at the time, and it's well in the past, so I brushed it off. I was mostly just happy to finally clear the air on that particularly messy chapter.
Turns out, knowing and suspecting are different things and now I don't know what to do. She is one of my favourite people in the world. People do stupid things. She admitted she fucked up. And this is all a long time ago. We're both happily seeing other people now.
On the other hand though, I don't think I'd have entertained becoming mates again if I'd known for certain. And now I know that I should not have given her the benefit of the doubt.
But I did, and she is now my best friend in the world. Losing her would turn my life upside down. Is it worth doing that over some ancient hurt feelings?
Dear Heartbroken,
I have read this letter backwards and forwards. I have soaked it in lemon juice and held it up to candlelight. I have run it through all known cryptogram cyphers. But I'm struggling to see the justice of your complaint.
There are a lot of mixed messages in your letter. You say you love this friend, and she's your favourite person in the world. That losing her would turn your life upside down. You insist that you're just good friends, and have both moved on romantically. You've laughed about this situation together and become even closer. And then you go and sign the letter 'heartbroken.'
What confuses me most is your anger. Maybe I have Tux Tasty Bites Dry Beef Dog Food for brains, but I have scrutinised this letter from every angle and I honestly can't see what she did wrong. You say she 'fucked up' and 'people do stupid things' and you should never have given her the benefit of the doubt. But what did she do that was so fucked up and stupid? Was it sleeping with someone else, after she'd already propositioned you and been rejected? Was it not telling you that she'd slept with someone else after you'd already changed your mind?
I don't blame you for feeling sad about the situation. I don't even think you did the wrong thing. Jumping straight out of a long-term relationship into a new romantic fling with a close friend and coworker is a high-risk situation, and I can completely understand your initial trepidation. The fact that your feelings eventually won out, only to discover you were too late, is obviously painful. Missed opportunities hurt more than outright rejections.
What isn't fair is blaming her for this mess. It's not pleasant to discover someone you have a crush on has slept with a friend. But even if there was still some simmering romantic tension between you, or you'd started sleeping together casually, it's not fair to expect her to keep a respectful period of monogamous celibacy on the off chance you'd change your mind. You're processing this like a romantic infidelity, but you can't cheat on someone you're not in a relationship with, especially if you've already made it clear to the other person that a relationship isn't on the cards. While the situation is undeniably messy, even if your friend regrets her choices, it doesn't mean she 'fucked up.' Perhaps your hurt has to do with the conviction that if she hadn't slept with that friend, things would have turned out differently between you. It's fine to be mildly tormented by regret. But you share some responsibility for the way things unfolded between you.
Maybe you'd say that your hurt isn't to do with the fact that she'd slept with someone else, it's that she didn't tell you. But then you go on to say that if she had told you, you'd never have entertained becoming friends again. This makes no sense. If you want to opt out of a relationship because the rejection is too painful, that's one thing. But you can't have your cake and fuck it too.
Did she have an obligation to tell you? Considering you were already hurt enough to stop talking for months, I can't see how her offering up this information would have been relevant or productive at the time. You can't expect full transparency from someone you're not on speaking terms with.
I think the reason you're having a hard time reconciling this perceived 'betrayal' with your current platonic friendship is because you still have residual feelings for her. You say that these days, you're strictly platonic. But this whole letter is bogged down with retrospective anguish. I think part of you must still be holding a candle for this girl, or the situation wouldn't hurt so bad.
Perhaps there's some specific emotional nuance I've missed in your letter which is fuelling your sense of retrospective injustice. But from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're struggling to forgive someone who doesn't need your forgiveness. I'd encourage you to do a little soul searching and be honest with yourself about why you're so hurt. If you can't move past this, perhaps your feelings aren't as platonic as you think, and you're not ready to be friends. There's no shame in that. But don't act like the wounded party. Sometimes there's nobody to blame.
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The Spinoff
5 days ago
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Help Me Hera: My friends don't seem to remember my birthday
Should I confront them about it, or is it time to make new friends? Want Hera's help? Email your problem to helpme@ Kia ora Hera, It's my birthday tomorrow and none of my friends have reached out to make birthday plans with me. I planned a lovely weekend spending Saturday with friends and Sunday with my cousin but none of them twigged that it was the weekend before my birthday. I have a lot of people I know, and some people who I consider my best friends, but I don't think any would call me their best friend. A couple of years ago my oldest friend forgot to put my 40th birthday party in her calendar and made other plans. I didn't get invited to whatever she did to celebrate hers the following month. I just found out I didn't make the cut for another friend's 40th birthday dinner. I've had a pretty rough couple of years and I feel lonely; it's painful to find out that I don't have the kind of people who rally around at the best times, let alone in a crisis. I'm open to any advice at all, but I'm particularly interested to know if you think it would be helpful to try and talk to my friends about how sidelined I feel, or if I should just move on and develop new friendships. Nga mihi mahana, Dear Lonely First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I think this is a difficult question to answer, because there's no universal set of expectations for what a close friendship should look like. One person's Scooby Doo ghostbusting fantasy is another person's codependent vision of Hell. It's much harder to make a moral judgement about whether someone is behaving negligently in a friendship than in a romantic relationship, because romantic relationships (for better or worse) come with a lot of cultural scaffolding and etiquette. Friendships, on the other hand, are the wild west. I'm sorry your friends didn't remember your birthday. What I don't understand is why you didn't tell them? You say 'nobody twigged' but there's no reason to be coy about something that's obviously so important to you. In a perfect world, you wouldn't need to drop hints. Your friends would know you well enough to proactively hire the bouncy castle and champagne fountain. But this is only setting you up for bitter disappointment when they inevitably forget. The truth is, people will forget your birthday, and it isn't because they don't love you. It's because many people just don't care about birthdays. I understand why you're hurt. You're probably great at remembering other people's birthdays and buying thoughtful gifts, and don't understand why other people can't reciprocate. But you can't use your birthday as a referendum on how much other people love you, because not only is the data worthless, it's an easy way to have a miserable day for no reason. I'll be real with you. Unlike the wise and wonderful Madeleine Holden, I am a birthday minimalist. I would no sooner throw a birthday party than I'd voluntarily get my gums scraped at the dentist. I don't care if the people I love remember my birthday and am equally bad at returning the favour. When it comes to birthdays, I'm mostly in it for the cake. I don't think it's stupid or childish to want a lovely birthday surrounded by friends and family. But I do think you need to set the people you love up for success. First and foremost, that means reminding people it's happening. Don't drop hints. Grab a megaphone. Borrow their phone and set a recurring calendar reminder. Plan a party. Make attention-seeking posts on the morning of, soliciting love and attention. Bake your own damn cake. You have to set the tone if you want people to live up to your expectations. I know a few birthday divas, and without exception, they are relentless in their pursuit of birthday satisfaction. They always get what they want because their demands are explicit and their energy is contagious. This might not seem fair. But I do think it's the most practical solution to your problem. The goal here isn't to train people to remember. The goal is to do whatever it takes to have a wonderful day. That's going to require a little shameless hustling. Obviously your question isn't just about your birthday. Your birthday is symbolic of a bigger loneliness. That's much harder to address. I'm sorry your friends haven't been there for you during a difficult time. It's deeply painful to feel your relationships mean more to you than they do to others, and I hope that one day you find that reciprocity you're looking for. You ask whether you should confront your friends or just make new ones. I don't think these options are mutually exclusive. There's nothing wrong with making new friends, especially if you're feeling lonely. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to jettison the old ones. It does sound like, in general, you have a lot of people in your life who love and care for you. Setting aside the topic of birthdays, what does a close friendship look like to you? Talking every day? Every week? Every month? Is it the amount of time you spend together or the depth of the conversation? Are you mourning something you used to have or longing for something you've never experienced? I'm not saying your loneliness is your problem to solve. But I do think people have wildly different interpretations of what it means to be close. If you're constantly feeling like your friendships are lopsided – you're always the one initiating contact, or you've drifted apart and want to find a way to close that distance – I think it's worth trying to have a deeper conversation with these friends before writing them off. I wouldn't frame it as feeling 'sidelined', I'd lead with 'feeling really lonely' and see whether your friends are able to step up their game. In general I don't think there's anything wrong with expressing disappointment if your friends have disappointed you, but I feel like you've skipped an important step here, which is asking for their help. If you're the kind of person who is used to caring for others without needing to be asked, the idea of asking for help probably fills you with horror and disgust. You seem like the sort of person who is good at intuiting other people's needs and simply want a little reciprocity. But clearly this hasn't been working out for you. It might be time to try a new strategy. I want to make it clear that I don't think you're in the wrong here. If you've been having a rough few years, your friends should have rallied around without prompting. But before you chew them out for their failure, or slowly ghost them, try being vulnerable and asking for a little extra attention and care. This might not work the way you hope. They might just be shit friends. On the other hand, they might surprise you. But give them a decent chance to disappoint you, before chastising them for letting you down. Either way, don't turn your birthday into a referendum on how loved you are. I'm sure your friends care about you and want you to have a special day. So get on the horn and remind them.
The Spinoff
02-07-2025
- The Spinoff
Help Me Hera: I think I need to break up with my best friend
A long time ago we almost hooked up. Why am I still so hurt? Want Hera's help? Email your problem to helpme@ Dear Hera, I think I need to break up with my best friend. It's a long story. Some time ago we almost got together. I made myself decline her advances since we were colleagues and I was fresh out of a longterm relationship. A few weeks later we had become even more situationship than friendship, and I decided fuck it, this is worth the risk. I told her I felt the same, only to get turned down. It was awful and we stopped speaking for months. But time heals! We slowly started spending time together again and now we're closer than ever. She's my best friend. It helped that we both moved on and started seeing other people. We could go back to being mates without any pesky romantic feelings ever getting in the way. Recently, she brought up the aforementioned mess, and it was a really good chat. We laughed a lot. But one thing came up that hurt. It turns out that the death blow for our 'will-they-won't-they' had been that she'd slept with someone else – a friend – and didn't want to have to tell me. I had suspected this at the time, and it's well in the past, so I brushed it off. I was mostly just happy to finally clear the air on that particularly messy chapter. Turns out, knowing and suspecting are different things and now I don't know what to do. She is one of my favourite people in the world. People do stupid things. She admitted she fucked up. And this is all a long time ago. We're both happily seeing other people now. On the other hand though, I don't think I'd have entertained becoming mates again if I'd known for certain. And now I know that I should not have given her the benefit of the doubt. But I did, and she is now my best friend in the world. Losing her would turn my life upside down. Is it worth doing that over some ancient hurt feelings? Dear Heartbroken, I have read this letter backwards and forwards. I have soaked it in lemon juice and held it up to candlelight. I have run it through all known cryptogram cyphers. But I'm struggling to see the justice of your complaint. There are a lot of mixed messages in your letter. You say you love this friend, and she's your favourite person in the world. That losing her would turn your life upside down. You insist that you're just good friends, and have both moved on romantically. You've laughed about this situation together and become even closer. And then you go and sign the letter 'heartbroken.' What confuses me most is your anger. Maybe I have Tux Tasty Bites Dry Beef Dog Food for brains, but I have scrutinised this letter from every angle and I honestly can't see what she did wrong. You say she 'fucked up' and 'people do stupid things' and you should never have given her the benefit of the doubt. But what did she do that was so fucked up and stupid? Was it sleeping with someone else, after she'd already propositioned you and been rejected? Was it not telling you that she'd slept with someone else after you'd already changed your mind? I don't blame you for feeling sad about the situation. I don't even think you did the wrong thing. Jumping straight out of a long-term relationship into a new romantic fling with a close friend and coworker is a high-risk situation, and I can completely understand your initial trepidation. The fact that your feelings eventually won out, only to discover you were too late, is obviously painful. Missed opportunities hurt more than outright rejections. What isn't fair is blaming her for this mess. It's not pleasant to discover someone you have a crush on has slept with a friend. But even if there was still some simmering romantic tension between you, or you'd started sleeping together casually, it's not fair to expect her to keep a respectful period of monogamous celibacy on the off chance you'd change your mind. You're processing this like a romantic infidelity, but you can't cheat on someone you're not in a relationship with, especially if you've already made it clear to the other person that a relationship isn't on the cards. While the situation is undeniably messy, even if your friend regrets her choices, it doesn't mean she 'fucked up.' Perhaps your hurt has to do with the conviction that if she hadn't slept with that friend, things would have turned out differently between you. It's fine to be mildly tormented by regret. But you share some responsibility for the way things unfolded between you. Maybe you'd say that your hurt isn't to do with the fact that she'd slept with someone else, it's that she didn't tell you. But then you go on to say that if she had told you, you'd never have entertained becoming friends again. This makes no sense. If you want to opt out of a relationship because the rejection is too painful, that's one thing. But you can't have your cake and fuck it too. Did she have an obligation to tell you? Considering you were already hurt enough to stop talking for months, I can't see how her offering up this information would have been relevant or productive at the time. You can't expect full transparency from someone you're not on speaking terms with. I think the reason you're having a hard time reconciling this perceived 'betrayal' with your current platonic friendship is because you still have residual feelings for her. You say that these days, you're strictly platonic. But this whole letter is bogged down with retrospective anguish. I think part of you must still be holding a candle for this girl, or the situation wouldn't hurt so bad. Perhaps there's some specific emotional nuance I've missed in your letter which is fuelling your sense of retrospective injustice. But from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're struggling to forgive someone who doesn't need your forgiveness. I'd encourage you to do a little soul searching and be honest with yourself about why you're so hurt. If you can't move past this, perhaps your feelings aren't as platonic as you think, and you're not ready to be friends. There's no shame in that. But don't act like the wounded party. Sometimes there's nobody to blame.
The Spinoff
18-06-2025
- The Spinoff
Help Me Hera: How do I repair my relationship with a politically aggressive cousin?
We used to be so close, but their blunt communication style keeps hurting my feelings. Want Hera's help? Email your problem to helpme@ Dear Hera, I have a cousin I was very close to as a kid through our mid-20s, but recently we have drifted apart and it has become very hard to connect with them. They are one of the closest cousins in age to me (they are a few years older than me; I'm 30). In their late 20s, they went through a pretty rough period that has left them chronically disabled and unable to work. They have also been on a bumpy and ongoing journey, coming out as queer and autistic. None of this impacts the love or support for them I have in any way, shape or form. But I now feel it is very difficult to talk to them about anything, because as a result of this stretching and exploration of their identity, they have formed some very firm opinions about gender/sexuality, politics, capitalism, the disability space (apropos of nothing, I ALSO have a chronic illness, albeit one that is different to theirs) and that crosses over to almost all topics. Essentially, if you don't agree with them now on any of the above, it feels like there is no room for nuance and your words are taken in their least charitable interpretation. This has resulted in at least one discussion where my feelings were incredibly hurt (though no, they probably don't know that because I didn't want to hurt THEIR feelings by bringing it up). I know this communication approach is one trait common among neurodivergent people, but I don't just want to brush my own feelings aside. As a result, I've felt unable to talk to them about anything big or important, for fear of coming across wrong or accidentally offending them. Sure we still text, but it's all pretty superficial stuff compared to how it once was. I don't know how to bring up the fact I feel like I can't connect with them anymore without sounding like I'm not supporting their (valid!!) needs and accommodations. But also, maybe they don't feel the same way and it's all in my head?? Basically, how do I express to this cousin that I love and support them, but also that I feel a bit hurt and want to work on reshaping our relationship??? From, A Cousin Adrift Dear ACA, This is another one of those letters which falls into the category of 'how to have a difficult conversation with someone you love.' To which my answer is usually, reluctantly. This question has been stressing me out all week. Every time I try to answer it sensibly, I feel myself coming over in tedious platitudes. Use I based statements. Come from a place of vulnerability rather than blame. Ask questions to get to the heart of things. The whole thing makes me feel irrationally disgusted, like taking a shit in public. What's wrong with the old Anglican method of slowly internalising all your anger until it calcifies into cancerous nugget you carry with you to your grave? However, that's not the attitude of a responsible advice columnist, so I'm going to grit my teeth and try a little harder. I often get similar letters, from people wanting to know how to convert their belligerent oil magnate relatives into seeing the wisdom of the capital gains tax. I don't often get letters from people on the same side of the political spectrum. In an ideal world you would have said what you needed to in the moment, instead of carrying your grievance around like a sack of festering roadkill. But difficult conversations are difficult for a reason, and it's hard to let someone you love know they've fucked you off. It's even harder when they have a blunt communication style, and a bunch of fresh ideologies burning a hole in their pocket. In your cousin's defence, I think it's easy, when newly politically awakened, to go a little rhetorically overboard. Usually such people have their hearts in the right place, and a little time slumming it in the real world tends to soften their ideological corners. However, some people remain annoying forever. It's hard to know what to suggest with this sort of person. Do you try to increase their tolerance for dissenting opinions by picking a few low stakes fights about harmless bullshit, or do you grit your teeth and save up the truth for when it really matters? On the surface, 'how do I tell my cousin they've hurt my feelings?' is straight out of a 1950s church newsletter. But figuring out how to tell someone you love they're being a pain in the ass in a way that enriches and deepens your relationship requires top tier diplomacy skills. It almost feels like you're asking for a script, but I'm a hater of script-based interaction. It's too easy to recklessly suggest you just tell your cousin what you're thinking. The last thing I want to do is push you out of the helicopter with a false sense of optimism and a copy of 'non-violent communication' to break your fall. No matter how many Ted Talks on the radical power of vulnerability you watch, it's hard to find a productive way to argue with someone you love. Ask any tenured couples therapist. As far as I can see, you have a few options. Grit your teeth and say what you need to say. Sometimes the only way to survive a relationship with a bulldozer is to become more of a bulldozer yourself. It's possible your cousin might even appreciate a blunt approach. But people don't always have to take criticism well for the conversation to be a success. Sometimes there's no polite way to impart a difficult truth. Even if your cousin reacts poorly in the moment, the message may eventually sink in, even if you have to endure a little temporary sulking. Play the long game. Closeness and radical transparency aren't necessarily the same thing. I'm not saying you shouldn't say anything when your cousin offends you. But it might be received better in the moment, rather than reheating your stale grievance months later, or holding a 'state of the nation' about your relationship. It's OK to roll your eyes and let some things slide, for the sake of posterity. If longevity is your goal, sometimes forgiveness is more productive than honesty. I don't know how psychologically enlightened this is, but it serves you right for writing into a New Zealand advice columnist. Go away to a cabin together and take a lot of mood enhancing drugs. Have a nine-hour conversation that brings you both to a plane of new understanding. #1 is the answer I feel I'm supposed to give, with a little nauseatingly disingenuous 'speak from a place of vulnerability' thrown in. #2 is what I would do, in your situation. And #3 is probably the most fun/likely to produce a positive outcome.
