Commiseration or Celebration: When Women Talk to Other Women

Many years ago, when I was a younger woman, I had a girlfriend whom I considered to be my very, very best friend. We spoke daily, we traveled together, and we spent many evenings and weekends at each other’s homes. It sounds pretty great, except for one small detail. During all of those phone calls, trips, and times together, we complained.

Mostly we complained about men. We were both single at the time. Her husband had left her for another man and my fiance had experienced “cold feet” and had cancelled our wedding at the last minute. We cocooned ourselves in what I have come to call “a partnership in suffering”.

We spent countless hours rehashing the hurt, the unfairness, and the fear. We clung to each other, not so much for support, but for the comfort of commiseration. Every complaint was “topped” with a “oh yeah?, well listen to how bad I have it!” response. In short, looking back, I think we must have been so close to each other because no one else wanted to be around us!

As embarrassing as it is to admit to having been that woman so many years ago, I am grateful for the lesson of that relationship. While it is important to have a good friend (or therapist) who is willing to listen to us whine and complain after a traumatic event, it is not a good foundation for an entire friendship! Expressing hurt, disappointment, fear, and even anger, is natural and necessary at times, but when there’s little else going on in the relationship, there’s a problem. The problem is that the connection can only last for as long as both partners are willing to be victims.

What happened in my friendship with this other woman could have been predicted, but it shocked and hurt me when it happened. After about two years of wallowing (yes, two years!!), my fiance and I reconciled and began to plan our wedding. My very, very best friend should have been happy for me, right? WRONG! Without the daily commiseration, things began to deteriorate rapidly. She felt betrayed by my happiness and worked hard to pull me back into the partnership in suffering we had created. All attempts to shift the tone of the relationship, were met with resistance. After a few months, she declined to be in my wedding and thought it would be better to end the friendship. Why hadn’t I seen this coming?

Perhaps to a lesser degree than this example, women frequently form friendships with other woman around the need to commiserate about the inequities of life. Complaints about boyfriends or husbands, the boss, business, the kids, the in-laws: we complain to our girlfriends when our guys won’t listen to it anymore. On the phone, over coffee, at the mall, women everywhere love to talk... and a lot of this talk is negative! A couple of years ago, I gathered about 10 lovely, successful, high functioning women together for a holiday tea.

After about an hour, the talk turned to complaining about various aspects of our relationships with men. My new, very, very, best friend stood up and very sweetly excused herself and left. Later, baffled by her early exit, I asked for an explanation. She said, “I really love and appreciate my husband. He’s not perfect, but I don’t find it useful to sit around complaining, even if we’re just kidding. I didn’t want to surround myself with that negative energy.”

And with that, I got it. We can put our energy towards commiseration or toward celebration. Since that night, I have been less and less comfortable with complaining. I am willing to listen to my girlfriends talk about their hurt, their sorrow , disappointment, or fears for awhile, and then I am eager to support them in finding solutions or acceptance. I am much happier than I used to be, because I choose to focus on the many things for which I am grateful. I am also a much better very, very, best friend!

I still see my old friend once in a while. She is still single, has gained a lot of weight, and seems perpetually miserable. I have tried to talk to her about the misguided way in which we related to one another, but she’s not open to that conversation...yet. I have hope. And I am grateful for what I learned about myself in my relationship with her.