Serena and I became close when we both became young mothers and discovered how much we had in common through our life experiences.
Sadly, I experienced emotional abuse throughout our 16-year relationship. The trauma was overwhelming, and the rumination became relentless once I finally understood what I had endured.
Throughout our friendship, I took on the responsibility of supporting her emotionally and financially. I loved her and her children deeply and did everything I could to help them live comfortably. Looking back, I realize I was often protecting her from the consequences of her own actions.
When she bought a car, I was the only one who cried tears of joy for her. Her family had concerns about the financial responsibility that came with monthly car payments. Sadly, those concerns eventually became reality, and the car was repossessed.
I had an old car that still worked, and I gave it to her so she and her children would have a way to get around. Even then, much of the focus remained on how old the car was.
So, I convinced my own mother to sell her car to Serena. I even asked my partner to cover the cost upfront so Serena could simply pay us back whenever she could, since she no longer had the credit to finance another reliable car. She also owed money to the insurance company due to circumstances beyond her control, so the car had to be insured under my name.
She dropped off her kids at our house anytime she needed a babysitter, and we were always available. She used to apologize for the kids being over so often, but I would always tell her, ‘Don’t be sorry. We see it as spending time with the kids.’ When she fell behind on daycare payments, I paid them off. When she couldn’t get a phone line because of her bad credit, I put one in my name for her instead. I was so blinded by how much I loved her that I failed to realize these were not my burdens to carry; they were hers.
My mom and everyone around me could see what was happening. After I paid off her daycare debt, my mom sat me down and told me, ‘This is not the way you help someone.’
She shared an analogy I would never forget: ‘You and Serena are on a boat. While you’re trying to keep the boat afloat by dumping buckets of water out, Serena is poking holes in it. She’s drowning both of you.’
What my mom was trying to tell me was that I was enabling her self-destructive behaviour. Serena never had to take accountability because I was always there to save her. Back then, I didn’t understand what my mom was trying to teach me.
Now I understand that she simply wanted me to allow Serena to feel the weight of her own decisions. Life has always been, and will always be, the greatest teacher. Sometimes, only then do people learn to take accountability, myself included.
Kara, my best friend of over 20 years, also told me I was doing too much and admitted she would never feel comfortable accepting that much from me. She once said, ‘All the money you poured into Serena could have been used to take your daughter on a vacation.’ She also told me she would never allow me to pay for something like her $300 hair appointment.
But Kara also understood that I love to give without limits. She does too, but the difference was that she had healthy boundaries. She knew where the line was drawn and never made me carry what wasn’t mine to carry. It was the complete opposite of my relationship with Serena.
In my relationship with Serena, there were no boundaries. I even asked my partner to help cover a portion of her rent, and he did. Serena had supported him throughout his college years, so to him, it felt like a way of giving back and thanking her.
By the end of our relationship, I was emotionally drained. She was passive-aggressive and could never communicate directly. Instead, she would punish me for not knowing what she wanted. She constantly guilt-tripped me, gave me the silent treatment, and became upset when I spent time with other friends. She would purposely ignore my texts while expecting me to message her again. If I didn’t, she would become angry that I hadn’t tried harder to reach out.
It was exhausting. At the time, she knew I was caring for my toddler, yet instead of simply responding to my messages, she would ignore them for days and later return upset with me.
A guy she was seeing once called me her ‘ride or die.’ But at what cost? The truth was, I was dying. Our relationship only worked as long as I didn’t use my voice or express my feelings. As long as I stayed obedient and did what she wanted, there was peace.
I completely depleted myself trying to make her life, and her children’s lives, better. Even so, I don’t regret loving or helping them, because that speaks to the kind of person I am.
When I was pregnant with my second child, she did the unthinkable. She took the insurance papers from the car we had gotten for her and impersonated me to a police officer.
I only found out because the insurance company mailed me a letter regarding a ticket Selena had received. The letter arrived a year later, on my birthday, almost a year after my son was born. My daughter was there when I opened it, and she was devastated to learn that it was her aunt Serena who had impersonated me.
Seeing how quickly I forgave Serena made my daughter never want to become a doormat herself. To this day, she still believes I should have reported her. She was deeply upset. Her morals were completely crossed, and she could not believe her mother’s best friend would do something like that to our family.
Serena had lied to my face for an entire year. It felt as though the remorse only came after she got caught. It was the final straw for my mom, my daughter, and my closest friends. The trust they had in her was completely shattered, let alone mine.
What’s heartbreaking is that she still made me responsible for her emotional wellbeing while hiding the fact that she had impersonated me during my pregnancy. Whenever my other friends took me out to eat, she would become upset with me. Yet she never made the effort to spend time with me or ask about my cravings.
I never expected those things from her, but it hurt knowing she became angry when others showed up for me in ways she couldn’t.
The betrayal cut deeply. It felt surreal, like I was living in an episode of Gossip Girl. I was so naive; I never imagined someone I considered a sister could betray me like that. She was comfortable hiding this from me, while I could never do that to someone I loved. The guilt would have consumed me.
We were simply very different people. I valued honesty and integrity, while she was willing to lie to my face and maintain that lie for an entire year.
I never did report her to the police. She could have lost custody of her children, received a criminal record, or even faced jail time. I told her, ‘I don’t want to be the reason you can’t travel to the States with your kids.’ But in reality, I wasn’t the reason, she was. With time, I came to realize that once again, I was protecting her from the consequences of her own actions.
Our relationship finally ended when I told her no. I told her I was not going to text her back-to-back. If she wanted to talk, she could simply respond to my first message like any other reasonable person. She never responded.
I explained to her in an email why I believed it was best for us to go our separate ways. I told her that I was never truly allowed to have a voice in the friendship. By the end, I had started speaking up for myself, and that was when the ‘problems’ began.
Whenever she mistreated her other friends and I tried to say something about it, she would turn it around on me and make me feel guilty for even bringing it up.
We eventually crossed paths after I sent that email. She seemed remorseful and told me she didn’t want to always be the victim anymore, and that she never meant to hurt me, and that I, of all people, never deserved that.
Later, my partner questioned whether her apology was truly sincere or if she had simply said what sounded right in the moment, especially since she now accuses me of being the bully. He struggled to believe the apology was genuine because if she were truly sorry, why would she later paint me as the villain? It felt as though the narrative had to change, because acknowledging her own actions would have required accountability.
In her mind, because I was finally standing up for myself I was now the aggressor.
Even after the friendship ended, it still felt as though my voice was something she wanted to silence. She didn’t want me to share my story or my lived experiences. But I am a human being with feelings too. I have a right to be heard, just like everybody else.
At times, it felt as though she wanted me to diminish myself into nothing.
For years, I minimized my own pain to protect her image and preserve the friendship. But constantly silencing myself came at the expense of my own wellbeing. Sharing my experiences now is not about revenge; it’s about finally acknowledging what I went through.
She once asked how many phone lines I could get because a guy she was seeing wanted to know if I’d be willing to put one under my name for him. I don’t know why I thought I was somehow helping her by doing this. I was approved for two additional phone lines, and he ended up taking both phones and racking up my bill to $1,300. Of course, I was the one left to pay it off. When I confronted him about it, he yelled at me and claimed I didn’t know what I was talking about, and she allowed it to happen.
Kara later asked me why I ever said yes, but she was even more upset with Serena and questioned why she would even ask something like that of me in the first place. Honestly, I don’t know. Doing a favour like that for a man she barely knew wasn’t helping her in any real way. I really had no idea what boundaries looked like at the time.
One night, we were heading to a party and stopped by a coffee shop beforehand. She had just finished her drink before we arrived, but I still asked if she wanted anything. She said no, so I asked again if she was sure, and she said no again.
We got to the party and, once we were settled in, she said to me in an aggressive tone, ‘I actually wanted one.’ It was the first time I experienced her passive-aggressive behaviour. She said no but meant yes, expecting me to somehow know what she actually wanted. Back then, I didn’t know how to respond when I was being bullied, so I stayed quiet and we just sat there in awkward silence.
A friend and I snuck back out to the coffee shop to buy her a drink. We came back excited to surprise her and yelled, ‘Surprise!’ as we placed the drink on the table for her. Instead of being thankful, she stared at the drink and said, ‘I’m not drinking it. It doesn’t have extra cream.’ Again, we stayed silent, and she ended up leaving the iced drink there to melt.
Another time my daughter had baked cupcakes, and Serena guilt-tripped me for not saving any for her. When I finally did save her some, she immediately turned around and said, ‘Are you trying to make me fat?’ before throwing the Tupperware container onto the floor of the car.
During that same car ride, she criticized my outfit for work and questioned why I was ‘so dressed up.’ I never judged her for the way she chose to present herself. The worst part was that I was simply wearing a plain black shirt and pants.
When I became pregnant with my son, she was the first person I thought of calling. But instead of sharing in my happiness, the first thing she did was guilt-trip me for going out with my friends the night before.
The worst part was that my best friend had invited her twice, and I invited her a third time, yet she still said no. I was already emotionally exhausted at this point. She even admitted that her boyfriend at the time had questioned why she was upset, saying, “Sis invited you, you decided not to go.” It was strangely reassuring to know that someone else also couldn’t understand why she chose not to come if she truly wanted to be there.
Over time, I realized it was never really about being left out. It was that I wasn’t allowed to enjoy my friendships or have a life outside of her without being made to feel guilty for it. By then, I was becoming deeply drained by the constant guilt-tripping, passive-aggressive behaviour, and indirect communication. Even when I finally expressed how much it hurt me, she dismissed it by saying she was “being stupid” and “wasn’t thinking.” But the behaviour never changed. The guilt-tripping never stopped. The passive aggression never stopped. The controlling behaviour never stopped. The emotional manipulation never stopped.
I realize now she was never truly a safe person for me, and I failed to see that at the time. Whenever she went through difficult moments, I was always there beside her, crying with her and comforting her. But when I called her in tears looking for comfort myself, she made me feel like my pain was an inconvenience.
Being friends with her often felt like I was competing with her suffering, as though no one else was allowed to struggle except her.
Thinking back, our relationship only worked when I stayed quiet, avoided conflict, and allowed my boundaries to be crossed. The moment I started speaking up for myself, the dynamic changed completely.
She once threatened to call the police on me for parking on a public street, yet I never reported her for impersonating me to a police officer. I can now see that I was loyal to a fault.
My sense of justice kept me stuck for a long time because despite everything that happened, I still chose to protect her from the impact of her behaviour. She still has her Nexus card, no criminal record, and the ability to freely travel with her children because I chose not to report what she had done. At the time, I thought loyalty meant protecting the people you love, even at your own expense. It took me a long time to realize that loyalty without boundaries can become self-abandonment.
I did everything in my power, and somehow it was never enough for Serena. Yet the same love, generosity, and loyalty were always more than enough for Kara.
You will never be enough for the wrong people but you will always be more than enough for the right people.
Belle Remix 