Is there anyone who hasn't broken a promise before? I thought about this and the answer will definitely be no. We are all humans and very far away from perfection, we are prone to mistakes so I don't beat myself up when people fall out of our agreement because it could have been me if I found myself in their situation. Although, it doesn't justify us breaking promises and once a promise is made, it has to be kept.
Many people don't just break promises because they had the intention to do so and sometimes, they are just left with only one option. Trust me when I say that it could be anybody but our actions after breaking promises are what matters. I am no saint, I have broken a lot of promises and tried to make amendments, some worked out fine but it was also the end of my relationship with some good people. Like I mentioned earlier, nothing justifies my reason for breaking the promise I made but if they had taken time to put themselves in my shoes, they would have realised that I didn't have a choice. After so many experiences, making promises isn't something I do easily anymore because it's more stressful to fix a relationship after breaking a promise than to fulfil the promise initially.
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About two years ago, a sweet friend of mine got married and I can't believe that we will move from being best friends to just status viewers. Our friendship started about 8 years ago, we met in one of the paper factories where I worked back then.
After I fell out of the team when wrongly accused of dating the boss girlfriend, this friend was the only one who called me for personal jobs. We worked alone in different parts of Lagos for a long time and somehow made her developed feelings for me. She is a sweet soul and I love her way of life but I was in a relationship.
I actually hid my relationship from her because I didn't want it to stop the jobs I was getting then but at a point, I had to let her know. It didn't change anything and we only got deeper with the friendship. Everyone who knew us thought we were dating and even when she met my girlfriend, she almost ended my relationship just because of how she treats me. (I don't want to go into detail about that.)
I travelled to the future and saw what my friendship with her would birth if I didn't create boundaries so I started cutting ties slowly. She knew and we talked about it. She wanted us to be just friends which is okay by me and one faithful day, she made a promise to always be my friend no matter the distance and I made the same promise as well. We continued as friends and things were fine. We communicate a lot, it was so much that my girlfriend always complained about giving too much attention to her but it meant nothing until my friend eventually got into a relationship.
It was as if someone forced her into the relationship because she spent more time talking to me than the guy and one day, her boyfriend surprisingly called me. It was a peaceful discussion and I understood what he was going through. He made it clear that when she wants to talk to me, she snubs him.
I spoke to someone about it and was advised to reduce how we communicate which I did. We slowly built gaps which she always complained about and the few times we talked, we were going beyond just friends. Already, she was with the third guy in two years and I felt guilty.
I made a tough decision to cut her off completely, it wasn't easy because she is a really good lady. We barely spoke until I got her wedding invitation which made me really happy. We started communicating again and it didn't look like we had not been talking for a while. Our conversation got deeper quickly and we returned to the old ways.
A few weeks before the wedding, we chatted and she wanted me to be in her hometown two days before the wedding. It doesn't sound well to me and I just said okay. She wanted me to promise her because she knew how much I hated traveling and I did.
To cut the story short, I didn't attend the wedding. Something came up before that day and it didn't give time. I didn't tell her anything about not attending and every attempt to reach her failed after the wedding, I sent messages to apologize but didn't get a response.
Although, I wasn't happy with how things ended but it's a good thing she got mad at me. Surprisingly, she was the first to wish me a happy birthday back in March but she didn't reply even my thank you. We haven't spoken since then but we still see each other status and I am glad she's doing pretty well.
The truth is that our friendship wasn't healthy, it was a setback to my relationship and would be to hers if we didn't put an end to it. I don't know if she still misses me but there are times I do, she is an amazing person.
