Have you ever had to take the high road in life?

I think most people have at least once or twice. There have certainly been plenty of times in my life I can think of where I’ve had to be the bigger person in a situation or relationship. Usually, I can let go of whatever insult or slight I’ve chosen to overlook, and ultimately feel good about doing so. 

Sometimes, though, you have to keep your mouth shut about something that just screams injustice. Perhaps you are taking into consideration the feelings of a third party who would be affected by your calling out the offense. Or perhaps you know that speaking up would only cause more turmoil. Whatever the case may be, it can be very frustrating and uncomfortable to have to grin and bear it when you see someone getting away with something messed up. It’s even worse when that person starts telling other people that they’re the victim in the situation, and never ever takes responsibility for the terrible things they did. 

Enter, karma. 

Karma is a relaxing thought. It promises that even when you can’t get “revenge” on someone directly, they will still get what they deserve in the end. What comes around, goes around. 

I have a situation like this in my life that often chafes at me. For the sake of anonymity and being discreet (hopefully), I’ll explain it as a situation between five friends. 

We start with Friend A and Friend B. They are very close for many years. They do almost everything together, and they have a dynamic that feels basically content. After a few years of being great friends, they even make a new friend together– Friend C. The three of them are a happy little trio, and they go through the ups and downs of life together. 

But one day, Friend A makes a new friend— Friend D. When A meets D, things start to change. Friend A realizes that while their friendship with B is comfortable, their friendship with D is exciting. Friend A starts to want to spend more time with Friend D than with Friend B. But A also doesn’t want B to go find other friends, because then B wouldn’t be around when A needed them. You see, the plain and simple truth is that Friend A is selfish. 

Friend C is mostly oblivious to everything going on, and really only cares about their friend group staying together. 

Well, eventually Friend B gets really lonely and starts to look for other friends. B doesn’t want to replace A; they just want a new friend to keep them company when A is busy with D. (Friend C is still there, of course, and they’re great! But, truth be told, C isn’t really best friend material).

That’s when Friend B meets a new friend–the final character in this story: Friend E.  

When B meets E and gets to know them, B realizes that A has been treating them very badly indeed. A is controlling, manipulative, demanding, and unkind. B finally understands what true friendship should look like because E shows them. And once B finally sees what has been happening for all of those years, they really can’t stay friends with A any longer. They need to break free to find their own happiness!

Of course, Friend A does not like this at all. Friend B is very important to them, not because of an emotional attachment, but because Friend B does a lot of things for A. Without B, Friend A would have to do things for themselves, and that sounds just awful. Friend A doesn’t care that B is unhappy, because if we’re being honest, A is a bit of a narcissist. Being abusive to B has become a habit for A, and the idea of losing their punching bag is very unappealing. 

Nevertheless, Friend B does break free. B becomes best friends with E, and even brings Friend C along to join their new friend group. Even though C is sad that their two OG friends aren’t friends with each other anymore, they adjust to the new dynamic and they’re able to travel between the two friend groups. And Friend A has their new best friend, D, so the reasonable conclusion would be that everyone wins, right?

That would make sense, except that as I mentioned before, Friend A is narcissistic; that means that they see themselves as a victim, and believe that they are never to blame for anything that goes wrong in their own life. The fact that Friend B had the nerve to end their friendship is infuriating. 

What happens after that is that while Friends B and E are moving on and happy together, Friend A is pissed. They did not get what they wanted out of the situation, and even though Friends C and D are still with them and they are closer than ever, it just isn’t enough. Friend A does the only thing that they can think of to do to change the optics; they become the victim and make sure that everyone who will listen knows how very wronged they were by Friend B. 

Friend A talks to Friend C about how sad they are that Friend B has left them. (While the truth is that the only thing A is actually sad about is that B isn’t there to provide for their every need). But A is so convincing, and C trusts A, so Friend C buys into it completely. They even cry about it together. Friend B destroyed their trio, and they both remember it all too well.

This is all fine and dandy, because Friend B has moved on with their life, and Friend E doesn’t really care what Friend A thinks. Even though Friend A tried to hurt Friend E out of spite on multiple occasions, Friend E basically just turned the other cheek because in the end, they knew that they had won. They had Friend B, and Friend A did not. 

But the problem is that E does care about what Friend C thinks. And it gets really frustrating to hear Friend C talking about how traumatic the whole friendship breakup situation was for Friend A. It’s really hard for Friend E to hear the bullshit about how Friend A was the victim in that story. Because E saw everything; the abuse that A put B through, and the total lack of love reciprocated. A was merely tolerating B’s friendship for so many of those years. A was not heartbroken. A had damaged B so profoundly that E knew they would be picking up the pieces for years to come. And while E might have been able to overlook the terrible way that A had treated them, E could not forgive the way that A had treated their best friend, B. 

That’s where our little alphabet story ends, because keeping the peace is more important at this point than making sure that the truth is known. The past is past, and digging it up again isn’t going to help anyone. 

But if there’s one thing that makes me feel just the slightest bit better, it’s this: karma is my husband, and karma is sweet like justice. 😉