[nikimcn]

I've had a friend (I've called her my bf) for 3 years. I know, not a whole long time. We had our first falling out a couple years ago. I cut it off. a year later I went back and sort of apologized, although I knew it was not all my 'fault'. then another falling out. again, me cutting it off. this last may I went back (again). We are both bipolar. I guess I could stop there and stay "well that explains it all' lol. But now we've been talking since may. at first our friendship goes great. lots of communication. lots of contact. etc. although it seems like I have to pull the friendship most times. meaning I will text most often and she just replies. so I pulled that back a bit knowing I do not need to be always reaching out. so she took this as something is wrong (with me). like I have a problem again with the relationship. well I don't . I just don't want to text and wait 4 hours for a reply text. at the beginning of getting back together she was better about this. now it's back to no text for 4-8 hours. sometimes a day. and if I don't text at all she's asking 'what's wrong?' and 'tell me' . dumb. she really tries I think but when the honeymoon period of the friendship wears off she slacks. I cannot just tell her this because she is very thinned skin. and will take it hugely personally. I don't know how to explain it. so I'm just doing what I'm doing. but once again, doubting this friendship will ever survive. my bottom line and question is this...being mentally ill I find it extremely difficult to hold friendships. it's always games. they say they want to know if something is wrong, then you're honest, and then they get mad. I dunno I'm at a loss. help!

[kaliope]

friendships are hard. keeping them can be hard work. people are not going to give what you expect and the old adage of treat as you want to be treated doesnt always apply. you just cant control how people are going to respond to you. you can only control your side of things. and not get upset when they dont reply in kind. knowing it takes her 4-8 hours to reply, if you keep her as a friend, then you text her KNOWING that it is going to take up to 8 hours to reply and you dont expect or get disappointed when she doesnt. it is that simple. that is the nature of your friendship. she is not going to meet your needs the way you want her to. my best friend ever right now has me disappointed cause we were talking about something i felt was really important to me and we got disconnected. i expected her to call me when she got home so we could finish. she didnt. i texted her. i got a text hours later apologizing saying she had got stoned and had a couple beers. i expressed how unimportant this made me feel to her. she said not to make her feel that way right now so i said back that i would make her feel like crap again later. i havent heard from her all weekend to finish our conversation. this hurts me, but i know she isnt trying to sit around thinking of ways to hurt me. she just doesnt do the phone thing. she will totally listen to me when we see each other on monday and we will have a great time.

[Bill3]

She gets upset when she doesn't hear from you as regularly as in the past.

You get upset when you don't hear from her as regularly as in the past.

Following kaliope's suggestion: What if you two talk it over together and both relax your expectations a bit?