Making Friends Later in Life Series | Episode 3: Friendship Wounds & Patterns | Why You Pulled Away

Making Friends Later in Life | Episode 3: Your Friendship Wounds & Patterns — Why You Pulled Away (and How to Open Up Again) 

If you’re trying to make friends later in life but something in you hesitates… there’s a reason.

Welcome back to our mini-series Making Friends Later in Life, where we’re slowing everything down and doing it in the right order: first the work on you, then the work on connection. Because before you can build new friendships, you have to understand what happened in the old ones.

In Episode 3, Jennifer and Jackie talk about the friendship wounds that quietly change how women show up — betrayal after trust, ghosting, one-sided friendships, and being the “strong one.” We share two short storytelling segments that hit deep: the kind of betrayal that makes you start editing yourself… and the exhaustion of realizing you were carrying the friendship alone.

Then we get practical: how to name your wound without shame, stop dragging old pain into new connections, avoid trauma-dumping, and let trust build through consistency over time.

To help you move forward, we also walk through a simple reflection exercise — your friendship red flags, green flags, and one boundary you’re keeping from here on out — because boundaries aren’t walls… they’re filters.

✅ Download the Episode 3 worksheet here: Episode 3 Worksheet – Red Flags / Green Flags / One Boundary

Your friendship wounds don’t disqualify you from connection.
They prepare you for healthier ones.

🎙️ Hosted by Jennifer & Jackie
💍 Presented by Bestiemony™ — Because not all soulmates come with a marriage license.
 ✨ Part of the Chickology™ Podcast Collective — Real women. Real stories. Rising together.

 Listen, share with your ride-or-die, and tag the friend who sees you exactly as you are. Then go follow Melinda’s show, Star Women Rising—she’s just getting started.

🎵 Closing Song: Definition of a Best Friend by Brooke August & Hannah Rose
Follow Brooke on YouTube: @brookeaugust

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This episode of Slightly Unsupervised was brought to you by the creators of Bestiemony®—the original friendship ceremony that proves soulmates don’t always come with a marriage license. Hosted by Jennifer and Jackie: best friends, business partners, and co-founders of the movement celebrating real, ride-or-die love.

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Transcript

Jennifer 0:00

Hey there, I'm Jennifer, and I'm Jackie. And welcome to Slightly Unsupervised, where best friends, business partners, and the chaos behind bestimony, a ceremony we created to celebrate the kind of soulmates who don't come with a marriage license.

Jackie 0:16

So whether you're driving, folding laundry, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, you're in good company. Let's get slightly unsupervised. All right, today our series is about making friends later in life. And this is uh number of episode three your friendship wounds and patterns, why you pulled away and how to open up again. Help women recognize the friendship wounds that cause them to withdraw, understand the patterns those wounds created, and feel encouraged, not pressured, to open themselves to healthier friendships.

Jennifer 0:46

So um this series is about making friends later in life. Um we were trying to do this for those of us that struggle later in life to make friends, but before we can talk about finding people, we have to talk about what happened.

Jackie 0:57

So many women didn't stop wanting friendship, they stopped feeling safe in it.

Jennifer 1:01

So this episode is about the wounds that changed us and how we show up in friendships and how understanding those wounds can help us move forward and studying instead of staying stuck in old patterns. So first we work on you and then we work on the connection. So there's a there's a quite a few friendship wounds. Um, no shame. We've all been through it. We don't have time to go over all of the burning that we've had in life that women have burned us and so have men. We talk a lot more about how men burned us, so because we're constantly trying to make sure that we stay in relationships with romantic relationships. And so this this kind of gets ignored. These are the friendship ones, these are the ones that do damage too. And there's no reason not to acknowledge that you've been burned by somebody or that something has happened to you in previous friendships that has caused these problems for you, and that you withdrew from friends or you withdrew the needing them, and you're back to needing them, which Jackie and I are very good advocates that keep your friends, you need them later. We'll say it over and over again. It's important to have friends later in life because you're getting to that point, wow, where you're no longer number one mother. You're not your job of that has ended, not because you wanted it to end. You got promoted and you didn't you have nothing else to do. So you gotta have some friends. So we're saying this. So the key wounds to name betrayal after trust. Somebody has betrayed you after you trusted them, ghosting or unexplained endings. We didn't call it ghosting when we were kids, probably just like just never stopped. Yeah, never stop talking to you. One-sided friendships, everybody's been in those. I've been in them, Jack. I know you've been in them too. And then the last one that comes up quite a bit is being the strong one. You were the one doing everything and the strong the strength for that, and you didn't get the return on that. So um, these are just the points. These wounds don't happen all at once, they get accumulated, and you pull away as often as a self-protection, not protect, you know, to be self-protected, you just stopped trying to be friends with people. So we're gonna just touch on two of them. Becky's gonna go first. This is just a little thing about friendship betrayal, and then we'll talk about that, and then I'm gonna talk about the second one, which is this being the strong one. So go ahead, Jack.

Jackie 3:09

Okay. The friendship betrayal. There's a kind of friendship wound that doesn't come from big a big blow up, it comes from trust. If when you finally let someone see the real stuff, the things you don't say out loud, and then one day you realize that what you shared wasn't protected. Maybe it was repeated, maybe it was minimized, maybe it was used in a way that made you feel small. After that, something shifts. You don't stop wanting friends, you just stop telling the truth so freely. You start editing yourself, you keep things light, you convince yourself you're fine handling things alone. The betrayal doesn't make you bitter, it makes you careful. And the carefulness isn't a flaw, it's a memory. Healing doesn't mean you tell everyone everything again. It means you learn the difference between someone who listens and someone who holds what you give them to your secret.

Jennifer 3:56

Yeah. I mean, we've all been betrayed, Jackie. I know you've been betrayed, I've been betrayed. These are not things that don't happen, they happen frequently. I think as you as we age, they hate happen less when you're young. Betrayal goes on all day long. I mean, I I'm always was one is especially when I was younger, it's like, don't tell me anything because I don't know. I'm not supposed to remember, I don't remember, I'm not supposed to tell anybody. It wasn't malicious, but I would pass your information on. Somebody else mounts up this.

Jackie 4:25

That's why I learned how to say, don't tell anybody. You're not the only one, though. I have to tell my husband that too all the time. It's just possible. He's like, ah, and then you're like, now I'm telling you now, please don't repeat this. They don't want this. Repeat it.

Jennifer 4:39

Right.

Jackie 4:40

But he says if you tell him that, he'll then he remembers. Otherwise, he's going to be able to do it.

Jennifer 4:44

He's gonna put it in his memory bank, though. You just tell him lightly, he's like, Oh yeah. Did you hear? And then he did you look at my eyes?

Jackie 4:51

Look at my eyes. Look at my eyes like you do with your kids.

Jennifer 4:54

Do you hear me? Repeat after me. I will not tell anybody. I will not tell anybody. Exactly. So, but it's all happens, and betrayal happens on every level in every way. Um, your family betrays you, your friends betray you.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

I was gonna say that in your family.

Jennifer 5:08

Yeah, it happens all the time, y'all. Like it's a learning curve. Betrayal happens, particularly when you're younger. And if you're one of those people, and we read a lot of these, I read a lot of them. You are married, you've been married 30 years, you've raised up your kids, you're now looking for some friends. You had friends, they betrayed you or they did something, you decided you didn't need them, you just went on with, you know, being married and doing that and thinking you were gonna be a mother, they're gonna need you forever, which they don't. So you're back to this situation. Well, go back to, we're saying it's pretty important to go back to the the reason why you fell out from friendships. You've got to start there, guys. You got to start with what happened and how do you fix that part of it. So you're open to being friends with somebody. You have to be vulnerable to be friends. You just do. You can't have a tight, close relationship. If you're not willing to be vulnerable, you just can't. You can have a surface friendship, I guess. But if you want to be close to somebody, you have to be willing to feel safe around them, to be to feel that, but to also let them know some things. And if you keep everything pretty light and fluffy, which we do for friends, we have friends that are not best friends, but in the friend best friend world, you kind of need to be vulnerable. You need to kind of tell the people the under story. But betrayal will teach you that. And hopefully you're not one of those people listening that goes, yep, that's exactly what happened to me. And I warded off all friends after that, and I can't trust anybody. And this is where you're at in life because betrayal happens. I mean, Jack, don't you agree? I mean, you've been betrayal. Yeah. But what's the difference between staying with it and letting it go?

Jackie 6:43

Yeah. Well, I've gotten lucky because I've still got all of you guys. Yeah. But like the whole thing and that we started this was because of the people that can't find friends. Um, you know, I've gone through this on like on Facebook, there's a whole thing on that that people join this one that they're they're just trying to make a friend. They just want someone to talk to because they have no one to talk to.

Jennifer 7:04

Right.

Jackie 7:04

And so you gotta figure out how you got there. I mean, how are you is there no one in your life that you can talk to?

Jennifer 7:10

Right. Besides the one one person, maybe the husband or something, and sometimes. And and then, you know, we do this, I do it. Your kids are your kids. You can't dump on them all the time. Like you can't be like, can you be my friend? Hey, what are you doing tonight? Hey, what's going on with you? Hey, you can't. It's conflict going on there because they need their own lives, and you have to respect that. So you do get to a point, we see a lot of it going on that women get to this point where they're looking for friends. And they've had a betrayal or they've had something, because otherwise, I think you would keep your friends. Most friendships can mis withstand some time, or if you if you haven't kept up with them, you can certainly call and catch up with them. And if you don't have that, you don't have anybody, you got to start with what happened. What happened that caused this?

Jackie 7:56

That you know, the back at look at you first work on you, then work on the connection. Yeah. So and I do feel sorry. Like there was one story of a girl on the Facebook, and she had gone to because of the holiday parties, and she did have little connection to one lady that didn't end up going. And so she went to this Christmas party and literally sat by herself, and nobody came over, no one offered her to sit down or even really talk to her. But then I'm like, why? Why can't you go up to them and and talk? You know what I mean? Right. Um, and and so I mean, work that would be hard. I mean, I have no problem making friends wherever I go with, you know, even at work, I made friends. And there was once I had one connection, and then man, I got betrayed bad and that's done. But I could still go to work every day. I still had other people I'd talk to. Right. But I've just like this girl, I was just kind of I wanted to look at her profile pictures. I want to look at everything to try to figure out what is the pro why, why? Like Right. Yeah.

Jennifer 8:55

You're like something must be wrong. Yeah. But I wouldn't see anything wrong. Right. You're like, no visible, there was no visible reason why this didn't happen. But that's me. Didn't we just talk about this in the last episode? When I said when people are in my energy space, when I'm the hostess, I'm watching everybody, right? I learn to watch everybody. If everybody's happy, I can be happy. That happened in childhood. That's the way it was with my mother. That's the way it is now. So if you aren't being happy, if you're not happy over there, I as a hostess would move myself over there and be like, hey, how are you? I would go out of my way to make people feel comfortable, which is what I would do. I would not just ignore you because I think that's, you know, to me, that's an unsafe space, and I need to fix that so that my environment stays safe. So, you know, I have my own issues from stuff. But I would have gone up to her and said, hey, and then be like, hey, have you met so-and-so? This is so-and-so. I would do that. That is the kind of person I am. I'm pretty sure if you had somebody at your house and that was the case, you would probably spend more time trying to make them feel like, hey, do you want to play a game? Come over and sit with me. You can sit right next to me. Like, I know that's how you would be. That's how I am. And, you know, we're sort of protective of people to some degree, but you have to bring something, right? You just sit there and no, I don't want to play. No, I'm just gonna sit here. Then I would be like, okay, that's a choice you're making. I can't help you anymore. Like, I've done what I can. Wouldn't you feel that?

Jackie 10:17

Like she said, like she said. And so it's like I wanted to make remarks back, but I'd like I'm new to the group, so I've not gonna say anything, but I'll just keep reading.

unknown 10:26

Right.

Jackie 10:26

But my thing was like, why well, why is it their job to come to you? Why aren't you going to them? Why don't you just sit down at one of the tables? Why do they have to ask you to come sit down? Right. You know? So it's like we're talking about energy and stuff too, and just putting yourself out there. And like you said, there's introverts and stuff, but she wants to make friends. Well, you got to do something about it. You've got to do something. Otherwise, you're gonna be sitting there by yourself every single time because you're not trying either, you know? And they might just think it's you. Maybe they maybe you put off a like you're shy or whatever you don't want. Maybe you get that rusting bitch face and somebody doesn't think you're a happy person. So they don't want, but if you start talking, they might see another side of you. You know what I mean? Right.

Jennifer 11:09

Yeah, you have to be vulnerable. That's what I said. You have to be vulnerable. You have to say some things, and people have to go, do I do I do I feel your energy? Do I not feel your energy? Like you have to display who you are and you have to kind of come out of it. It otherwise you've got to go to it. If you were an introvert, if this was a lady that was an introvert, which she may have been, or an introvert, doesn't sound like she was an extrovert because extroverts just come in and blast the place. If you are and you go your go somewhere where it's a social interaction and it's full of people, you're gonna go to a party. It's gonna be in an extroverted environment. Just it is, okay. That's how who has parties? People that are more extroverted have parties. People that are introverts do not throw big parties. So if you're an introvert going to an extrovert type of event, you've got to bring some of your energy with it. You have to say, today I'm going to get out of my comfort zone and I'm gonna go talk to somebody and be like, hey, where are you from? Hi, I'm just here. My friend was gonna come, but she didn't show up. I'm just kind of looking for some people to hang out with, you know. You could do that. People would probably take you in. I would take you in. I'm like, yeah, yeah, come on. Come on, over here. You could sit with us. Like, but those people watching you, if you if I was at a party and you saw me staring at you and smiled, that's your cue, right? That's your cue. Hey, they made a gesture towards me. Maybe that's somebody that I can be like, hey, I just saw you smile. Thank you. I was feeling a little shy over there because I don't know anybody. Do you know anybody? Can you introduce me? There's some things you can do to make your environment better too. But do not be an introvert, go to an extrovert party and expect everybody to embrace you because they're about energy. Extroverts love energy, high energy, high energy, a lot of energy, a lot of communication, a lot of whatever. They want to be around people like them. So if you're not like that, you're gonna have a problem in the extroverted world. So you might start with an introverted, introverted activity, right? If you're really just getting out for the first time, I don't suggest you go to a big party and see if you can fit in. I don't think it's a good solution for that. So okay, so, anyways, being the strong one, uh, here's another wound that's this one's a little quieter. It's the wound of always being the strong one. The one people call when you were falling apart, the one who shows up and remembers, checks in, holds space. And for a long time, you don't notice anything's wrong because you're needed until one day you need someone and there's no one there. So you tell yourself you don't need help, you start, you stop reaching out, you get really good at handling things alone, not because you're independent, but because you've learned needing people didn't work out. Eventually you just pull away because you don't want friends. You you eventually pull away because you don't want friends. It's you pull away because you're tired of being the only one carrying the weight. And healing here isn't about becoming colder. It's about learning that real friendship isn't built built on use usefulness, usefulness. Usefulness, it's a built on mutual care. 100%. I've had those relationships too, where I've carried most of the weight. And then I stopped carrying the weight and noticed that it wasn't You were carrying the weight. I was carrying the weight. I was carrying that friendship. And when I stopped doing it, it folded and fell apart because what I needed was the other person to give something back and just refused to do so. And you're like, wow, was that even a friendship? Like, I get you here, girls on this one. I'm that person. I've had this happen to me. And they're like, I don't have anything for you. If you don't have anything left to give me, then we don't have a friendship anymore. So I get this one. This one is something that it had happened with a really good friend of mine, and it's weird because I I don't understand it and I don't I guess I carried the weight and I didn't un I didn't even know I carried the weight. That's just my neat nature, I guess. But um the minute ye I need something back from you, I just I got dead silence and nothing. And it was very shocking to me to have to go through that. And it's not for everybody, but it happened. So I'm one good for this one. Have you had that, Jackie, where you felt like you were the one holding that friendship together and then kind of fell apart?

Jackie 14:58

Oh, definitely. I think everyone has if they're if they've had a lot of friendships for sure. Oh which is a bummer, for sure. Which is a real bummer because it's always, you know, all of it hurts. Yeah. But you just gotta come out and learn from it. That's how I look at it. You just learn from it and then make don't make those same mistakes on, you know, when you're choosing new friends.

Jennifer 15:18

Right. Like let something happen and see if somebody gets in gets in a place to help you. Like it ha it does happen, no doubt about it. But that's just the wrong person. Maybe you were taking too much of the lead. Maybe you need less lead in the beginning and a little more balance, and then you can build from that instead of just kind of taking care of everything and then and we're not just talking about new friends.

Jackie 15:40

This is like happened with friends that we had for quite a while, you know, the betrayal, but it's it just took a long time. And I think also you it sometimes it takes longer because you do go kind of different directions, raising your kids, doing your stuff, and then all of a sudden you come back and then you might be different people at that point. Other things happened in between, you know, everything going on. Right. Um, but it's still I know what I want in my friendships, and I'm that's what I'm sticking to.

Song 16:04

So I don't have time anymore.

Jackie 16:06

We're 55. I don't have time to sit there and keep making excuses for you to be my friend. Right.

unknown 16:11

Yeah.

Jennifer 16:12

If you're making excuses about somebody like, mm-hmm, you know, a good friend, I will say will tell you, I don't really see that person as your friend. Do you? It will at least bring it to your attention so that you can kind of see things. Be like, are you sure that person's your friend? Doesn't feel like it. Like I would be one of those people that would bring it to your attention, be like, so when people say something to you, also pay attention. That's not always bad. Sometimes people looking out for you and sort of like bring it back to your attention so that you can make better decisions on that or at least be attention to them. So um And you've done that.

Jackie 16:44

You've done that with our group. So that's for sure. You're definitely a call it out.

Jennifer 16:49

Someone will do it.

Jackie 16:50

You don't hold back. But you were right. But you were right. I mean, it's a big thing. But you were right.

Jennifer 16:55

I care more about my friends than I care about. The person that's treating us bad.

Song 17:03

Yeah.

Jennifer 17:03

Like being liked by them. Like and and I don't I never said to you, and I did say it, hey, are you guys watching this? Because this person isn't a very good person. Like, at least not what I say. You guys doing what you want to do. I'm just letting you know what I see. So I didn't demand you make a change.

Jackie 17:18

I simply brought it to your attention and said You did demand that we weren't doing any more vacations with that group, that with the girl, that girl group.

Jennifer 17:25

I'm not going down any more of those. You girls were.

Jackie 17:27

We're only doing us five, and that's it. No more of adding people to our girl girl group trips.

Jennifer 17:34

We do get in a little more trouble when there's more people, though. So you can see how that could be a little bit of it. So, anyways, it's really about kind of figuring out where some old wounds lay, some things that you have developed about wounds that have happened to you. And, you know, to move beyond it, and I do this often in when I can't sleep at night, is I'll go through all my friendships, all my relationships. I just start from the beginning. And I always try to find out what they were there to teach me, what did I learn from them, and what was great about it. And, you know, as time goes on, I forget relationships have bad parts. But so if you do have one, if there's a wound in you and you carry it forward, you can't love somebody if you've got a wound problem because you're not exactly open to them or open to situations. You're kind of closed off. If you're one of those people, you got to name the wound. What happened to me? Where does this problem come from? So that you can start to think about how to move past it. Like name it. Be like, that person betrayed me. I never want to be around girls, or that girl stole my boyfriend, or whatever happened. Name the problem and try to figure out once you've named it, you can then start dealing with it, right? You can start saying, okay, that's a problem I had. This person doesn't have anything to do with that. Let me not bring that baggage into this friendship, at least drag it to begin with, because then you're not really open. You're just, you know, you're a damaged human going into a damaged relationship. Two damaged people can't get together and heal. So you got to heal some of this stuff. So name the loom. And then we don't have to minimize the problem, just name it. Like what happened that made you act this way? And you got to separate its experience from the past from the experience going forward. You cannot drag, imagine every boyfriend you ever had. I this is easier to deal with because we talk about women and men, more time, you know, there's more time spent on this relationship. But imagine if you didn't get past everything that's ever happened to you in a relationship when you were with somebody and you made the person that you're with pay for all those sins of those people that hurt you and they didn't have anything to do with it.

Jackie 19:36

And it's true because I went through that. Like when I'm with the husband I'm with now, he had such patience with me. Because if I, you know, I had two children, I was married for a lot of years and a lot of betrayal, a lot of stuff happened. But my husband would, he's like, I can't wait till you can see yourself. You're a good person, you're beautiful. Because I was just down on myself. Like I didn't think anything. And he was just like, I can't wait till you start to see yours see yourself the way I see you. And it was the sweetest thing, but he had the patience with it because I would be like, Oh, I look how do I look? Oh, you know, if I gain any weight, like you know, I had to be per had to be the step for the wife, is what I was. Right. It was our little I was called that literally.

Jennifer 20:13

Yeah, you're bringing that relationship into your new relationship, and he's like, I don't need you to do that stuff.

Jackie 20:17

And you're like I mean, I still had to be dressed so perfectly cutesy, everything da-da-da. Now I'm like, he gets the sweatpants and the sweatshirts.

Jennifer 20:24

Because he loves you. There's no problem with that. And even as your friend when they were going through the other relationship, was like, you know, that person does not, it's not a good relationship. They're not, they don't they don't treat you the way you should be treated to or respect you the way you should be or appreciate you for way you are. Like that's what I wasn't mad about that part. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you can't bring your old crap into a newer friendship and in and into a new relationship because you've you've got to make peace with that guy. So you gotta make peace with it. As my mother would say, make peace with it, move on, because you can't drag stuff into somebody else, you can't make them pay the price for somebody else's sins. So, you know, and you don't need to share all at once. Good lord. Don't don't drama.

Jackie 21:07

Please, we don't want it all at once. Like I tell my husband, stop.

Jennifer 21:12

You can't trauma dump on somebody. Like, I've had so much trauma and this and this and this and this and this and this. And like people are like, oh my God, it's too much. So share layers, y'all.

Jackie 21:23

It's like talking about your ex-husband or your ex-boyfriend on your first date with the new guy.

Jennifer 21:27

Yeah. The guy's like, don't do it. I don't want to deal with this. Yeah, that's a great example, Jackie. Exact, exactly. So a little bit, a little bit at a time, a little bit of the time. Let some people test it. If they respond and give you some good advice, be like, like, thanks. You know, I didn't see it that way, but you know, great. So, and then, you know, let consistency earn your trust. So again, don't put everything on somebody like you're my boyfriend today. I just met you, and I need you to be everything. I need you to call me. I need you to send me flowers. I need to know exactly what you're doing 24 7. All that is a lot of energy, a lot of demands on somebody. So let it kind of come a little bit at a time. Yeah. Just take your time with that stuff. And you're remember that awareness is enough to begin. So again, just pinpoint what the problem was, come back to it, be aware of it. Make sure you're not dragging that up into a new relationship so that you can actually make friends. You can actually find somebody that isn't going to heal your problem that shows you a different way that you can have a friendship. It's not, it's not jobs for other people to heal your old wounds. It's not Jackie's job to heal the relationship that went awry for me. That's between her and I, or whoever. And you can't do anything to help me. I have to process that on my own, right? Jackie, you can't help me with that.

Jackie 22:44

I can't help you with And when we were younger, I did do that. Remember, we had a couple girlfriends that got in a very big fight. Yeah. And you tried to get it. And I picked one up in my car, picked the other one up in my car, took them down to go to a party because I was gonna fix it. This is all gonna be fixed. We're all gonna be like how we were before. And it was never gonna be that way. Right. And to this day, they're not as close like they were when back then. And it was just something that happened, and we were all young and whatever. It's you know, but no one ever got past it. But I tried.

Jennifer 23:14

I know. We always try. We could do this, we can all get back together. You know, and you know what friendship I'm talking about when I'm talking about the one I had, and I know which friendship you're talking about when you're talking about the ones because we're best friends. We know we're not talking about these people online, or we not we're not airing the names on the thing, but we know we're talking about Jackie can't help me solve that. She can't. She knows what happened. She's there if I want to talk about it. She can be an ear to me, but she can't heal me. I have to go through the work to heal that relationship internally. It's not something that I'm gonna forget. It's not something that she can help me with. It's something that happened. I have to deal with it. I have dealt with it. I talk about it. To talk about something means that you've come a little bit of a way with it because if you can't talk about it, you're just hiding it from the problem and you haven't dealt with any of it. So, and the same with Jackie. She has a friend that she talks about that I know she was good friends with, and she's not friends with them anymore. And there's nothing more to say to her except when she says something to me, is that I can be a supportive person. Be like, I know, I know that happened. And but I can't heal you. I can't say I'm gonna fix this for you. I can't. There's nothing I can do. You have learned from that relationship. I have learned from the relationship I'm talking about. And both of us are respectful enough to know that it's not our problem to deal with, it's your problem that you have to solve on your own. And you have to heal yourself, and I have to heal myself. And the best thing we can do is just listen if we want to talk about it, right? That's kind of the bounce some dice ideas off you to give me some idea. What do you think? And we can do that. But it's not Jackie's job, it's not my job to solve the to heal her wound that she has. And you've got to remember that when you're kind of going into this stuff. Like you've got to fix the wound. And if you fix it, you have a better chance of having relationships with people that you know because you're aware of it. Awareness is part of the problem. You can't you don't know what you don't know. I'm just saying, you don't know what you don't know. And you're like, what? And you're like, you don't ever there's a lot of stuff you don't know about. And when you bring it forward and you put it in front of you and now you know about it, then you can deal with it. But when you don't know, you don't know, you can't do anything. So you've got to get aware, aware of the problem and start to deal with it. So, anyways, there's a lister worker thing that we're gonna put on there about it's a reflective exercise. Jackie, and I'll go through it. It's my friendship, red flags, and green flags. So this is gonna be on the link underneath where the website or the podcast is. So we've done this many times, but we're gonna do it again for y'all. All right, Jackie. Red flags that you notice now as a 55-year-old in friendships. Uh jealousy. Jealousy. Yeah. Um jealousy's a big one. Possessiveness, I think, is if I can't be friends with everybody, it's hard to um it's hard to deal with you because I can't be a one. Don't tell me what to do. Yeah. So like I have friends here, I have friends there, I'm not right. And and we would never tell each other, like, Jackie, what are you doing this weekend? I can't believe you're going out with so-and-so. Like, aren't we friends?

Jackie 26:15

Like, aren't you Nashville and hang out with me?

Jennifer 26:19

You can't put that shit on people. Like, good, have fun. Tell me about the goes. Like, I you know, and the other thing that we've always said, I'll say it again. Jackie makes a friend, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna like him. There was a one. I didn't like her, but because you vetted them. And I'm like, hey, we like you. Like, it's great. But there are things that are red flags now that you need to pay attention to and you need to notice them. And you know, jealousies of one of them bullshitters are with Jackie and I are probably not gonna go well.

Jackie 26:44

No, no. We're we're like, I can't handle your BS stories. I just can't. No. No, we don't usually call them. We usually know them. Yeah. We're like, We've been around for a while.

Jennifer 26:55

Your story doesn't line up and it doesn't make any sense.

Jackie 26:58

And that year, no, that year they didn't even have that car then. What are you talking about? Like detectives, listen to the colour. I'm all Googling everything. Like that's bullshit.

Jennifer 27:09

Jackie's now looking at the fluff balls on the ceiling and just checked out. Okay, so green flags, and we're gonna go through red flags, which we talked about. Let's go through green flags. How what makes you feel safe, Jack? And a friend now. Let me be myself. Yeah. Consistency. Like someone who doesn't see yeah, like you can get a hold of or is around. And I think just letting me be myself. Yeah. I like that one. We like people that have your back. I'm a have your back person. I'm a have I'm a have your back person, so I kinda like having my back too. Like I will say that's a green flag for me if something happens and someone's like walks in, like, I don't think so. You know, talking to my friend that way. Like, yeah, exactly. We'd be good because I can I can trust that, and that's something that um I feel like I would feel safe with. And then what's one boundary now, Jackie, that you'll always keep in that just learning from friendships and along the line that you would keep now that maybe not wasn't that way when you were younger, but now it's like I've had enough experience. This is the one boundary that we're not gonna do. And it couldn't be just something we've already talked about. It doesn't have to be something new. Um I don't know. I can't think offhand. One do I want to keep? One boundary that is just needs to be Yeah, is the it's ones we've already talked about. Like is you gotta be you gotta be truthful and you gotta be you gotta be down to earth. I gotta have to do it.

Jackie 28:29

You gotta be a good person.

Jennifer 28:31

Yeah, good people.

Jackie 28:32

I don't want because I don't like to sit there and watch people be mean and talk about people either. It's like, come on. This this is not what I wanna do, is just sit here and just bash people talk.

Jennifer 28:42

Yeah. Why? Because we've been through life now, right? We realize that life doesn't always work like a fairy tale. And so bashing people is like bashing us too, because it's like, well, my life wasn't perfect. Your life wasn't perfect.

Jackie 28:53

I did that. Oh, I might have done that at one point. I guess I can't tell you that because you're gonna start talking shit on me.

Jennifer 28:58

Right. So it's like I learned you bash when you're younger because life hasn't gotten to you. You don't bash as much when you're older because life has gotten to you. Whatever has happened, you start bashing on somebody, that stuff will start happening to you. I am a believer of that. Don't bring things to your karma that you don't want because you can't be talking about people. So those are just some things. There's just some things to think about. There's some ideas that we gave to you that are important to us. So we just encouraging you to try again. If you pulled away from friendship, it doesn't mean you failed. It just means you've adapted to something that was harmful or hurtful to you, and it's time to start healing that wound that has taken place because it's keeping you from having relationships or finding relationships. So and now you get to choose connection from wisdom instead of fear. Exactly. So again, figure it out what happened, try to come to terms with it, try to find some peace with it, try to figure out where maybe you weren't so healthy and some things, because the one thing that I know about life is that you can't expect perfection unless you're perfect. And if you're not perfect, nobody's perfect. You can't expect it from everybody, too. So we all have these issues.

Jackie 30:07

Well, so our final takeaway today is your friendship wounds don't disqualify you from connection, they prepare you for healthier ones. That's what we're trying to help.

Jennifer 30:15

All right. If this episode hit you in the fields or made you laugh way too hard, we consider that a win. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your wire or die. And when you're ready to make your friendship official, book your bestimony at rhinestoneweddingchapel.com.

Jackie 30:28

Because the best love stories don't always come with a ring.

Song 30:44

We stick together, ride or die to the moon, and no amount of space could ever come between us two. The reuniting's like we never been apart, and every single time we're eye to eye and heart to heart. There's not enough for the spray, but you made a big enough to dance like a bake and that's right.