The "first person" is an ex-Christian. The "second person" is Jesus Christ. The answers are that b) Jesus still loves you, no matter what; c) the backslider has been tempted by Satan to leave the flock of believers, so - a) he/she will burn in a lake of fiery torment, forever; unless d) the loyal minions of the Christ can harass them into returning to their former habits of making a nominal appearance every Sunday morning.

I just knew there had to be a proselytization tool in there somewhere!

It was a "booby trap" ...

Out freakin standing - I may do an extra day this week for not knowing that! tx Flint

a) What do you mean what should happen to them? I'm wondering what drove the person to break a promise?
abuse? highhandedness? superiority complex? cheapness? There could be so many negatives. Maybe they are afraid your a psycho axe murderer
hiding behind an enlightened spiritual philopsophy. *shrug*
I think the mear question proves an inability to point the finger at oneself.

b) Send them a large chunk of money to prove your love. * cough * oh and then walk away.

c) see A

d) see B

Nothing. Remaining in a friendship solely in obligation to a vow is idiocy.
He should tell him unambiguously and in person that he will always be available, and then leave him alone.
Maybe the second person became a bit of an ass.
Find a new friend.

Well here's a story.

I had a friend once and I thought we'd be friends forever. That turned out not to be the case. She just decided the friendship was a bit too much effort. Her life had changed and she had different priorities and decided that I wasn't one of them anymore. We were both in our 30's at the time, so this only happened a couple of years ago.

I felt really angry and hurt that she would just blatantly say that she didn't have time for our friendship anymore. Apparently it wasn't anything to do with me personally but I still thought it was bullshit anyway.

I sent her an email and told her exactly how I felt about her speech and explained to her why I felt the way I did and that I felt it was rather childish to simply walk away from a friendship with such a bullshit excuse, or in fact to end a friendship so dramatically at all. (Don't things like that just sort of dwindle away when you're a grown up?) It was mostly me needing to vent though. I didn't want an answer to my email. I deleted all her numbers etc and moved on after that.

I still feel weird about things though. Mostly because I was just so surprised that I'd made such an error in judgement. I thought she was a mature and loving person.

Friends are pretty special people to have around, so it does hurt when you lose one and can't understand why. Ultimately though, it's like a love relationship. You can't make someone feel or do something they don't want to feel or do.

Sometimes people are in your life and you get things from them that you need at the time and then things change. I guess that's what happened with my friend and I. Maybe it's what happened with your friend and you. You just don't know what it was you were giving. It's also very possible that your friend doesn't realize why things have changed either.

Best thing is to try and let those bad feelings go though. They don't help, and they'll only make you miss out on finding other new friends.

If I can't forgive someone for something I have done, I am a fuck-head and don't deserve their friendship to begin with.
If they keep doing it, fuck-em.
Vows?... not without clairvoyance. (yes, my wife and I wrote our own vows and they did not say forever nor did they say only each other, those were personal promises that have "understandings" that go with them)

Aliantha those breakups hurt the worst mostly because of the outrage at the stupid reason.

Good advise btw.

I don't think about it that much lately, but when I read the first post on this thread it just sounded so similar to my situation so I thought I'd share.

I don't know if the advice is good or not. From where I see it, there's really not much choice but to move on and let it go.

I hate to do this, but was she really that good of a friend if that was her position?

After I quit "partying" in my 20's, I lost what I thought were all my friends. Reality was that they just weren't much fun to be around when I was straight and they weren't.

Of course you're right yesman. That's what I meant when I was said that I was surprised at my lack of good judgement. Our friendship started during a pretty tough period in my life, so I was probably just looking for someone to lean on. The friendship ended a couple of years later after I'd met my (now) husband and had gotten my shit together.

My theory is that she was one of those people who need to be needed and when I just needed friendship and not so much emotional support etc, the whole friendship thing wasn't as much fun for her. She denied that of course. As I said, it was just my theory. We also had a huge blow up over a mutual friend. The mutual friend got herself pregnant on purpose without telling her b/f. I felt that this was wrong and said so. I don't associate with either of them now.

Wow that is scary familiar. I gotta tell you though, I don't miss any of them and I can't remember most of their names either. I think I saw one about 5 yrs ago and sorta recognized him, but I didn't say anything. I was with my son and the guy looked 15 yrs older and more stoned than ever. Didn't really see a point in talking to him.

So do you think gannet will come back and explain the questions he posed to us?

I don't know if gannet will come back. I think probably yes. Why else would someone start a thread?

I think most people would have similar stories from times during their lives.

I know the crowd I used to hang around with and party with when I was younger are mostly completely gone from my life except for my best friend who's been there with me through thick and thin.

I reckon we're lucky if we can count more than three really true good friends in our lives. I know I only have a couple that I would share anything with. I have lots of other people who are in my life that I enjoy spending time with and so on, but they're not high on my list of people to call if I'm in a coma. If that makes any sense.