Working with your best friend taking its toll

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I work in an office environment and since returning to the office have become best friends with a colleague who joined our team over the pandemic (previously worked in a different team / same company).

We both work in the office daily, have our lunch together, and spend a lot of time working closely together as our jobs require collaboration between each other. We also socialise outside of work (probably at least weekly) and this past week has massively taken its toll on our friendship, my opinions of my workplace and sadly my mental health.

Due to this, we have a reputation at work of doing everything together, and it’s rare for us to be seen apart. We’re both early 30s, both in long term relationships and have stable jobs (worked for the company 7 years, both joined at a similar time). It feels like I work with my best friend, and I’m really struggling with this.

I’ve had two meltdowns at work over the last year, and she has been there for me through them to support as much as possible, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the support she’s provided me. This was until my most recent meltdown (yesterday), and I am honestly lost with what to do.

An incident happened earlier in the week (Monday) where our manager was annoyed about a project we’d worked on together - which everyone else in the business thought was amazing, however our manager was fuming we had not asked them if we could do it (his manager told us to) and also involved the whole company with a workshop we ran. Since then we were both (rightfully so) upset and angry about this. Unfortunately our way of dealing with it has massively impacted me.

I’ll refer to my colleague/friend as ‘B’ to help…

Following the meeting I went home (as it was the end of the day) the next morning I made the decision to work elsewhere in the office (away from where I normally sit next to B) we had discussed this would be a good idea to try and keep a low profile. B was then asked by somebody rather senior in the company if “we had broken up” which to be honest got to her an awful lot, it also annoyed me. We regularly get comments like we’re a “work husband/wife” etc, which is getting old. I should also clarify that my partner, and her partner often socialise with us both outside of work and the 4 of us are now good friends too! (Perfectly normal right!). We prefer to be referred to as “brother / sister” and have a relationship very similar to this. We both say that our actual siblings resemble each other, and probably explains why we connect so well / argue often!

That evening, I went to a local pub for a drink alone as I was stressed and had a lot to think about. I’d decided at this point I wanted to begin looking for a new job, and I wanted to let B know this (as I wasn’t happy with our manager) and work was causing me a lot of stress.

Following this, the next day both myself and B decided to work from home (this is something we rarely do). When we joined our regular team morning meeting, we were asked if we had fell out, and what had happened by several members of the team - neither of us said much, as we were rightfully annoyed. Throughout that day (Wednesday) our usual friendly conversation with each other became shorter and shorter until the point we were sending one word responses on teams / snapping at each other on calls. This got worse as the day went on, and continued on Thursday where I worked from the office (sat in a different spot again) and B worked from home. I tried reaching out to find out why she wasn’t in the office, and I was essentially told it was none of my business.

Thursday evening when I got home from work, I once again went for a drink, to think about what was happening and how I was feeling. I was so low, mental health was shocking (I’ve been worse before) and anticipated I was going to both loose my best friend and my job, two of the most stable things I have. I had thoughts running through my mind that I did not act on. My partner was super helpful at calming me down and helping with the situation and fully understands what’s going on.

On Friday morning, we both returned to work in the office and sat in our usual seats, hoping everything would be better. Before our morning meeting, B told me she would have to cancel another meeting we had following that, and we were both continuing to be short with each other during/before that meeting.

Following the meeting B left the meeting room, where I stayed and the low feelings I had the night before started to return. I had nobody to talk to, I felt trapped, as to leave the meeting room I was in had to walk by B’s desk and didn’t want to do this.

Before I knew it, I had a meltdown. I don’t fully remember the details (I never do) but I was so upset and harming myself (head butting the wall) as I felt I had lost everything and felt nothing. B returned to the meeting room during this (she said she could hear I wasn’t okay) and attempted to comfort me and calm me down, and also rang my partner to help too. B thought I was having a meltdown because of her, it was difficult to explain what was going off in my head but explained as best I could what it was (is everyone else putting strain on our friendship / my opinions of work right now). B then went for a walk with me to help calm down, we didn’t really say much and had lunch together - by this point my partner had arrived to take me home, where I rested for the remainder of the day. During the earlier conversation B assured me she wanted to be friends, and was also finding it difficult to cope with what had happened this week, and it became apparent her opinions on work were similar to mine too.

B has a number of personal things happening at the minute (that I’ve been able to support with), and her regular usual approach to say something isn’t right is to go quiet and snap at me (yet be fine with other colleagues at work she isn’t as close to). She also shows a number of signs of ASD, although not diagnosed, but has also mentioned to me in the past

I’m meeting B on Monday evening for a regular social meeting we have, we’ve agreed we are still going to do this, and also have dinner afterwards to chat through what has been happening the past week and how we can move forward to support each other as best as possible.

Sorry for the long post, it’s been a difficult week and felt I had to get this off my chest. If anyone has any advice on how to make working with your best friend work, or on how to resolve our friendship please help!