In this episode of the Karamo Show, host Karamo facilitates a candid conversation between two longtime friends, Etta and Michelle, about how their friendship has become unbalanced. Etta shares that over time she felt she was acting more like Michelle’s therapist—listening to endless problems without reciprocal support—leading to emotional exhaustion. Michelle acknowledges a five‑year period of personal turmoil and admits she may have unintentionally placed a heavy emotional load on Etta, while also recognizing moments of mutual support. The dialogue explores how life changes such as Etta’s sobriety, family responsibilities, and differing social habits have widened the gap between them. Both discuss the need for patience, clearer boundaries, and more balanced interaction, suggesting practical ideas like scheduled catch‑ups, shared activities, and respecting each other’s preferred times of day. The conversation underscores the challenges of maintaining a healthy friendship when roles blur, and offers insights on setting limits, communicating needs, and preserving mutual joy.
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Michelle and I had a beautiful synergy in the beginning of our relationship, but it did not grow as circumstances in our life grew. And I found that the relationship slowly became lopsided, and I felt like eventually I became Michelle's therapist and not her friend.
Ouch.
So do you think she was a good friend?
I'm sorry about that.
Do you think she was a good friend to you?
I think that Michelle has a kind heart. I really love you as a person, Michelle. But I found it exhausting to listen to all your problems with only minimal curiosity about what was going on in my life. And I don't want my life to be focused on negativity. It's nice to have someone there to listen, but also to share in my joy with my family and my other concerns in life.
Do you feel that your relationship was one-sided and that you only—
I feel that we were both there for each other during different times. I didn't really consider her a therapist. I considered her, but I took everything she said maybe as a therapist would say because I think she's very smart, intelligent, and that's one other thing that I do love about her.
But you are acknowledging that when you were together, that there's, from your point of view, that there was times where it was a little bit more lopsided that you talked about it?
Because my time, my rollercoaster for 5 years was quite a rollercoaster. And yes, she did tell me, which I don't think I could say to somebody, but she did tell me, she said, "I don't wanna talk about that anymore." And I felt like she ran outta patience with me. And I think as friendships, you should have patience and maybe there's an easier, kinder way of saying it.
Do you think you ran outta patience with her?
I think I became exhausted by the continual problems, and I feel that when my input does not do any good, then I need to extract myself. If I had felt that my input was constructive, I would have stayed there. I would not abandon. But when a person hears and heeds your advice but then goes back and does it again and again and again and yet again— How fast?
I was lost.
It was a big responsibility for me.
I think there's times where we all get lost. Yeah. Unfortunately, my time was a 5-year period.
Yeah.
And am I happy about that? Absolutely not. Did I wanna put that stress on Etta? Absolutely not.
So how did you feel like your relationship was different when you were single?
Well, when we were single together, we had a lot of fun. We did.. And then we realized that we had each other's heart to listen to. And I stopped drinking. I've been alcohol-free for 5 years. And Michelle continued to—
thank you.
And Michelle continued to drink and hang around with that sort of scene, which I had nothing in common with. And then I had a boyfriend, and I'm very close to my my sons and my children, my grandchildren. And we started having very different joys in life.
Got it. We used to do music venues. We don't have to do that anymore.
We can—
she can take time away from whatever it is, like once every 2 weeks. I do that with a lot of women. Once every 2 weeks, we set a date and we catch up and we talk about our grandchildren and our children. But that has never been you know, brought to me.
I think Michelle likes to go out at night. I like to go out during the day. I would love to have a girlfriend or Michelle or someone to work out with, to take walks with, to sit and have a cup of tea with and talk about— it could be philosophy, it could be world events, it could be anything.
Would I like to go to the gym with Etta? Yes, I do. I have a job. I work during the day. So my free time is— it doesn't have to be 10:00 going out dancing, but we like to go do that, right? Uh-huh. Okay. All right. So it doesn't have to be that. You know, it could be 5 o'clock, let's meet for an hour and have a little nosh or something and catch up. To me, that's putting yourself—
Karamo, this is not the Michelle Show, it's the Karamo Show.
