Annoyed with a friend and need to take a step back-tell her or just do it?

[Anonymous]

OP, we may have the same friend!

I did the slowly pull back method with my overbearing friend. I first stopped answering calls, I’d only answer every fifth, for example. Then, I stopped immediately responding to texts. I’d get to her when I could. Then, it was almost as though the problem solved itself, and she went off and, I’m assuming, successfully found someone else who could be her on-demand sounding board.

Sometimes, in a weird way, I miss her daily complaining!

[Anonymous]

Tell her the truth about raising a SN child and that you are realizing you need to put more focus on kids and me-time. This is true for all SN parents. Friendships like this can be an easy escape. Tell her you want to stay in touch but you are reducing frequency of communication in your relationships bc of these new goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Ok, so I’m just venting here to avoid blowing up at my friend. Here’s some examples:

-she doesn’t really respond to my messages or acknowledge the things going on in MY life. 95% of our communication is about her-her talking about her thoughts/ideas/problems, and me responding. But when I talk about my life she just responds in a limited way, if at all.

-she’s deep into the law of attraction and life coaching stuff and truly believes that our thoughts can impact our physical surroundings.

-she doesn’t work or have kids. This actually used to be fun for me-I enjoyed hearing about her crazy/interesting life, her travel, her love affairs, the amazing food she has time to eat and prepare, etc. It was kind of like escapism from me and reminded me of the chapter when we lived near each other overseas in our 20s. Over time though, it kind of depresses me when my life is so monotonous and hard and especially since she shows no interest in my life now.

-she asks me for help with things like her resume or finding a job, and I provide help (review resume/send jobs that she’s qualified for). She doesn’t take my advice, but wants to keep talking about the problem and these totally pie in the sky solutions. When I try to gently/lovingly guide her back to reality, she gets annoyed with me.

-on the rare occasions she listens to what’s going on in my life, she often points out how my negative thinking attracted the problems I’m encountering.

-I have young kids, one with severe SN, and she recommends things like diet/supplements to cure her from her incurable disabilities. She also keeps wanting to blame this horrible winter of horrible viruses on our diet. She even sends me woo/new agey kinds of books about how diet cures all illness.

Gah. See what I mean? She’s not bad intentioned but we just are not a fit for each other right now.

I think taking a break is a good idea. You two seem really similar. You give each other advice and you both ignore each others advice (I wonder if she is rolling her eyes at your resume suggestions as you roll your eyes at her new age suggestion). You might find you are just too different. You might find you miss her. I would suggest that your choice of communication may be what is leading to you both to misread each other. Sometimes it is hard to know when we are helping people and when we are annoying people via text / and other tech.

Do tell her something. Perhaps be slow to respond and say you are busy/stressed and your doctor suggested you take technology breaks.

Well, resume suggestions are real and new age is nonsense woo, but hey, you tried it. DP.

[Anonymous]

Tell her the kids are at a stage where they both your attention and so you may not be able to be in touch as much as you used to.

Another thing I would be tempted to say is that you and she are on different pages when it comes to health, so perhaps she can discuss her theories about that with another friend. Then say something you two do connect on.

I tell people that are conservative politically that we are better off not discussing those topics, because we will never agree and each person winds up getting worked up/defensive.

Good luck. When I became a parent, I gradually lost touch with my single friends. I am not sure if my life/stories bored them. Or my parenthood made them sad because it was not in the cards for them. Either way, there were no hard feelings. We just drifted apart, because there was not enough in common.

[Anonymous]

I also think when you are single, you keep a lot of people in your life because you need people to do things with.

When you have kids, you have very little "me" time (or discretionary time), so you want to spend it on people and activities that you miss/really value. People who are "meh" fall to the wayside, because you don't have tons of hours to fill with superficial activities.

[Anonymous]

I would try to find some truth to tell her. I had a friend sort of ghost me and I never knew why, so I invented all kinds of reasons that made me feel awful about myself (and her, honestly). It was really hard. I wish she’d tried to give me some version of Why rather than nothing at all.

[Anonymous]

OP it sounds like you don’t like her much. The kindest thing to do would be to break it off, not trailing her along / slow fade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would try to find some truth to tell her. I had a friend sort of ghost me and I never knew why, so I invented all kinds of reasons that made me feel awful about myself (and her, honestly). It was really hard. I wish she’d tried to give me some version of Why rather than nothing at all.

Op here. What is the gentlest, kindest way to do that?

I think I do feel some resentment/hurt/judgement/defensiveness and am worried there’s no way to talk about this with her without those emotions coming through, and creating bad feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try to find some truth to tell her. I had a friend sort of ghost me and I never knew why, so I invented all kinds of reasons that made me feel awful about myself (and her, honestly). It was really hard. I wish she’d tried to give me some version of Why rather than nothing at all.

Op here. What is the gentlest, kindest way to do that?

I think I do feel some resentment/hurt/judgement/defensiveness and am worried there’s no way to talk about this with her without those emotions coming through, and creating bad feelings.

I really don’t know, but I think dropping hints—like when she does something self absorbed, pause, and say, “I feel like you don’t ask me about my life” or “I feel like you’re not listening to me.” And then after a while of this, you could just write her a note and tell her you need space.

I don’t think there is a way to do a friendship breakup perfectly, but at least give her an idea of what’s going on. It is so much better IMO to have had a tough convo and then have that be the end, vs her just feeling like—“maybe I just need to try harder with my friend and call her more! Maybe she’s mad about X! Maybe she judges my decision to Y! Maybe shes just a miserable jerk!” As I mentioned I had a terrible slow mysterious end of a close friendship a couple years ago, and I STILL agonize about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try to find some truth to tell her. I had a friend sort of ghost me and I never knew why, so I invented all kinds of reasons that made me feel awful about myself (and her, honestly). It was really hard. I wish she’d tried to give me some version of Why rather than nothing at all.

Op here. What is the gentlest, kindest way to do that?

I think I do feel some resentment/hurt/judgement/defensiveness and am worried there’s no way to talk about this with her without those emotions coming through, and creating bad feelings.

“I feel like my situation w my kids is not super relatable to a lot of people and I’ve felt like I haven’t gotten the listening or support I’ve needed from you. I get it, I don’t really expect you to be able to relate. But I’m needing to take more time for myself, including building relationships for support here. I still want to be friends but I think I need to slow it down. Daily texting has been a fun distraction but I need to face my life and put time in more purposefully to my kids and pursuing my own interests. I’m also trying to leave ny phone in my purse more so I can be more present so I’m not responding to texts as often. Sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m trying different things to see what feels right. ”

[Anonymous]

Talk to her for 15 minutes once a month. Done.

[Anonymous]

Np here, and I am in a similar boat, except mine involves a relative, making it even more difficult to cut ties.

The truth is I have never respected this person and the choices they make and find them to take far more than they give. As the years have passed, it is patently clear that we are fundamentally different. I've outgrown the shenanigans, am no longer interested in the stories, and no longer into being quietly judgmental.

My method is to be constantly busy or cut the convos short.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell her the truth about raising a SN child and that you are realizing you need to put more focus on kids and me-time. This is true for all SN parents. Friendships like this can be an easy escape. Tell her you want to stay in touch but you are reducing frequency of communication in your relationships bc of these new goals.

I like this solution because it seems true, yet not cruel.

[Anonymous]

You are just cruel and mean if you ghost her

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are just cruel and mean if you ghost her

Op here. I’m not planning to ghost. Just slowly engage less and less.