Reply to How do I gently pull away from a friend who keeps hurting me?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the key is to set boundaries for yourself that you are happy with and that enable you to get what you need. You can't control what she does, but you can control your own choices and actions.

It's hard without more detail, but when I was in a similar situation, I started saying no to spending time with the friend one on one, or even in groups or settings where I knew she had a history of treating me poorly (in my case, she seemed to take more pleasure in saying and doing hurtful things around certain people -- I think she was acting out jealousy over my relationship with them or believed she was in competition with me for certain kinds of attention).

If you want to maintain the relationship with her kids, maybe commit to yourself that you will continue to spend time with her family and do kid-centric activities, especially things like attending their performances and celebrations, or treating them for birthdays or other things -- stuff that contributes to your relationship with them. You may need to decide for yourself that if she behaves hurtfully towards you on these occasions, you will find a way to ignore or deflect it. You may also want to check in with yourself about what level of hurtful behavior is okay.

I highly recommend talking about this with a therapist if you have a history of struggling to set boundaries. It was a friendship like this that forced me to come to terms with my more general problems with setting boundaries. The underlying factor was my need to be liked and my fear that if I didn't accommodate others (by letting them treat me however they wanted) they would stop liking me and that would be the verdict on me. It took time and therapy to get to the point where I could not only set and hold boundaries, but could understand that if my boundaries bothered others or made them dislike me, that was not evidence that I was a bad person. It was their limitation, not mine.

GL.[/quote]

NP but amazing self-awareness and insight. Very helpful perspective.[/quote]

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