Reply to How do you let go of old friends that you just don't feel comfortable being around anymore?

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Reply to "How do you let go of old friends that you just don't feel comfortable being around anymore?"

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[quote=Anonymous]You need to have an intervention with your friend. Invite her to a quiet place, with no distractions. Tell her "Shelly, I need to set up some boundaries with you because I love you and I want us to be friends for a good long time, but right now our friendship doesn't work for me. Your behavior affects me in the following ways:

1. When you monopolize conversations with long, protracted stories about issues that I'm not a party to, I feel marginalized and anxious.

2. When you only perfuntorally ask me how I am before launching into a lengthy diatribe, it makes me feel that you don't care about me or what's going on in my life.

3. When you call me late in the evening, after I've repeatedly asked you not to, I feel that you don't respect me or my schedule.

4. When you keep me on the phone for hours and hours, I become stressed out because I have things I need to do, and you're keeping me from them.

I want to re-frame our relationship so that it can work not just for you, but for me as well.

1. I will let you know if what you are talking about is not of interest to me. I'll try to be nice about it, but I will say, "Shelly, I don't know who that is. Let's talk about something else."

2. I will let you know if I want to tell you something and I expect that you will listen to me thoughtfully. If this isn't something you feel that you can do, that's fine, we don't need to be in such constant contact then.

3. If you call late in the evening, I will not answer the phone. Please remember that I won't accept any phone calls after 10:00 PM, nor will I allow any phone calls to extend past that time.

4. If the call is going for a long time, again, I'll try to be nice, but I'll say, "Shelly, I have to let you go now, " and then I'm going to hang up.

She may become angry, or upset, but that's a smoke screen. She'll probably be embarrassed because she doesn't realize that she's doing it. Another thing is she may stomp out, vowing never to see you again.

You can say, "I'm sorry you feel that way. I need to have my needs and desires met in this relationship too. If you change your mind, the door is open."

I wish you luck, it's hard, but you can do this.[/quote]

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