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[quote=Anonymous]Please give me some advice.

Over the past three years I have become very close friends with another mom, and it's safe to say we are best friends. She's genuinely a very good person and we have had many fun and good times together. However, like all good people, she has her faults and one fault is that she is a little selfish. She takes more than she gives. I repeatedly inconvenience myself for her and she almost never does for me (late night emotional support for a crisis in her marriage; giving her the name and number of the math tutor I use for my DD for her son; picking up her son from extracurriculars if she's completely unable to, etc). She's definitely shown that she cares in other ways - she give me good advice, she praises me in front of others, etc. But I do know that I repeatedly make myself available to do favors for her even though she doesn't care enough to stay up late with me when I'm really upset about something or just inconvenience herself in any way.

And it's my fault. I have low self-esteem, I was really eager to please and thrilled to find a great new friend after being a lonely new transplant to DC with an introverted, quiet DH, I subconsciously don't believe I deserve equal treatment in a friendship (though, surprisingly, my marriage is quite ok!). I think it is partly because I perceive my friend to be better than me: more social and entertaining, wittier, etc. I know, it's my bad self-esteem that is enabling her own issues with entitlement, selfishness, etc.

The issue is I want to break this pattern of behavior. I do want to keep this friendship - maybe not quite so close - but on more even terms, and I think I have to be the one to change my behavior to make that happen. How do you re-set boundaries gradually and nicely, without shaking things up too aggressively? And more importantly how do you do it in a way that will keep your friend?[/quote]

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