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WWYD - Friend's relationship issue

1 reply

BearSoFair · 30/03/2019 17:02

I have a very close friend of 10+ years who is, most of the time, brilliant. However, he's never had much luck when it comes to relationships, and when things are going wrong, it's all he wants to talk about. Every day. I'm his friend, of course I want things to work out for him, and I'm happy to lend an ear, but honestly I'm reaching the limit of how many more times I can hear the same thing over and over and I'm starting to dread seeing/talking to him. WWYD? I don't want to push him away or stop talking, but I don't feel like I can really say 'can we talk about something else?' either as I don't want him to feel like I don't care. I've tried to gently steer conversation to other topics but he just pulls it back every time. I've even tried turning off my online status on messenger etc but it doesn't stop him, he'll leave a string of messages spread over hours or days for me to pick up whenever I next look. I'm not sure what else I can do without risking hurting his feelings!

OP posts:
thislido · 30/03/2019 17:11

Is there an evident pattern to what goes wrong? (I’m willing to bet there is a pattern, but it may or may not be obvious from how he talks about it.)

Could you tactfully ask if he’s thought about some counselling to get to the bottom of what’s happening and how much it seems to affect him?

If you’re on the verge of pulling away then it might be kinder to explain to him how wearing you are finding it just taking exclusively about that topic. Hard though!

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