To ask for help on friendship?

[spannerpudding]

Long story condensed - friend joined my social circle when she got together with her now Husband around 15 years ago. Came into an already-established friendship group and has become one of our closest friends. All Husbands get along famously, so do the wives and now our children too aged between 8-15 between us all. We go on day trips, holidays, weekends away, nights out etc etc.

Said friend is causing problems though and a few others and me are finding her increasingly hard to deal with. She is:

A) overbearing in conversations, she has to be talking and steering the conversation otherwise she becomes disinterested (and shows her lack of interest by looking at her phone, talking to her child, walking away etc)

B) hugely opinionated and can't listen to anyone else's point of view

and thirdly C) is so bitter and uninterested in anyone else's lives - never asks questions about how I am, how my children are, how various house moves/projects are going, yet talks constantly about hers. If anyone else has anything better than her - i.e. House/new car/new baby/pregnancy announcements she won't comment by congratulating or saying it's nice etc. She just ignores it. It's very waring.

She generally only contacts me if she needs something / or needs information on something. Pretty much all of our friendship group feel the same, but for the sake of the group no one wants to say anything directly to her. We live in a small village in Scotland, and avoiding her is not an option. Her Husband is absolutely lovely, although he works in China much of the time so she is often alone and wanting to meet.

All I can think is that she's quite an insecure and jealous person. And is also very self absorbed? Or am I totally missing something? I don't quite know how to deal with this problem. She is getting worse as she gets older and now I find myself needing to give her a wide berth after I comeback from seeing her. Friends shouldn't make you feel like this, should they? How do you stop a person talking about themselves and dominating conversations?

That's so awkward.
Maybe she is just really very lonely because DH is in China and children a getting older and she feels less needed/wanted. But is still trying to give the impression she is happy and everything is perfect.
The people who shout about being so happy and sucessful are usually very sad and as you said insecure.
I actually last year ended a 10 year+ friendship last year as she became very selfcselfcenter also and I was only there to pick up her pieces when she needed me. Sometimes we just out grow people.

Maybe sit her down one to one and check she actually is okay.
I'st a very hard situation you are in.

Absolutely agree mamaleen I do think the more she feels she has to talk about herself, her husband and her amazing house - the more I wonder if she is lacking something and very unfulfilled. I used to resent her and dread going to things when I knew she'd be there, but now I'm starting to feel sorry for her. But then why should we have to deal with her being unkind and resentful when we are happy about something. The rest of us are fully supportive and happy for one another. It's made me stop asking her questions as she will no doubt talk about herself anyway, and she never asks anyone else questions so we've retaliated. It's a vicious circle

She joined your group 15 years ago.
From the sound of it you still treat her like an outsider otherwise what is the relevance of this?

Allthebest I was just explaining the background I guess and how I know her. Not treated like an outsider at all, because I've then gone on to explain how she since became one of my closest friends. More so than others in the group.

This is a reminder why I don't post on mumsnet very often as there is always one person that manages to turn things around and make it entirely the posters fault. Nice one