How do I say no to her...

[freshmonth]

Hello,
So ive name changed as this could be outing.

We have our friend coming round Saturday who works in construction, to begin some paid work for us that we've had booked for 5.5 months.

His partner has been my on / off friend for many years, since school but is very prone to snapping / arguing and kicking off at every single thing.. very petty at times.

Since we are in lockdown, I assumed it would be just our friend that is doing the work for us; coming round.

This morning I woke up to a status on social media complaining about being alone all weekend and how selfish certain friends are not to think of her or invite her out. Floods of comments came in under her post about how 'you can come to my house hun' or 'if I didn't have covid you could come to me, always welcome. You know my views on lockdown' etc etc. Shocking to be honest. I know this is about me and my partner as we have her partner round to do the work. I didn't retaliate.

Fast forward a few hours and I get a huge paragraph text to me, saying that it's so unfair she's alone all weekend, all by herself and that she feels nobody considers her feelings.
Stupidly - and I take full responsibility for this - I said she can come too. I can't be dealing with the arguments. 🤦‍♀️

I FULLY follow the rules r.e covid, haven't broken a single guideline so far, and definitely don't plan to. I don't know what came over me in that split second and honestly as soon as I sent the message I instantly regretted it.

She replies 'oh good, I didn't want to have to kick off and invite myself. See you Saturday'

Im now stuck between a rock and a hard place. I know she sees more people than I'd like to even think about, lockdown or not. Guidelines don't seem to matter to her. Her partner is very careful r.e covid and works most of the time to provide for them both with full PPE. Would wear this whilst in our home, too.

I don't know what to do. I don't feel comfortable her coming and feel a complete dick saying she could. I've just recently had a miscarriage and I'm still struggling tremendously. I didn't want the arguments and the grief from her on top of my own. Nobody knows about our loss, other than close family who have been our support..

I don't know how to say no to her. I know her argument would be 'if my partner can come it's no different me coming we live together' although this is true, we are in NATIONAL LOCKDOWN and should not be having her here.
The fines are extortionate. More than I care to think about and not something we can afford..

What do I do? I don't know how to let her down gently enough not to cause an argument. I just don't have the strength in me to deal with it right now.

If she turns up today with her partner don't let either of them in, and tell him he can do the job when she goes home.

Hope you managed to get some sleep and that your weekend goes smoothly. Don’t be afraid to call the police if she turns up.

What a nightmare. Would it be better / easier to just cancel the work through the partner and say ‘sorry given how this has panned out and the hassle X has caused, I think it’s for the best if we get someone else to do the work. We’re not upto dealing with x’s shit right now.’ ??

Why would you need to baby sit her because her partner is working? That's madness

'Sorry but it's not safe to come over with the current situation, we will catch up soon I'm sure.'

If she even slightly 'kicks off' tell her DP to sort it out or not come, and avoid that friendship

Good luck and so sorry to hear about your miscarriage OP x

OP, you say you've known her for years and that she always behaves like this, that it has a big impact on you.

Have you ever considered that your own anxiety is as a result of, or at least greatly heightened by her presence in your life? I think her actions are effecting your own mental health.

I keep thinking over the line in your first post where she said she didn’t want to have to kick off in order to invite herself, and then later you give more detail of her behaviours when she is not getting her own way.

I feel that any response from her is contrived, not out of distress but fear of relinquishing control over others around her.

I hope all goes well today, it’s a shame you still want this work doing and can’t just have a clean break and block.

Give your friends a heads-up, don’t relent (you’ll be much happier in the long run) and call police if there’s any concern about risk. Nothing is your responsibility to sort out.

Thank you all, her partner has arrived. No sign of her but he's had an earful all night.
Sadly the work needs to be done as it's structural and for safety, so a bit annoying there otherwise I'd have not had it done :(

Have a lovely weekend everyone

Ah. All done.

Why is he telling you he's had an earful all night? He is there to do a job, that's it.
More bloody drama
Go to another room, grab a cuppa, a book and stay there all day

God, imagine what his life is going to be like when he separates from her.

It has to be fairly inevitable surely.

Isn’t the workman embarrassed? How odd the whole thing sounds.

I’d definitely be finding someone else to do any future work and going no contact with your ‘friend’

Pretty sure your anxiety would decrease massively.

Sorry for your loss 💐

Just keep her blocked on everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if their relationship ended, no one needs to put up with that shit.

Look, she is HIS problem.

She is no longer yours.

Nod and look sympathetic but don’t get drawn in. You’ve done nothing wrong, anyone with half a brain cell knows you’ve done nothing wrong so breathe

Is your OH with you today? Let him deal with it.

You’ve been very brave, well done

Can you or your partner talk to his mate about the fact that he's in an abusive relationship which he should think about leaving? Offer some support or signposting maybe.
There are many threads on here from women in his position, I'd bet that she'd threaten to hurt herself if he leaves but it's a script that abusers follow.

I can only assume that the majority of posters have never come across someone like this in real life, because if they had then they’d realise that “just get rid” isn’t so easy.

I have one of these - not as crazy - but has to be in on EVERYTHING otherwise the mournful memes start, if she messages you and you don’t reply within the hour it’s followed up with “what have I done to upset you?”, she’s very much “I’m everyone’s best friend” and “I tell it how it is” and.....it doesn’t even sound that bad when you write it down, but she’s just in your face and TOO MUCH! Then, as I have done, if you try to tell her how annoying her behaviour is she just goes on and on trying to persuade you that it’s not, so most people just go for the easiest option and answer her messages and include her in events (she doesn’t include everyone in her things, that’s different) and try to back away quietly. Why she doesn’t realise this happens so often I don’t know.

I got fed up with it after the most recent round of nonsense messages and just muted her on everything. She tried to get to me via another friend but otherwise it’s blissful

As for questioning why they are still using the boyfriend for the work, and why is he talking about Batshit with them - the boyfriend is DP’s friend, I assume DP wants to keep his friend so.....you know, try and think about how these things are in real life, not just i the slightly weird black or white world of mumsnet!

I think you are right @tallbirduk. I would have walked away from someone like that as soon as she started to behave like that and so would most people.

I think you did to distance yourself from this woman. I would cut her out as much as possible don't engage with the crazy behaviour. Hopefully dh and her dp can remain friends but if not I would still do it.

OP- check out the book "Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself by Dr Aziz Gazipura.

From what youve said about always putting others first this could be a really useful learning experience as a catalyst for change. Frame this as something good that instigates a change for you rather than something awful.

As for questioning why they are still using the boyfriend for the work, and why is he talking about Batshit with them - the boyfriend is DP’s friend, I assume DP wants to keep his friend so.....you know, try and think about how these things are in real life, not just i the slightly weird black or white world of mumsnet!

Yes but equally, if you are a tradesman and your partner is physically and mentally harassing your clients then it cannot come as a shock when people dont book you for work. I'm sorry but there are consequences to this and they arent obliged to hire him every time they need work done just because he is a friend. Not if he always comes with a barrage of abuse from her! Thats HIS responsibility to protect his clients, not the OPs.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

As for questioning why they are still using the boyfriend for the work, and why is he talking about Batshit with them - the boyfriend is DP’s friend, I assume DP wants to keep his friend so.....you know, try and think about how these things are in real life, not just i the slightly weird black or white world of mumsnet!

Yes but equally, if you are a tradesman and your partner is physically and mentally harassing your clients then it cannot come as a shock when people dont book you for work. I'm sorry but there are consequences to this and they arent obliged to hire him every time they need work done just because he is a friend. Not if he always comes with a barrage of abuse from her! Thats HIS responsibility to protect his clients, not the OPs.

Yeah I know, it wasn’t so much about whether they choose to use him for future work (sounds like he’d understand why if they decided against it), more about them not just cutting the boyfriend off because of his Batshit girlfriend - that’s not how friendships work in real life.

that’s not how friendships work in real life

I disagree. If my friend's partner harassed me, stalked me, caused damage to my property (she has been convicted of this before apparently and people have taken out restraining orders against her according to OP for doing this to other people) then yes, I would be ending that friendship. I'm not risking property damage and harm to myself or members of my family just to stay in contact with someone

I would not expect my friends to stay friends with me either if my friends were having to take out restraining orders against my partner.

I suppose why I commented was because I often see on threads many people saying an outraged and often critical “grow a backbone, get rid” or variations of, that I can imagine if you’re the OP and it seems that everyone else would deal with it better than you have, it might make you feel worse/weaker/more hopeless rather than stronger and more able to deal with it.

It’s easy to be outraged about a strangers life and tell them what they should do. Often they know what they need to do but it’s just not that simple in reality.

I guess sometimes knowing that so many people feel that you should do something and are outraged on your behalf might spur you on, but real life relationships and situations are never as simple as they seem when written down.

OP I hope that things calm down. If you’re ignoring her she will hopefully just fade away and unless she turns up at your house you won’t even know if she’s throwing a tantrum somewhere.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

that’s not how friendships work in real life

I disagree. If my friend's partner harassed me, stalked me, caused damage to my property (she has been convicted of this before apparently and people have taken out restraining orders against her according to OP for doing this to other people) then yes, I would be ending that friendship. I'm not risking property damage and harm to myself or members of my family just to stay in contact with someone

I would not expect my friends to stay friends with me either if my friends were having to take out restraining orders against my partner.

Well then we will have to disagree.

If a friend of mine had a boyfriend that caused us trouble, unless she was encouraging it or joining in with it I wouldn’t cut her adrift. I might be less inclined to see her, but I wouldn’t stop being her friend. More likely I’d be worried for her.

In this situation he is not responsible for her behaviour, you are making him so.

Plus, it sounds like even if they dumped the boyfriend as a friend it wouldn’t bring an end to the harassment because it’s between Batshit and the OP and only in this situation has the Bf been involved, and even then only indirectly.

In this situation he is not responsible for her behaviour, you are making him so

He isnt responsible for her behaviour but there is no way on earth I would put my children or myself at risk of actual harm and if that meant losing his friendship then so be it. Look at how anxious the OP already is- its causing her severe distress.

Our actions have consequences in life whether we like it or not and friends shouldn't have to put up with all kinds of toxic damaging crap just because you want to be with a certain person. Thats not a "friend" in my definition of the word.