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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Tried to help a friend and got shouted at

119 replies

Ytrigging · 14/02/2021 18:33

I have an old friend who has been struggling with relationships and her self esteem for a while. She has been relying on me quite heavily to get through it, for example calling most evenings and sometimes talking for hours. She once broke down in tears asking me why her current interest does not love her. Our lives are in quite different places, I live with my DH and we are expecting pfb in the summer. I think she comes to me because I have a different perspective to her other young single friends. We message everyday and speak on the phone most days. Today we had this conversation:

(No previous chat since yesterday)
Friend: Dating is the worst. Men are impossible.
Me: Are you ok? Did you speak to X or is this about someone else?
Friend: It's all of them!
Me: laughing emoji.
Friend: I've been thinking about my past. All men are bastards.
Friend: Except one.
Me: Who?
Friend: (The name of an ex boyfriend she dated for several years but they broke up 5+ years ago. He now lives with his wife and 2 children on a different continent).

We then switched to a phone call. I asked if she had been in contact with the ex today and whether that is helping her. She was pretty annoyed by my questions and insisted they're friends and he is a good person and she needs good friends now. I apologised for being judgemental and she snapped at me again. Then I asked if she is still in love with him. She yelled at me, told me it's none of my business, that wasn't what the conversation was about and then said she couldn't talk now and hung up.
I realise that I was extremely tactless to ask but I don't think it was an entirely foundationless assumption. Was I being unreasonable to think she might still love him? And, more importantly, was I being unreasonable to ask? I want to help her but I feel like we have the same conversation again and again and I don't know how to get out of it.

OP posts:

snowydaysandholidays · 16/02/2021 08:32

She is a vampire, you enjoy being needed.

A match made in hell.

SignsofSpring · 16/02/2021 08:39

I'm just amazed you have hours per evening (when you have a partner and presumably other friends) to spend with this one friend. That alone is completely weird and unhealthy, for both of you! She sees you not just as a counsellor, I mean you only see a counsellor once a week, but also as her source of entertainment and interest in life. That can't continue, for your partner's sake for starters, and once you have a baby it won't be feasible at all, time-wise.

Time for a reset, she may well be very upset if you pull away, but it's now or when the baby comes. It will do her a lot of good not to rely on you and I think you need to also examine your own part letting this take up so much of your time and energy. It is likely the friendship (more like a gone wrong relationship!) can't be saved.

Enough4me · 16/02/2021 08:41

As you have been friends for a period of time I would contact her with a simple message. I'd say "no worries, message received, I understand and won't talk about partners in future as relationships are really a minefield to talk about". This way you detach from being her relationship-issue punch bag, but do it in a way to acknowledge that she doesn't want to discuss relationships with you anymore.

Once she isn't using you as an emotional crutch, because you block don't have the same conversations, she may start to talk normally to you again. If not, the friendship is over.

pictish · 16/02/2021 08:43

“Perhaps just listen and let her talk it all out.” - me at 30.

After months of the same on the daily? Hell no! - me now, 45.

Forgothowmuchlhatehomeschoolin · 16/02/2021 08:58

@pictish totally agree!! I have got a friend who loves to wallow in self pity and when l look back, it is something l have always enabled her to do.
But actually she pushed me too far one day and l thought enough is enough and told her to stop feeling sorry for herself. Makes me sound really harsh but honestly l think she used to enjoy making herself feel miserable . I sometimes think we feel obliged to be there for people like this just because we have known them a long time but actually l don't want to be around people that constantly drain me any more. (Obs l have sympathy and time for people who are going through hard times but not when it becomes clear they could do something about it).

Pluas · 16/02/2021 08:59

@SignsofSpring

I think that's fair. The OP has created this situation just as much as her 'friend' has, and needs to examine her own motives in so doing.

You can't allow someone to take up hours of your time most evenings without giving someone as self-absorbed as your friend the impression you have nothing better to do with your time, and making yourself invisible in the dynamic.

It's like making yourself available nightly as a victim to be drained by a vampire and expecting the vampire to suddenly be concerned, for your sake, that you haven't any blood left.

B3ttyBoop · 16/02/2021 09:05

No i don't think it was unreasonable to ask and whatever way you go with trying to help, i think she will take offence. You're both in different places in your lives and she is isolated. When someone's been isolated for a while, they can lose perspective.

Right now lots of people have time to reflect over the past.You've become her sounding board and that's hard work because it's a counselling role; friends aren't trained counsellors and now she's angry because of one question. You've become the cat to kick and that's not on. In your shoes, i'd leave it for a while, you didn't mean her harm. She needs to find other ways to deal with this.

IsIgnoranceBliss · 16/02/2021 09:18

I’ve got a friend like this, but we only usually have weekly contact. Daily sounds exhausting.

I got some really useful advice on here to think about what she brought to the friendship, if she was just “dumping” on me, and also about telling her I didn’t want to talk about things I didn’t approve of (her chasing married men).

EugenesAxe · 16/02/2021 13:29

Yes sorry I only read the first post. Well what I presumed had pissed her off was true then - 'unsolicited advice' - but I didn't see you'd already had years of not giving any & we're trying a new angle 😂

She's a bit delusional to say that 'you had brought up the ex' by just asking which one... her comment was obviously meant to draw you out.

Sorry again anyway and agree you're definitely best off out of it.

VeganCow · 16/02/2021 18:18

Get rid. She is self obsessed. Daily phone calls and texts, how exhausting. You won't have any time for all this like someone else said, once baby is here. I would back off now you have the chance after the last call with her

Original poster

Ytrigging · 17/02/2021 10:41

I had to block this friend from all of my social media today. Last night at about 2am she sent me 15 WhatsApp messages. Obviously I was asleep and my phone is always off during the night. By the time I turned the phone back on this morning she had deleted 7 of the messages, but even the things she had left were deranged. She brought up a lot of things from years ago, eg she was defending an ex coworker of ours who was fired for making antisemitic comments (I’m Jewish). Apparently I didn’t educate her nicely enough and the ex coworker was from Ukraine therefore it’s just a cultural difference! I know that’s not true. She also claims that she experiences more racism as an American in the UK than I did that day. She said our friendship can’t survive the way I have treated her and she has never been more disappointed to discover someone’s true colours. And she concluded by saying she feels sorry for my unborn child.
I’ve deleted her from everything and it feels like I have put down a heavy rucksack. I feel a bit sad about how much time I wasted trying to be the best friend I could be to her when this was always bubbling underneath but I just couldn’t see it. Never mind, live and learn.

OP posts:

WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants · 17/02/2021 10:51

Arghhhh. I just typed a long message & my phone ate it!

Short answer.

It's sad to lose a long-standing friend, but she's no friend to you now. Don't reply, ther would be too much back & firth & it won't be pretty.

Mourne the friend you thought you had, but embrace the spare time & energy you'll have now she's not going to be sucking you dry!

Take care & enjoy your pregnancy ☕️🍪

billy1966 · 17/02/2021 11:06

@SignsofSpring

You will not have this time when the baby arrives.

You could well cause problems in your own relationship spending so much time being unpaid counsellor.

Take this as a gift.

She uses you.
She will be back.
You are useful to her.

Take this opportunity to back away.

pictish · 17/02/2021 11:15

“I feel a bit sad about how much time I wasted trying to be the best friend I could be to her when this was always bubbling underneath but I just couldn’t see it. Never mind, live and learn.“

You do indeed. As I mentioned earlier 30 yr old would have been that good, reliable friend. 45 yr old me knows that anyone who takes up that much of your time on the regular is a pisstake who wouldn’t give you the steam off theirs in return...as you have discovered.
It’s shit but you live and learn like you say and you become a lot more discerning with your attention and time. It’s the pay off.

pictish · 17/02/2021 11:25

I know I sound flippant btw but trust me I’ve been there and wore the t-shirt.
I love being a hard-arse these days. My judgement is much improved as is my self worth. Friendships are nice to have...you shouldn’t have to earn them by offering a service. Your friend there has turned on you for no good reason after all that you’ve put into her. She’s a fucking ghoul. Let this bring you resolve and self-respect for the future.

Ikora · 17/02/2021 11:39

Good grief those messages she sent you, she wanted to hurt you and also I do hate it when people get racism and xenophobia mixed up. That Ukrainian person was being obviously racist and as an American what she has encountered is xenophobia. Still deeply unpleasant but not the same.

Do not engage again, when she calms down she may attempt to be conciliatory. Just ignore.

BorderlineHappy · 17/02/2021 11:49

You're well rid,spend the time normally spent listening to her to do nice stuff for babies arrival.
Glad you blocked her,let her stew in her own juice for a while.Might sharpen her brain abit.

ktp100 · 17/02/2021 11:56

She's got some growing up to do.

I'd be stepping away from that friendship. She sounds just exhausting.

ktp100 · 17/02/2021 12:00

She's bitter, nasty, childish and jealous.

This is not the recipe for friendship.

Well done for blocking her, OP.

pictish · 17/02/2021 12:02

She certainly sounds like a spiteful and petty individual, bringing all that irrelevant nonsense up to whip you with. You’re obviously a fab friend and it’s clear she had to clutch at straws to implicate you in something somehow.
Pathetic.

pictish · 17/02/2021 12:03

I imagine she is very jealous of you, with your husband and baby on the way.
She has conducted herself very poorly here so I have absolutely no sympathy at all.

Original poster

Ytrigging · 17/02/2021 12:10

Thanks for the support. I’m feeling very hormonal today so it’s nice to have some reassurance. The messages last night were a completely “unprovoked” decision by her because I never replied to her previous messages to give her anything to reply to.

OP posts:

NoSuchThingAsTooMuch · 17/02/2021 12:29

I had a friend like this. She spent months pining over an unavailable love interest, we had the same circular conversations for weeks on end, I found it very difficult after a while. A mutual friend and I had a chat about it once and it turned out that this friend was going around everyone in our group, having these same conversations, with the same responses from people, but for some reason she made me feel like I was her only confidant? It was strange. I felt really used, actually, as I spent lots of time worrying about her and shoring her up (late night phone calls and messages with her in tears, etc)

I told her I couldn't talk about it anymore, that she knew my opinion on the subject. She only wanted a friendship on her terms so when I stated my needs, she decided we weren't friends anymore. No huge loss in the end, as she took more from me than she gave.

NoSuchThingAsTooMuch · 17/02/2021 12:37

Woah, just rtft! Oh, OP, that is a massive escalation on her part. I'm sorry for this experience, but it's a relief in some ways that she's shown her true self before you had the baby and felt even more vulnerable.

AnExcellentWalker · 17/02/2021 13:07

Definitely block her everywhere you can. She sounds oversensitive, self involved & excessively dramatic. 15 WA messages overnight - what an extreme overreaction to your (lack of) response. Goodness knows what was in the deleted ones.

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