I have had this friend for about 15 years, always got on great. Never argued. There has always been respect towards each others views and lifestyles.
Somehow this has changed and we have somehow fallen into the dynamic that she thinks I need to be helped and fixed and I'm getting increasingly frustrated with all the crazy advice I do not want or need.
She advised me three times to get a husband as 'perhaps I could finally be happy' or as replacement for the difficult relationship with my parents. I found this very, very offensive and actually wondered what I might have said that led her to jump to such conclusions. I did confront her the third time and said I found it far fetched and hurtful. She completely checked out and did not acknowledge her 'mistake'.
Now, I feel like in every conversation I am in some sort of consultation with her where whatever I say she has a suggestion handy for. I told her I don't like it. I just want to tell her something completely trivial without receiving advice. I asked her whether she has thought about why she feels the need to constantly give advice, but now I am the problem as I apparently find fault with everything she says, take things negatively, that she is just the way she is and shes not going to waste any thoughts on such a question.
She is Muslim and said that she'd be very happy if I became one too. I asked why and she replied that because it would mean I wouldn't go to hell. I wish I was joking.
Another thing I struggle to move past is that she convinced her sister and mother (my friend is white and converted to Islam years ago. The family is not Muslim) to not wear shorts and sleeveless shirts whilst on a walk with her because it made her uncomfortable. I also was once out and about with my friend and there was a good looking lady with her young child...the woman wore leather shorts and a tank top. She looked amazing. My friend turned around to me and said 'isnt it terrible to walk around like this as a mother'? I told her each to their own but she couldn't see it like that at all! I could equally be embarrassed to walk around with a women in a long, wide gown and a headscarf, which would never have occured to me, but apparently that's something completely else? It isn't of course.
I have sat down to think how it all came to this and I think she has become quite extreme and inflexible in her views. It's as though she can no longer accept that others view things differently.
The 'fixing of others' has become a feature in the rest of her life, too. It's always about helping this or that person and she obviously feels absolutely great when she tells me about it. On the one hand I'm getting concerned about her as she does not seem well to me mentally and definitely isn't well physically (she's getting pains etc she herself puts down to stress), whilst on the other I no longer feel I can talk to her about my concerns.
I feel like a can't engage with her atm, but I want to keep the friendship too 😞