I’ve become friends 24/7 unpaid therapist!

[Redcurrent100]

Please Help. I am starting to feel like my friends therapist and I’m struggling. She is going through a horrible situation, but I feel like I’m stuck.

Friend is going through a nasty “we’re going to end the engagement” but 5 mins later “we’re going to give it another go” with her fiancé now for the last 6-7 months.

He isn’t a great person. In 3 years of knowing each other they have had 2 kids and got engaged. She has always moaned about him, but never to this extent. I’ve spent the whole time wondering why she is with him or marrying him.

He is so controlling, financially, socially, everything.

Every day for the last 7 months my friend comes to me, calls me, pops over and chats about what he’s done wrong now. Last night I spent an hour on the phone to her whilst she tells me he’s stopped her going out tonight and what not but then this morning she’s messaged to say they sorted things and that she loves him.

I’m meant to be seeing her this weekend for a mums day out (I have young DC as well) and the whole day will be spent talking about her toxic fiancé. Nothing will change.

What do I do? I don’t want to say never talk to me about him again but I can’t keep doing this for my sanity.

Urgh I’ve had a couple of friends like this. I have sympathy up to a point and will give advice but then if they don’t take it and just keep going around in the same patterns and circles and whinging to me about it, I get blunt.

eg “yes, that’s because he’s a prick”
or ”yes, and he’ll keep doing it unless you leave him”. And then change the subject, fast. Just don’t have any truck with indulging her, it’s pointless anyway because she’s not listening.

I did have to dump a long term friend who was stuck in perpetual circles on the same topics, it was too draining to be around. I felt bad but honestly I don’t think it was helping her by enabling her to have an outlet for her loops.

I had a good friend like this she would ring me constantly and moan about the men she’d picked, it was always male drama. It was unavoidable and her phone calls would take over my entire night, sometimes she’d ring morning afternoon and night if she knew I wasn’t working. I really did genuinely love having her as my friend but she went completely bananas last year. By the end I was answering the calls on speaker and getting on my with life at home barely even registering what she was saying she didn’t want a conversation just hours and hours of dissecting a text or a social media post. I had to fizzle it out so I stopped replying as quickly and I didn’t return her calls at all, it was the only way. I hope your friend manages to sort out her love life before she loses you. You sound like a great friend but make sure you have time for yourself and your family too.