How do you distance yourself/take a step back from a close friend without falling out?

[Candykingprincess]

Has anyone else taken a step back from a friend for any reason and managed to do it without causing a friendship break up or argument.

I am struggling at the moment with a close friend. We have been friends for years, since primary school. We are both in our 30’s now.

I’ve noticed over the past couple of years our friendship has been quite intense, especially the most recent months.

She has always got something going on in her life, and most of our chats involve talking about her life 95% of the time. Although she does genuinely have a lot going on, a lot can be self inflicted and brought on by her own actions.

I’ve noticed she recently has started to have a “I’ve got it worse that you” attitude which means she regularly expects check ins, talks about her without asking me questions. If I’ve got something going on in my life, she will usually try and somehow how talk about how she has it worse because x y and z.

She has 2 small children by 2 different dads and constantly moans about how previous dad and now current dad is awful. (Conceived both children within months of knowing these men) and regularly tells me how hard she has it and acts as if I don’t know what it’s like. Whilst I don’t know what her situation is like, I have young children and have been there myself too.

Although I’ve mentioned the negatives we have had a great friendship in the past, hence the long friendship and care I have for her. I feel like she is quite blinkered on her own life at the moment but I feel like she will pile that on me.

I want to take a little step back from her to protect my “peace” without hurting her or telling her she is too much.

You won't be able to step back without drama if you're honest with her. She doesn't sound like she is the sort of person who is particularly reflective on her own actions and so she'll take any honesty from you as a criticism.
If you want to avoid drama, you're going to have to soften what you say, which won't help her to realise that she's pushing you away. And then when you're ready to step back into the friendship it'll be back to the same place again.
You need to decide if you want to be friends with the person she is now, not the person she was. She will always deserve your kindness because of the friend she has been, but being kind doesn't mean being her doormat or letting her trauma dump on you over and over.
Friendships change and people grow apart. It's sad but a part of life. Don't cling to something unhealthy just because it's familiar.
Good luck with this, it doesn't sound an easy situation.

Yes I’ve done this fairly recently with someone. You have to start distancing yourself and becoming less available. I never confronted her as I knew it would be like chucking grenade and starting world war 3. It took a year, but she’s finally taken the hint and given me the space I need.

My sister is like this. Her life is drama 24/7 & most is self inflicted & even once told me rightly or wrongly after I had an argument with my husband how my problem was insignificant & I don’t have real problems. Even though what she said was true in that instance I just wanted some comfort at the time. It was the first and last time I’ve ever gone to her for that. Maybe that’s why she thinks I don’t have my own problems. You could just change the subject. Take any nugget of what she tells you & manipulate a change in topic. I don’t really have any solid advice but I get it.

Get busy yourself. Don't respond to text messages. Say you are having a tech break, and you'll meet on x for a hour or pop over for an hour.

You can start this by saying your overwhelmed with tech outside work= setting example to dc, then slowly stop replying. You are not a dumping ground.

If you didn't have a mobile phone, realistically how much would you see her? Once every couple of weeks? Maybe less? And not to be moaned at. Maybe say let's go for a walk and chat.