not sure what to do next about this friend.....

[Tommy]

I have a friend, we'll call her Sue. She's not particularly a close friend but she would probably say that she was IYSWIM. Our childen are friends and we live nearby so we help each other out with picking up from school etc and go out socially sometimes.

There have been a few occasions over the last few months or so where I have started a thread about my concerns about her - quite needy and very "in your face" but also very flakey - not turning up to things she said she would and letting people down etc but it's turnied into a big moan so I've deleted them!

Anyway - she recently told me that she was leaving her husband and has told lots of people about this including saying that our mutual group of friends are not being supportive and have told her she is being selfish and should stick out her marriage no matter what.

As far as I am aware, no-one has said this to her - I do know that no-one has said "yes, leave him if you don't love him anymore" but I hope we have been trying to get her to see both sides of the story especially as we have 2 friends whose husbands have recently left themand have realy been through the wringer.

She sent me an email this evening, with 2 other friends copied in to say that she is leaving her husband and that she knows we don't approve but there are things in her marriage that we know nothing about and her other friends who have known her longer who do know about them. However, she would like our support and "unconditional love"

I feel very uncomfortable abut someone asking me for my unconditional love. Isn't that something that grows over time?

Her attitude and behaviour has been causing me a lot of angst over a few months anyway but I feel this is a bit of a turning point. I haven't replied to her email and no have no idea what to do or say.
What would you do?

yes - Ingles2.

hit the nail on the head - as did Pigglesworth.

It's very difficult to get any perspective on it - all my friends have a view in it and my DH doesn't really but does think I'm being a bit judgey

I don't think I will respond to the email - I will see her on Thursday so don't really need to think about it before then

Enormasnob - I think I realised a little while ago, that if we didn't have children the same age at the same school, we wouldn't be friends. We have nothing else in common

Unconditional love is for animals and children not 'casual' friends !

In the year before I left my abusive H, I was flakey in the extreme. My availability and energy levels were completely dependant on his ever fluctuating mood. I unconsciously sought attention. I latched onto anyone who was nice to me. I behaved in an inappropriate manner at times. I was mixed up, lacking in sleep and confused.

I get that you are not really her friend Tommy, but she needs someone and one of the people she thinks she may need is you. You don't know what is going on inside her marriage (no one knew about mine). If she turns out to be an arsehole, or using you then bow out of this friendship a few months down the line.

dione, that is so true

Iwas thinking something similar: the flakiness may well be an indicator that the marriage was abusive.
It may be that you have too much going on in your own life to be able to offer this woman much support and that's fair enough, but try to be kind to her and don't criticize her actions or go on about the importance of working on a marriage. Unfortunately a lot of people encourage women to make more effort to please, placate and service abusive men because the idea of a woman ending a marriage makes them uneasy.

SO hard to leave a marriage that you keep hoping will improve.
No wonder she's flaky.
Please assure her of your support

thanks for all your responses.

I really don't think it is an abusive marriage and, having thought about it all a bit more, I have come to the conclusion that, at the risk of sounding like a complete b*h, I don't really care that much about the state of her marriage.

But, I do care about the children and how they are responding to the very highly dramatic way things are going and I'm also concerned that she seems to think that life on her own with 3 children will be a breeze (which our other friends whose husbands have recently left are finding particularly difficult)

I think the dramatic "unconditional love" email is the last straw and quite indicative of the way she goes about her life in general.

I think you should go with your gut feeling. We are all projecting our experiences - either as people who have known such people who ended up being drama queens/ compulsive liars/ whatever, or people who have been flakey due to being in an abusive marriage, or people who have had good friends who went through similar circumstances.

I agree with you and personally (maybe I am just cold) think it is not your responsibility to "be there" for another person if you have good reasons to be unsure about their character, especially if part of their character flaw is to be emotionally draining and needy. It would be different if it were a good, old friend who was going through this, who you trusted and had history with and could see was going through a terrible time and needed support. But this is just an acquaintance, and you and others all have a "gut feeling" that something is not right with her. These "gut feelings" are usually correct in my experience, especially if multiple people have come to the same conclusions. She may have legitimate underlying reasons for her deep-seated need for attention/ drama/ creating a false sense of closeness (e.g., bad childhood, mental illness, personality disorder) but that doesn't mean you need to "unconditionally be there for her" if you don't know her well and don't want the drama.

Don't feel bad!

thanks Pigglesworth

if you're any sort of friend can you not acknowledge that she has obviously been going through it hence all the behaviour and whatever the problems in her marriage you wish her family all the best.

Not really that difficult is it? She sounds dramatic but so do you. It would be easy to say of course you can't possibly approve or disapprove as you are not in her shoes and can't possibly know what she/they are going through but you hope it all works out for them in the end.

hmmm. Ok, I left my abusive exh and it was ony afterwards that most people knew what had been going on, everyone had us down as the perfect couple. It took a lot of courage to tell people I'd been allowing him to carry on hitting me. I daresay they found the wording of my email a little strange as well.

Fortunately my friends stuck with me despite me being pretty flakey for quite some time.

Despite my own personal experience of this....
My best friend told me on several occasions that she wanted to leave her husband because things were bad. I thought she was being a bit 'flaky' and over dramatic. It took her another year to leave him because she was scared of how to cope and she couldn't trust her best friend to listen to her. She's now not talking to me. I miss her and her flakiness but I chose to let her down.

No one can give you the answer because you're the only one who knows how you feel, but maybe you don't have to decide total support or total rejection, but keep an open mind a bit longer?

we certainly find out who our friends are when the chips are down!

is anyone actually supporting this poor woman described in the OP ???

yes - she has plenty of support.

ok

Look, if you don't feel you can provide the waterproof shoulder and gin confidence-boosting she seems to be asking for, then the civilised thing to do is tell her this - with as much honest compassion and regret as you can muster.

In your shoes, I wouldn't be going overboard about the unconditional love thing. Of course, it is a weird thing to say but you don't know whether this phrase has been thrown around ad nauseam during the rows at home, if she's been seeing a "woo" counsellor who uses it, or what. Nobody leaves a marriage lightly: you can take it as read that she's in great distress and not thinking all that straight.

So be as kind as you can. If that's not much, then tell her so - kindly.
Wishing the best of luck to both of you.

re: But, I do care about the children and how they are responding to the very highly dramatic way things are going and I'm also concerned that she seems to think that life on her own with 3 children will be a breeze (which our other friends whose husbands have recently left are finding particularly difficult)

How many women do you think just leave their husbands on a whim, to live as a single mother? Why do you feel she thinks her life will be a 'breeze' raising 3 children alone? From what i have seen, mostly the women hold on to every last piece of hope and only leave when there's no other option.

So i think on this part you may be a little bit judgmental.

If she's not exactly a friend of yours though, i'm not sure why you're that bothered.

Hang on, she's your friend.

support her.

I am repeating myself...do you realise how hard it is to leave a (crap) marriage?

Perhaps she has had her confidence in herself completely destroyed through emotional abuse, perhaps she's unsure about how to communicate with anyone. Perhaps she thinks no one will believe her and think she's over reacting.

Perhaps she thinks all the mums have already written her off, after all, her husband has....

Perhaps she is convincing herself that she will be able to cope if she leaves and is glossing over some of the day to day details in order to sort out the courage to move on. Perhaps she is screwing up every single bit of courage to do this.

She's probably better off doing that without people who can't offer unconditional support to be honest, because to be perfectly honest I expect that is what she needs and she doesn't need to be worried about if the people she's relying on are reliable, do her a favour and point her in the direction of MN would you?

do her a favour and point her in the direction of MN
Superb advice, Liza :)
That way, she'll get some decent support and OP will have helped her out with no personal inconvenience.