friends....

[mrsL1984]

i have a friend who i have been friends with for over year and has been a tower of strength to me over my recent health issues (i had a mmc at beginning of dec) and she has been amazing, she has issues in her life too that i feel i have helped her progress and move on, so i think we are good friends when in need are there for each other. we are both married, i have no kids. she has 3. but recently i feel she is distancing herself from me. i appreciate we have different commitments as she has a family that will always come first and i dont so things are more easier for me to be more free spirited. i sense when she talks to me she is now snapping at me and im bothering her and she just replies when she can be bothered. she always says she is busy. yet but as soon as she says that i get notifucations for game requests on fb. she is quick to pull me up on things i do wrong and that is something i need her to do otherwise i will never learn to correct things i do wrong if i dont know ive done something. yesterday she told me my messages to her are becoming unpleasant and i wasnt aware they were. i apologised - i told her that sometimes her messages come across as rude and she got all defensive. she got me the most lovely christmas present and the thought and love that came with it made me cry!!! i feel were pushing each other away and i need to know how to stop because i know i need her to be around in my life. but i struggle with friendships and maintaining them.....

what can i do to keep her friendship?

Stop viewing her as a tower of strength, and thinking that you need her.
You've known her for a year, and I suspect she's spent that year being a bit of a sounding board for you.
That's fine - it's what friends do....but friends also go out and have light hearted fun and silly times, and laugh a lot.

Could it be she feels a bit suffocated by you?

It sounds like you may be smothering her or expecting too much. The fact that someone felt they had to tell you your messages were unpleasant is quite alarming.

What made you become friends in the first place? If it was purely mutual support then maybe she's moved past whatever she needed you for. If - and this would be healthier - it was something like a shared sense of humour or interest try and focus on that for a bit and keeping things light.

her history means she doesnt feel comfortable about going out, if we socialise i haveto go to her house and her husband is generally there, i ask her to come here one of them isnt happy about it, she was meant to come here one day last week and i waited all day for her and she didnt turn up, didnt tell me she couldnt come until i rang her. she has invited us to spend nye with her which was nice of her but i debated whether to go and told her no at the start. she got really upset and ive since changed mind. maybe i do rely on her too much, but i get mixed messagesfrom her too?

to add also the things we talk about is very two way. weve stayed up til all hours of the day talking about her issues and how we can resolve them. i suspect the two main reasons things are changing: we both get confused when trying to explain things, and my mmc is bringing back too many memories for her own history. i debated whether or not she should have been the person who was by my side along side my husband, but she is very wary that my opinion of her will change becauseof her past. i tell her it wont and it hasnt and never will. i sense she did need/needed me as much as i her. i try to keep things with her as normal as possible without her feeling she has an invisible tattoo which she is paranoid she has. she is a lovely lovely person and her family too, and they have welcomed me very openly. they dont judge me and i dont judge them, but i struggle to understand her when she asks me to do things with her, i say no, she gets upset and then i change my mind... then she says things like she has been..... confusing?? i am too!