Do you judge your friends and stick by them whatever?

[Jemima45]

I'm struggling a bit with a very long term friendship. Known each other for ages but she has had marriage problems for over 20 years and during that time started divorce proceedings twice then stopped it. For all those years I've been a good friend and spent hours and hours on the phone listening to her and trying to be supportive. But as it's gone on so long, she's changed. She's always been quite feisty but now she's very confrontational with him- every few weeks or months they have a screaming row, started by her over what he has or hasn't done. she's also been violent towards him and hit him/ kicked him on one occasion until he ran out of the house. He's behaved in ways that are not good, but I somehow can't get my head around how she lives now. It would cause a rift between us if I said to her that I didn't want to hear about all of this any more but I do think she's changed. Any words of wisdom?

In a nutshell, the people I keep close to me I do so because the good outweighs the bad. I don't expect to agree with all opinions and actions of those around me, nor those with mine. If the negative outweighs the positive then u let things fizzle out. Life's too short.

No, I don't stick by my friends whatever. I have one childhood friend who will be my friend for life but all the others are transient. People move away and grow apart. Some friendships last a few years, some a few decades.

If you no longer enjoy being around your friend then it is time to just let it fizzle out. If you get nothing good out of a friendship I don't see the point of keeping it going just for the sake of it.

In general I take the view that people make their own decisions and it's neither desirable nor productive to interfere in other people's lives.

I do think though that when someone is continuously putting themselves through bad stuff and refusing to learn lessons from things that happen to them there's a case as a good and close friend for expressing concerns. Particularly if this person is moaning at you all the time about the state of her marriage. There's a limit to the amount of times you can expect close friends to listen to the same narrative if you won't take responsibility for your own life.

My best friend has recently been out of order to his wife without going into detail, affair, being nasty, left her to carry on with OW.

I've also shared with him the troubles my DW and I have had in the past.

We have both told each other exactly what we think and have pulled no punches.

We are both still best friends. Thats what it's all about isn't it. If you cant talk to your best friend and take the critisism if your in the wrong then I'd say your not best friends.

Friends worth having can talk openly. I have the most trust in people who tell me what they really think. I am very lucky to have a few friends like that.

I was in a similar situation to you last year, and have cooled a friendship of 25 years because I can't take anymore how she conducts her private life. She has become a totally different person over the past 15 years. My ds only knows her as a critical bossy woman who cries a lot. She used to be so lovely, but it's a distant memory really, but sad because I know that person is still in there. I worry about her every day still.

Eventually you just have to cut people loose to enjoy their dramas on their own.

Is all this information about her behaviour coming from her? How come you know that she always starts the rows and has been violent?

It's ok to say you don't want to hear anymore about what goes on in her marriage, because that's dealing with how it affects you.

But a lot of your post was about how she behaves in her marriage, which isn't your domain or business.

Focus on how it affects you and not her behaviour towards her husband.

I don't stick by people no matter what. I'm OK listening to problems, being supportive and so forth but I've had to draw the line in the past when it's got too one-sided and turned into an attention-seeker using me as a gullible audience.

Some people are just like this (thinking of family members here - though not violent ones) and lurch from crisis to crisis, pouring their woes onto anyone who will listen but never taking advice or making any changes.

In the end I don't think by being supportive you (or anyone who is being weighed down by another's probs) are helping much, they really need to make a break. If it is no problem to you to continue in this vein do, but if it is getting you down or making you angry start breaking away.