How to deal with a bossy, demanding friend?

[tellmeaboutstuff]

Hi, I have namechanged but I am a fairly regular MN poster.

OK, so I have a friend that I've known for several years, and who has always been quite demanding and bossy. She doesn't have many friends but being a mug decent person I've always stayed friends with her. I actually became friends with her by default as our DDs were best friends at preschool and in the first few years of primary. She is the type of person who wants her own way all the time, won't take no for an answer and who pesters and persuades and comes up with solutions until she gets her own way.

Examples include every time I go to her house for coffee she seems to try to delegate a job to me to do. Last time she invited me to her house I arrived and she was ironing and said that she would iron, and I could fold all the stuff. There was no asking if I minded, just an assumption that I'd do it. Another time she said she had lots of jobs to do upstairs and told me to load her dishwasher so we'd be able to sit down quicker if I did that. I feel that she gives me no choice but to do these things. Another time she wanted me to look after her DD for a couple of days in the holidays whilst she was at work. Without even asking me, when she dropped her off on the second day she said I'd have to drop the DD at the DD's dad's house that evening, which is an hour away. The reason? My friend was going for a weekend away with her boyfriend so wouldn't be able to pick her up that night. I felt I had no choice but to do it. She treats everything as a fait acomplis.

So, things came to a bit of a head yesterday for me. She and I went to London for the day on the train. She was absolutely awful in London, ordering me around and wanting to do everything that she wanted, with no consideration to me at all. I said that I wanted to eat lunch at one place and she said abruptly that no, she was not eating in there, and we'd go somewhere else. At the bit to get on the tube where you swipe your card, she kept standing behind me telling me to hurry up, and speaking to me like I was a child. But, the best bit is she did a load of shopping, then said after a while that I was going to have to carry her bags, as her back was hurting her. I was very pissed off by that point and I said that no, I wouldn't carry them as my back was hurting too. This clearly really annoyed her, and she tried to manipulate me saying that I wasn't being a very good friend as I wouldn't help her out, but I stood my ground for once, and then she was even stroppier and snappier for the rest of the day. On the train home she said she didn't know what was wrong with me, again as if I was a naughty child.

Is there any way to handle someone like her or is the best way just to cut her off? The latter would be difficult as our DDs are friends. Am I best off trying to put some boundaries in place about what I will and won't do? Or to just see her when it's something about the DDs?

[venusandmars]

Well....... (a slightly different viewpoint)

I have a friend who sounds very similar - organises things for other people to do, wants me to follow her suggestions, gives me advice on which train to get (I'm 50 ffs!).

However despite all this, my friend is someone who is a 'salt of the earth' type. She would never let anyone down - if she has arranged to meet you she WILL be there. As well as making demands of other people, she would drop everything if one of her friends was in need, and do anything she could to help them. When a mutual friend was in hospital, she drove across town 4 times a week to pick up her dirty laundry, wash it and return it. She has high expectations of herself, and she unthinkingly assumes that this applies to other people too.

I have other 'easier' friends, who when the chips are down find themselves rather busy with their children, their family commitments, their hobbies, and not available to help (nothing wrong with any of this, but the 'anything I can do to help' can be rather hollow).

With my 'difficult' friend, I did go through a period of re-appraisal at one point - one particularly bossy and insensitive interlude had really pissed me off, but overall there is immense benefit in our friendship. I have adjusted some of my behaviour - so when she says "oh get the 5.36 train to x and I'll pick you up , and then I'll drop you off and you can get the 11.48 train home", I just say "that doesn't work for me, I'll text you my arrangements." My 'd'f then seems happy to comply with whatever arrangements I suggest - I think she just has a need for order and arrangement, and if she is the first to suggest it she assumes her proposal is right (and acceptable to everyone else).

I do feel sad, when so many people are quick to say "get rid". How many friends would be have left if we didn't ever learn to compromise? How many people would drop us as friends? What are the unmeasurable, intangible benefits? I have a friend who has a very different lifestyle from mine, and different values, but she is a friend from childhood who remembers my parents, and that alone is worth retaining a friendship.

So for me, it's not as simple as dropping a friend, it's about knowing why I have them in my life, and how far I'm willing to go to make it work.