friends that suck all your empathy down the telephone then hang up before youget to tell them about yourself.

[colditz]

I have a friend(no not you) who only rings me when she is upset or ill or having a child related crisis.

I seem to spend evey phone call councelling her for something or other, and she talks so fast I barely get a word in. Then invariably she will say "How are you anyway? Oh shit, gotta go, ds just woke up/someone came to the door/got to go to work/need the toilet" None of these things ever happen when she is mid-misery-flow!

I've had a funcking miserable 2 weeks and all she has rung me for is to tell me he youngest fell out of his cot, no injury. I totally understand that it's scary when that happens, and I would ring a friend too, but grrrr.

Just bahhh! I am maybe just stroppy. I don't know how to handle this. She is a really nice person too.

NO-colditz-you are not a bitch,friendships work 2 ways. i'd start turning things around a bit-don't give her time to rant and rave-you do the ranting for a change,cut her off mid-sentence,ring her when your down e.t.c
You don't have to put up with this!

i fell out with a friend recently who was just like yours,totally self-centred.the final straw came when i miscarried.my husband told my family i'd lost the baby(my cousin is her SIL) so i knew she'd find out.she never came to see me,never rang,sent a card,didnt offer to have my kids when i had to go for an e.r.p.c NOTHING.i found out SHE wasn't speaking to ME because i hadn't told her directly i'd had the miscarriage.

i was so hurt,she was supposed to be my best friend but i know i am so much better off without her because she was so selfish anyway.

Oh, don't get me started!

Well to start with, she looked after my horse, She phoned me on boxing day to say that she had put my horse down. Now as the owner it would have been nice if I could make that decision and been there which was bad enough, waiting two days because she didn't want to ruin my christmas was bad enough but she told everyone else including my sister on christmas eve in the pub.

Next example, she was sleeping with two men over here about 6/7 years ago, one worked for the opther and wassacked. He moved to Ireland where she is from and the relationship continued. She lives over here but goes over there regularly to buy horses. I was staying with them for a weekend. My mother wasn't well, I was worried and styed down stairs because I couldn't sleep. Her partner cam downstairs for a cup of tea, and that was it we were having a rampaging affair according to her. She was in the process ofwanting to leave him so I was the excuse. Didn't speak to her for 18 months and when I did she apologised and said that no I hadn't slept with him but no explanation of why she said it. Anyway was down at the beach last Friday morning with DD when I ran into her latest ex aho I have known for years and wanted to know why I hadn't warned him about her and he told me that she is still telling people that I slept with her partner.

This current ex, well, I have spent the last year listening to her bitch on about how she can't stand him, stole money from her abusive (all lies by the way), so we advise well don't go out with him, she agrees and the next minute she is with him again. Now she is still seeing other people whenever she was in this relationship but the poor guy gets abuse if he starts seeing someone when not with her. She is definitely a bunny boiler.

We are not on speaking terms any more as she phone me up and siad I was insulting and thoughtless aboiut the way I apparentl;y treated her in the pub so I said pot keetle black and told her to bugger off and I fell so much better for it.

And that doesn't include leaving my 8 week baby with DH while I drove her up to Cardiff to see sa solicitor, the fact that she lies in court to win court cases or the amount of court cases she has going on right now.

Thank you for listening

It sounds like loads of us have friends who do lots of "taking" and no "giving". I certainly have a friend who rings up purely to ask me to help her, either emotionally, or look after her 2 children. She knows my situation is difficult here, and doesn't seem to realise she has 2 nt children with a very patient husband of hers.

My solution was to back off completely. I never rang her, and when she rang me, I made the conversation short with excuses such as "got to go, appointment/visiting someone etc etc" and when she asked if I was free I knew she was about to ask for childcare help so I made an excuse every single time. She soon found some other friend to become her slave.

We see each other about 3 times per year now, much better!

Message withdrawn

That's not a friend IMO. Unless, (maybe) she's such fantastic fun when she's not taking and demanding, that it's worth it - but not many people are that entertaining.

I am so pleased i have found this thread. I have a friend like this too. She only ever phones to talk about work and doesnt make effort to see me now. She makes plans then always cancels at last minute. Its like she doesnt need to see me cos she knows she can phone me.

I leave the phone on answerphone all the time. And if im not in the mood i just say im busy. Feel like im always making excuses now though and drad the phone, it will be at least twice this week.

Yep I just spotted a friend like that yesterday evening. I remember spending hours on the phone counselling her when she lost her job and got into all sorts of difficulties when I could have been spending time with partner whom I used to see rarely. I used to take her out after work to cheer her up when all I really wanted to do was go home and chill and all I said last night is that I can't seem to find a job now I'm a mum - employers are wary. Her response? Long rant into mothers wanting it all and companies are there to make money and not subsidise women with babies. 'You can't have it all'. Pardon? I need to work as my DP isn't on a high salary.

Feel a purging of numbers from my mobile coming on. Gggrrrr.

If you're mates are dragging you down. Bin 'em!

I used to have a friend like that but I learnt that there are people in our lives that come along that aren't good for us and it's best to break ties. It's not always as easy said as done but can be done!

This thread has made me realise what good friends I do have. With all of us, we know how the other one is just by how they say hello. That is friendship IMO.

Sometimes, one of us has got some sort of big problem going on so the conversation revolves around that but it all evens out in the end. I know that my friend will listen to me moan but I'll still ask how she is. Other times, she will call for a chat and have a bit of a moan but she will always ask how I am. I love my friends!

twoisplenty: I so need to do that with a single mum friend of mine, who decided to become a doctor when her son was tiny and has spent all the time since recruiting others to do unpaid childcare and listen to her moaning. I only know her through my son and would not be her friend otherwise but it's tricky as the children are friends so I can't back out completely. I have felt so angry and used though, as though because you're a SAHM you're on call as unpaid childcare to working mums..

Steinermum - yes the unpaid childcare bit really infuriates when it becomes a regular event. My "friend" once rang to say, "would you have my child on Tuesdays and Thursdays!!! At that, I invented some appointments I had at exactly that time (had to think fast!) then kindly suggested it was time to find a childminder, don't you think?! She didn't ask again for some time. In the end I told her I couldn't do childcare as I was very very stressed, and couldn't cope (a lie but worked very well). she never asked again.

i have a couple friend who dont have kids and are in theur teens like me but cant seem to get it in their thick skulls that going out getting pissed and being set up with her bfs mate isn't really my kind of thing anymore, not that it was really before DS. one i had living with me for a very low rent and just took the piss with food and electrics etc, always asking to use my laptop (always looking at porn) and the kind of person who knows that when they ask for something its not really ina way in which u can say no to. he did loads to piss me off including bringing two complete strangers home with him one night. i constantly bitched to my other friend and now shes gone an let him move in with her even after hearing all my crap and getting pissed with him at using her place like a hotel.
totally off the topic but its nice to vent.

the other day when my son was really ill, thanks to a mum friend bringing her ill baby round and not mentioning it to anyone, making lots of ppl ill i get a text from the two of them:
Mates > Het babes, hows things?
Me>charlie's still ill and very clingy, totally draining, hows u?
mates> ok... yeah i'm good, we going to london, see a show have some fun, what u up to?
Me>looking after my screaming sick baby
Mates> Errrm ok. have fun. text u later when were back from london.

am i wrong to want to them to say something to even acknoledge him? hope he feels better, or u poor thing, something!!!
they just dont get it. we have nothing in comman and she only ever get intouch when she wants soemthing or wants me to screw up like she does all the time.

They don't get it. They won't get it until they have their own. The probably don't understand why you won't dump the baby on the nearest wino - who wants to listen to a baby cry?

I wasn't a teena.ger when .I. had my first, but I was the first to have a baby, and BANG all my friends were gone! Bar one, who says she hates babies but stuck around nevertheless.