She is 35, I am 35. We went to school together. She is virgin. I am married with 3DC. She has a job which she hates and she lives in a shared house and spends a lot of money on psychics and personal development courses in the hope that she will have some kind of transformation and become a different person.
She has dated people in the past but only for a matter of days and they have broken up with her for reasons that are not clear. She becomes very angry about this and years down the line still fantasies about revenge on them of some kind (again not clear)
She is on social media constantly and she monitors everybody's whereabouts, through the location app or through any pictures anyone puts. If I go away on holiday, she asks what time my flight is and then before I've even landed or done anything, I have texts from her "how's France?" "How's the restaurant?" Which I know are not really about "France" or "the restaurant" but are about having some sense of control of where I am. A lot of her communication is like this - framed as overly polite and considerate but actually used as a way of controlling my whereabouts and my actions.
Sometimes I wake up to long streams of texts she has sent in the night angry with the world. Apologising for venting but still continuing. "She hates this, she hates that, she feels betrayed. I am her only loyal friend." She is constantly doing personality tests online and labelling people as types. Exes as sociopaths and colleagues as narcissists (which could very well be true but even if it was, shouldn't be dwelled upon for multiple years.)
She has had a difficult life. I have spent several hours in her company with her family and they shout (actually physically shout) abuse at her from the moment they see her until she leaves : you look awful, you're pathetic, you stand no chance of doing anything good. Literally word for word. Yet she doesn't (or can't) separate from them and still looks after them : financially, physically. And you can imagine if she has had 35 years of that then of course life is going to be difficult for her.
But I just can't take the weight of her anymore. We have a "night out" every month or so. Although I know that if I allowed it, she would be at my house every day. On that night out if we can actually get to any kind of mutual conversation it is really fun, i also enjoy hearing her news and about the dates she goes on if she can keep it light, but she sometimes looks at her phone at midnight and gets upset and says it's "so unfair" that we only have this short time together (we have usually been talking for 4 hours at this point.) 4 hours constant conversation once a month is enough for me when I have 3 DC under 3 at home and one who wakes in the night.
She finds it very hard to understand my life. I am pulled in so many directions. I am a full time mother with part time childcare who also works. She has never had a relationship. She took my marriage very hard, even though she gets on with DH perfectly well, I just don't think she could cope with the idea of me "choosing" someone exclusively who wasn't her. And she is not a lesbian or asexual (I have asked her.) I always invite her round with the DC but she finds screaming difficult and poo "disgusting" (she doesn't even like to hear the word) which basically rules out most of the things the DC do.
She has other OCD behaviours. What is quite clearly an eating disorder, obsessive hand washing, nervous ticks, teeth grinding, even during the day.
I suggested she go to therapy and she has been going now for two years. It has improved things in many ways. It has given her more self compassion. I no longer feel the unspoken resentment of me if I choose to see someone else in my free time who is not her.
So therapy has improved things but I just don't know what advice to give her to move on with her life. She always asks for advice but I have just run dry. She needs to distance herself from her family and the messages they give her about herself. Her therapist has also helped her see that. She wants to get married but I don't even know where to start with that. She says she goes on a few dates and men are just not interested. I asked her if she spoke in the way she speaks to me about other people and she says she doesn't. I would think, even if she did speak like that, if she made it clear she was up for sex or a casual arrangement, they would go for it.
She is attractive - quite beautiful actually. She seems to have no clue of that kind of intimacy you have with other people when you have close relationships. the lying in bed talking to your spouse, cosying up on the sofa watching a film, holding hands with someone else. I think the closest she has to it is me (as someone who she tells everything to.)
I don't want to pull the plug on the one main human connection she has got as that would be awful, but i need some other things to suggest to her.
What would you suggest?