How do I (gently) stop my best friend from criticising me all the time?

[Theflyingmole]

I’m new here :) but really need some advice about a long-term friendship please.

My best friend has been there for me through thick and thin these last few years and as I don’t have masses of close friends I really value her. But I’m no longer enjoying spending time with her as she’s constantly criticising me.

The things she criticises me about range from how much money I spend on my kids at Christmas (not that much at all, but she prides herself on being very unmaterialistic) to what I let and don’t let my kids do. She’ll even say things like ‘Oh I couldn’t live in your house because the front room is so dark.’ Not a massive deal, but I guess it all adds up to me feeling like a bit of a failure!

I also find that if I tell her something bad that my mum has done (lots 😬) she just tells me how amazing her mum is. If I tell her something good (like how good our sex life is at the moment 😊) she tells me that’s just because we’ve only been together a few years.

I usually respond to the criticism by justifying myself and explaining why I do something. It never turns into an argument because she just says ‘Oh wow’ to my response or something like that and we leave it as an ‘agree to disagree’ situation. But I feel got at. Every time we spend time together now I leave with an unpleasant feeling.

I want to stop the cycle of criticism-justification-disagreement-more justification and make her see what she’s doing. I genuinely think she doesn’t realise she’s doing it so much.

Has anyone got any ideas of what I could say when she does this to not only stop it dead but make her aware of what she’s doing? I desperately don’t want a confrontation as I don’t want to lose her as a friend.

Thank you

Agree with others who say there is a power imbalance here. She seems to need to be the superior one, doesn't she, and feels the need to always have the last word and be right about everything.

My SIL is like this towards me, and only now I'm well into menopause territory am I beginning to learn how not to take shit from anybody!

Repeat EVERY time: “Ah well, we’re all different, aren’t we?”

There is not much she can say in response to that. If she tries: “well, we are but I just think blah blah.” You just repeat, “yes, but like I say, we are all different. Do you want a Custard cream with your cuppa?” She will get the message eventually that if you say This exact same phrase every time then it is a stock response and she will start to wonder why you do it. She’ll probably start to realise there is a pattern to when you are saying it and maybe will get a light bulb moment herself.

Re. the sex life, to put it in context this is something we’ve always discussed very frankly. She tells me about hers too (which is very good according to her). We’re very open in that regard so it’s pretty normal for us.

I would be VERY careful about being that open. VERY. What are you going to do when you have a blip in your sex Life? It does happen eventually at some point? And you’re upset about it? Are you going to get a response from her like “oh well, we’re swinging from the chandeliers every night still. Maybe you should try changing your hair/clothes/try treating him better. I would never let myself go by X, Y, Z..... etc etc”.

And imagine if she dropped a hint to your DH that she knew about the problem. Or tokd her partner and he made some stupid reply to you or your partner like “oh we all know it’s because you’re not getting any at the moment!”

You need to really pull back on exchanging very intimate details of your sex Life with her. I think it’s something you do when you’re Young but as you get older you realise it’s very much oversharing and unnecessary and very disrespectful towards your DH/DP to be discussing such intimate details of your relationship with someone else.

You don't need friends like this. One comment can be put down to a bad day/not thinking etc but repeated comments like this then no, she's just extremely unpleasant.

As you say you don't want confrontation, then go with the stare/not saying anything. It makes the speaker then fill the void where your reply should have been.

My personal favourite (and I've used it lots) is "Is it hard work being perfect?"

Does your DH know you share information about your sex life? I'd be furious if I discovered my DH was chatting to our mates about the amazing sex we had last night.

Wait what? OP, this woman doesn’t socialise with your DH, does she? And you don’t socialise with hers ever?!

You wanted to know about boundaries? I would never discuss my sex life with someone who would then have to look my DH in the eyes. If I ever do have that conversation, it’s with friends who are only my friends and we never socialise as couples.

No, we never socialise as couples. She doesn’t even know my DP. And we don’t go into that much detail! The sex thing really isn’t a big deal.

I think one of the problems is that we’re both quite open and frank people—that’s why we have always got on tbh. But over the last year or two she’s changed. Now the directness between us feels like it has no boundaries (that word again) and she feels like she can say anything to me and I won’t mind. But I do.

You do not have to justify yourself to anyone, especially someone who is trying to put you down.
Please........ do not discuss your sex life with anyone other than your DP; he would probably horrified to discover you do this.

As pp have said, 'Ouch' or 'Well, we are all different, thank goodness!' are all that is needed, if you try to justify yourself, it will just give her more ammunition.

I get the need to find a way to get along. I have a couple of super competitive friends. Here's a range of stuff I say, gentler and less so..

Mmmm interesting, not sure about that
That's one perspective
Well it's an opinion, isn't it
Oh you do make me laugh (good humouredly)

Love you. Love that you never made charm school (good humouredly)
Ooo steady
Ouch
Jeez Louise!
Are you ok? That's not like you.
Have to go. Just remembered something. See ya.

I wouldn't make a joke if she was outright mean.

Sounds like pushing back with the ouches might reset you both back to normal interactions then.

I love this one.
Agree with her.
It is something my friend was taught to do in an abusive relationship.
Friend says your front room is dark.
You say yes it is a bit, but we are used to it so it is home.
Friends says I couldn't live like that.
You say yes, I love how no two people have the same decor.

Friend you spend too much on Christmas.
You say yes I do , sigh... But I love watching the childrens faces come Xmas morning.

I find people who do this are usually miserable with their own life and project their insecurities onto other people (usually those who they feel "safe" putting down). My sister is like this, constant little digs about how I make more money than her but have less, that I chose my career over my children and she didn't, how her (abusive twat) DP would NEVER do that because he was so wonderfully amazing (if I reached out for support about something that had happened in my relationships), when I moved into a new house she would make snipey comments about the decor, how I live my life etc.

I figured out that she would never be happy for me as she was always competing in some way and used putting me down to bolster her own self esteem. I have now gone NC for a while because I realised I only ever felt worse after being in her company and I don't need someone so toxic in my life. Sometimes it's better to draw a line under a relationship that doesn't serve you because that ick feeling you have is you betraying yourself by not speaking up or cutting her out.

Only surround yourself with people who lift you up and genuinely want to see you happy. It's hard if they have been supportive in the past but don't hold onto a bad friendship because of the sunken cost fallacy.

@Jaffacakesaremyfave Your sister sounds a lot like mine! I barely see her now. But for some reason I don’t want to lose this friendship. Loyalty I guess, and that I genuinely thought we’d be mucking around together forever. I just feel like she doesn’t agree with anything I do and doesn’t even really like me any more.

You need to make sure you're not saying things to make her respond with answers like these. I think anyone who just said' I couldn't live here your living room is to dark' out of no where is a really horrible person and is either jealous or very mean.

@Whiteroverbaby It’s generally unprovoked. For example:

DF (coming into my house): Hi! Ooh, now you see this is why I couldn’t live here. It’s so sunny outside but it’s so dark in here.

Or

Me: I just bought DS such a cute book for his stocking.
DF: Oh, wow, now for us a book would be a main present, not a stocking present.

Hope that gives the general picture.

I had a close friend like this once. In the end she said something particularly nasty on a subject that was quite personal to me and I couldn't bear it any more and terminated the friendship. I've never regretted it.

Agree with others who say she doesn't like you now being in a better place.
She has low self esteem and uses you to make herself feel better.
Some 'friends' love a friend who is having a tough time. They also like to 'help' but not too much in the scheme if the whole friendship. She doesn't want you to be too happy! That would make her feel shit about her life!
Parenting advice/snide comments I'd just reply with " That's not how we choose to do things here".

She’s a frenemy. You can’t keep her I’m afraid. She’s being an arsehole to you, putting you down, undermining you at every opportunity, using you to make herself feel superior, putting you in situation after situation where your feelings are hurt but you don’t feel able to name what’s happening.

It’s toxic, and it has to stop. Avoid her.

All the nice little polite come backs are fine but they won’t stop her.

@spied thanks, that’s quite a good one.

My sister used to constantly criticise. My looks, my actions, my parenting, the way I spoke, the way I drove, the way I did my housework. Literally everything I did. The parenting was the hardest thing to swallow when she hadn't had children herself.

We're now NC, and it's changed my life.

No one who loves or likes you behaves like this.

OP note that people aren’t saying you’re over-sensitive on this thread! And I bet there’s loads more examples you haven’t mentioned. I wonder if you’ve almost been conditioned to accept this behaviour because your sister is like it too?

I had a friend like this. Started off nicely, worked together but got on well and met up socially. When I was ill she was one of the only people who was there for me, asking how I was. I realised she was only a foul-weathered friend - there for me when things were bad but started making weird comments once I was better. I think there was some jealousy (she was a single parent with limited income, I’m married and more comfortable, although life is not without its challenges!), the comments got worse and worse, phone calls went round in circles with her complaining about a situation from years before that would never change. DH told me I move on, I didn’t want to because she’d been a good friend when I needed one. Then she sent a really nasty message, deliberately stirring. I couldn’t think of a polite way to reply so I didn’t. She cut contact with me!

Think about this: friends are there to listen, to support, to build you up. After you’ve spent time with this friend, do you feel better...or worse?!

I had a "friend" like this and after meeting would always be feeling drained. She would sneer at everything and put something negative on everything. Basically when I made it clear I wasn't going to tolerate it (used lots of the techniques here) she ghosted me. This was after nearly 20 years of friendship and me being her maid of honour. She wasn't a friend at all. Just liked someone to sneer at to make her feel better about her miserable life.

She is a kind person, so I know that as soon as she realises she’s doing it she will stop

You're a fool - she is no friend.
She might have been once but something's changed.

She knows you don't have a large social support network - or enough self esteem - so she's confident that you'll just keep taking her shit - which you are.
She's even got you gaslighting yourself!

Seriously - get rid.
You'll be so much better off NOT having an emotional vampire around.

She KNOWS what she's doing/saying.....she just doesn't care about your feelings.

Why don't you mirror her behaviour back to her?
Ex, immediately make a criticism about HER and her DC when she does it you?
I think that's when you'll see her true nature come out.

You call her your 'best friend' and have put her so high up on the pedestal that you can't see straight........she doesn't even know/met your DP for fucks sake, what kind of friend ignores such a big part of your life? (A shit one)

I had to lose a friend exactly like yours, OP. I didn't want to lose her as we were close and had been good friends a long time.

But, it got worse and worse and I finally talked to her gently about how she made me feel. Well it was a shitstorm after that and we've not spoken since. I miss her sometimes but I miss the criticism less! I am a pretty together sort of person but she made me constantly doubt myself. Don't let anyone make you feel like that!

It's so difficult isn't it? I think you know what you need to do though, regardless of the length of your friendship and the circumstances. You said yourself that you feel rubbish after you see her, and she is constantly putting you down. As difficult as it may be, those little snipes at you are unkind, she is your friend, and we really need to strive to get on with each other, not constantly compare ourselves. As hard as it is I would walk away, I'm trying to do the same from a similar situation if it helps and I feel awful about it but I don't feel like she sees me as a human being with feelings at all anymore.

I think I could be quite like your friend when I was younger. This is what family dynamics were like in my house and you were just expected to deal with it. If she is genuinely a good person you do need to let her see that you are not ok with it so she can learn where the boundary is. For me, seeing that I was upsetting people I cared about taught me new social norms and I’m a lot more careful now. (I also notice the messed up things my family do/say more too!) If she is someone who genuinely has been there for you, hopefully her heart is on the right place even if her mouth doesn’t always express it!