One sided friendship - how to deal with it? Armchair psychologists welcome! (Long but has paragraphs!)

[MangoHat]

I have a friend who many years ago stepped up for me during a horrendous time in my life. She went above and beyond to support me, called every day, acted as a gatekeeper (mostly brilliantly, sometimes badly - but always well intentioned). She was my rock and I know I leant very heavily on her. I owe her so much and can never repay her kindness in full.

Time moved on and life is good again. I haven’t needed her support for many years. But I feel like this friend has cast me in the role of person to be helped / pitied and now our friendship is totally unequal.

She’s had her own share of bad times in the last few years but won’t confide in me, won’t open up, won’t allow me to support her. If I ask her about her problems - or ask her about other good stuff, it’s not a relentless focus on the negative - she gives a quick glib answer and then demands updates from me about my life, family situation etc. It’s like she’s in the role of looker-after and I have to supply the fodder for this role. She does her duty checking in with me and that’s that helping box ticked for her.

I would love to support her and try in a small way to be her rock like she was mine. I get that she has other closer friends who probably fill this role so just a casual friendship where we catch up on news now and again would be fine.

I also feel rubbish about this as all the contact is on her terms. If I suggest meeting up or text for a chat, I get offered crumbs, quick replies, inability to meet etc. I lived near her for a while and we met up twice; I have moved further away and she won’t visit me at all.

Reading all this it seems obvious to me that the friendship is not what it was and that she’s not interested. I’d like to just walk away from it. But a) when she does contact me she’s all agog to hear my news and it feels like we are still friends and b) I don’t feel I can walk away given how much she did for me. It would be a horrendous way to treat someone who did what she did for me.

Any thoughts?

Do you like her? Do you want to better understand her and get closer to her?

If the answer is yes, then have a look at Brenee Brown's Ted talk on vulnerability.

By the way. I don't think you have a problem with vulnerability. My hunch is that your freind does. She feels more comfortable taking on your concerns than allowing people to acknowledge hers. Lots of people are like this. It's learned at an early age and is hard to shake off in adulthood without some conscious work.

I think I can probably be a bit like this, having been brought up never to complain or express vulnerability.

Have you ever said anything to her about it? Maybe even just "I really appreciate you caring about me but I'm interested in your life too!'

I think you just have to accept that she doesn't need the type of support she gave to you. Just because she supported you, it doesn't mean you have to be the one 'rock' to support her. We all have friends and relationships with different dynamics.

I have a wonderful best friend I've known since we were kids, but I can't confide in her on certain subjects as she often doesn't understand or have experience. I have other friends I can connect to over certain issues, so I go to them instead. It doesn't mean I don't value the friendship with my best friend.

Also, it could be that your friendship with this friend is just fizzling out? It does happen. If it is all one sided to you and you do feel like you want to walk away, then walk away....if she truly wants to keep in contact, then she will.

@Hotcuppatea that sounds interesting and plausible.

She is a lovely person, kind, funny, great company. She has loads of friends and I think I’m a long way down the order if she had to rank who she’s closest to. She has lots of local / school mum friends - they seem to spend a lot of time in each other’s lives - shared lifts for kids, weekend activities etc. I’m not part of any of that (I love somewhere else) and I think I might be an obligation from the past to her.

She might also just have too many friends...

I would suggest, although I know it may be hard, having an honest conversation with her about the state of your friendship and how you feel you have developed these predefined roles which no longer fit.

I'm kind of on the other side of this. I have a friend who has bounced from one crisis to another over the years, and I've become the person who is always the shoulder to cry on. I feel a bit trapped in this role, and would love to try and move things to a more casual friendship but every time I contact her we seem to fall back into old patterns. I really need to be brave and say to her that the friendship needs to evolve because i suspect that she feels the same.

Try saying how you feel about it, and see what she says.

I mean, you've explained it quite well here, so try saying a version of it to her.

I don't like the sound of this: she’s all agog to hear my news

She's cast you in a role of someone needing help, even th ip, where you might help her. She wants you to be needy and for herself to be needed.

Honestly, it sounds really unhealthy. You aren't allowed to flourish - she doesn't want you to flourish. You aren't allowed to help her - that would make you her equal, in her eyes. In a way she's feeding off your problems and I would stop confiding in her.

Thanks all for the suggestions. She is in the middle of a crisis right now and me asking to chat about our friendship isn’t going to work at the moment but if we get back to an even keel I would hope to able to do that. I would love to meet up for an evening and have a proper conversation. We never manage this as she rings me from the car on the way to collect her dc or calls in between work meetings. I don’t know how to reconcile her continuing interest in me (we are friends right) with being fobbed off and kept in the dark / relegated to minor-tier friend.

To answer an earlier question I have tried on phone calls to say stuff like “we’re not talking about me, I want to know how things are with you” and she will tell me a thing quickly and then insist on asking about me. I did once say no let’s keep talking about your thing and it almost got into one of those back and forth “I’m paying, no I’m paying, put your purse away” type arguments and I gave in. It seemed to be give in or hang up as the options!

I would suggest that whenever she calls say you can't talk right now due to xyz, but you really want to see her so when is she free. If she evades answering just be breezy and say something like oh that's a shame we will have to catchup some other time. Anyway need to run off now as busy but get back to me about the meet up.

Do it a few times, and either she will step up or step completely down, and at least you won't have to wonder about the friendship.

In my opinion, you may be just a source of gossip/drama to make herself feel better (cause she thinks she is superior) or maybe to tell her mum friends about you? Calling u like that on between doing other things, sounds like she might think of you another chore to be done, an obligation to be carried out.
If she keeps fobbing you off, u can always throw a bait, of how you want to talk to her about something important but u can't over the phone. See how she reacts then.

Sounds like it’s not an equal friendship and that her personal boundaries are off kilter.

The clumsy gate-keeper actions are a big red flag that this could be about her visibility / social positioning - not your actual needs.

You may have met a dysfunctional, “ambulance chasing”, emotional urge she has to project manage a crisis and get stuck in to the drama as “lead coordinator”.

She might need external validation from other peoples drama to feel good about herself. She probably dined out on her hero role in your life for months. She has now likely moved on to triaging others now that you have been dispatched.

No surprise that her own personal life has gone off a cliff whilst she is interfering in others lives. She is probably a co-dependent, compulsive care giver. You don’t interest her now because there is no drama or nothing she can control or fix.

That dynamic keeps her as top dog and you as underdog. That’s a much more comfortable friendship imbalance for her.

She won’t share with you because that would shatter the illusion she thinks she has created that she is your hero / saviour.

Seriously I would just fade this one. Friends are for a reason, a season or for life. Think she was the seasonal variety. Let it drift and use you energy instead to invest in other friends where lightness and fun are the priority.

That’s interesting Gutterton, and some of what you say chimes. Lots doesn’t. I don’t think she will have dined out on my misfortune or seen herself as top dog. I do think she has a desire to take on the caring / managing role for others whilst dismissing her own issues as trivial. She is a people pleaser and I suspect puts herself bottom of the pile whilst running herself ragged for other people and taking on extra projects.

You meet a need for her, she’s a ‘heroic rescuer’ by the sound of it. She gets gratification from feeling needed. It sometimes works in the other direction, someone who helps you through a bad time becomes associated with that bad time so the friendship gets tainted.

It sounds like some space might do you good, if you re-connect in the future then so be it. Second-guessing others motives is seldom fruitful.

How far away did you move OP, and have you any children?

I second the recommendation for Brene Brown's vulnerability ted talk.

There's not a lot you can do to control how she behaves. Its a shame but unless she's open to having a full and frank conversation about how she interacts with you, nothing's going to change. I think if I was you I'd send her a message saying " I'd love to be there for you while you're having a tough time, like you were there for me when i needed you years ago. Friendships are reciprocal, so if there's anything I can do please let me know" then just leave it until you can have the conversation you need to have.

That’s a good message Luzina thank you.

We both have dc, very similar ages. It’s not an issue of one of us being child free and the other wrangling children. We don’t live near enough to just pop over, it would need organising. But it’s hardly impossible (in a covid free world).

I dread people like this with a Dread.

She sounds codependent. I've had a rough old life, and I'm not afraid to talk about it, within reason. People like this hone in, to Rescue. Ugh.

A friend was wonderful wonderful when I had cancer. Above and beyond etc. SO kind, makes me cry thinking how kind she was. Where is she now I don't have cancer? Dust.

Like you, I want to know about her, her life, what's happening. But I'm kept at arm's length. Even - get this - I sometimes feel she feels tired of my neediness!?!

As I said, I DREAD people like this. They have a narrative running in their heads and there's nothing at all you can do to puncture it. It's probably too harsh to say they use us as a device to feed their need. Then make us the needy ones, somehow.