Friend losing the plot

[Sandra15]

My oldest friend was widowed suddenly last November and found her husband had been gaslighting her about money - long story but he had gambled away over £100K that she didn't know they had whilst the house went to rack and ruin and he said they had no money to fix it. It's caused a lot of long buried emotions to come out to the extent she's having counselling and will later be seeing a psychotherapist - she has some long, long buried issues about loss, illness and so on. She really is in a pickle. She says that she also feels guilty about not feeling as destroyed at his loss than she should do.

But she's making herself look a bit silly and I haven't the heart to tell her, and while I want to be there for her I am having to step back a bit. She's obsessed with Facebook, with men, sex and sees every single man as eye candy.

She is in my bubble and I went to see her at the weekend, we chatted for a while and she started talking about people she was chatting with on Facebook, who had posted what, and her favourite band. She was also downing Pinot Grigio like grapes were going out of fashion and was getting really angry when Facebook wouldn't load on her phone as she wanted to show me something.

When we turned the TV on to watch a film, she told me she couldn't focus or concentrate and I should watch it by myself and she started messing with her phone again looking up jokes on Facebook. So I said that I wasn't sitting watching a film by myself whilst she was on Facebook. So, she put on MTV with old music tracks on and told me how 'gorgeous' people were and did I agree? She said she liked so-and-so's music but he wasn't that good looking. I mean, I have always been into music for music's sake, not because the lead singer of a band was hot. I don't understand it at all. I once had a picture of Craig David inside my wardrobe door and that's as far as it ever went! I was never a fangirl not really.

I heard all about characters she's friends with and she sees all of this as romantic pursuit. I just can't relate and I think it's crazy. Then she looked up the profile of some guy named Graham who she showed me a photo of, asking me if I thought he had "come to bed eyes" - all I saw was a bloke with his family. This Graham guy is her window cleaner's brother who she suddenly has a fascination for.

Next topic of conversation is how she wants a man, but doesn't want to get married or live with one. She asked me if I thought that was unfair or "using someone". If they both want the same thing, then no. She said it was just being "f* buddies" so I pointed out that if she was in a relationship with someone surely they would do other things than that, ie go to the theatre, out to eat, walks, whatever? She asked me what I thought of on line dating and I gave her my views on it, not that I have ever tried it.

It was like being with a teenage girl with a one track mind. So I am sticking to this. I will talk to her twice a week - weekend and midweek - for half an hour and that's it. It was not the sort of catch-up I want with a friend. Do you think I'm being unreasonable/judgemental? It made me feel really sad and depressed. I don't want to lose her as a friend - we met at the age of 11 - but this kind of carry on is absolutely stupid. She thinks every interaction with a man is sexually charged and it is childish beyond belief. I blame too much celebrity rubbish on the box myself! I would love to help her, but I can't because she does what she wants. Doesn't eat properly, drinks too much and spends all day on Facebook and listening to music. Sorry for the rant. I really hope this counselling helps her because this is just not good.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

@BustyDusty

You clearly don't like her.

You don't approve of her either.

You post a massive long essay about how shit she is.

Do her a favour and get out of her life. Without you clogging up her line she may find some sunshine.

Yip what Dusty said 🌸

Wow - I’m going to disagree entirely with what @BustyDusty and @Sakurami have said.
I think it’s obvious you care for your friend, given everything you’ve done for her. But it’s quite obvious (and understandable - grief affects everyone differently) she’s in a self-destructive phase.
I think it’s perfectly ok for you to have an open and caring chat with her though, about how, for eg, approaching married men (eg her ex) is just not on.

@ElizabethTudor

Wow - I’m going to disagree entirely with what *@BustyDusty* and *@Sakurami* have said. I think it’s obvious you care for your friend, given everything you’ve done for her. But it’s quite obvious (and understandable - grief affects everyone differently) she’s in a self-destructive phase. I think it’s perfectly ok for you to have an open and caring chat with her though, about how, for eg, approaching married men (eg her ex) is just not on.

@ElizabethTudor: The ridiculous, unhelpful, rude and pointless remarks from *@BustyDusty, @WisnaeMe and @Sakurami* are not worth listening to or responding to. Thanks for your comments.

@SeaShoreGalore

How old is she?

38

@Sandra15

😂🤣

Sounds very like the beginning of a manic/hypomanic episode to me. You sound like a very good friend OP, take care of yourself because it can be terrifying to get sucked into someone else's mental breakdown. Set boundaries and hand over to professionals.

She's only 6 months bereaved and you as her "friend" is on MN criticising her? Wow.

If you don't like her way of trying to cope then yes, please do distance yourself. Better than setting yourself up as judge and jury.

Hopefully she has other friends who will be more understanding, and there for both the highs and the lows.

I've had friends who've been bereaved and it wouldn't even occur to me to write such a cutting post. Then again I suppose it may suit drama lovers who haven't experienced losing their lifepartner + had a money shock alongside so, they can give smug advice

38 is not too old to be talking about men and sex. I got the impression that you were a pair of matrons in your 60s the way you describe yourself.

[quote Cogfarm]@Sandra15 also think you’ve had harsh comments, and I think you’ve been very supportive - but it’s starting to get too much. If you want to continue the friendship, offer a level of support that works for you. Daily hour long phone calls sounds too much.[/quote]
Yes, I've sorted that now, thanks.

Someone suggested, alongside calling me names, that I should leave her alone to enjoy her life how she wants. The thing is, she is not enjoying her life in the least. She's in tears on a daily basis and has often said she wishes she wasn't here, drinking to numb the pain and looking for male attention to make her feel she exists. Yep, let's leave her alone!

Anyway, there have been some useful comments that outnumber the worthless and rude ones, and it's quite sad that there are people who think I have come here to 'bitch'. Trust me, I do not have the time or the inclination to 'bitch'. What is the point of that, anyway? I don't understand that.

How is the OP supposed to let this friend go when she is the one wanting her to be a daily crutch to help numb her pain?

It sounds like she is the kind of person who is talking “at” you not having a 2 way conversation.

The OP seems to be her out of office therapist & is trying to help her friend manage her emotions + also need time for her own recharging / self care etc

OP are you in a relationship yourself? Do either of you have children? Just out of curiosity, what is your opinion on online dating?

@CircleofWillis

OP are you in a relationship yourself? Do either of you have children? Just out of curiosity, what is your opinion on online dating?

No I'm not, and no neither of us have kids. I've got a very good circle of friends, male and female, all but one of those male friends are exes.

I would not do online dating for a variety of reasons. I don't like the aspect of putting myself in a shop window. Also I'm not actually looking for a relationship and certainly not in a lockdown. Also after reading experiences on here in the short time I have been here and hearing it from women at my gym, about ghosting and timewasters, married men trying it on, I'd rather not bother. One of my friends (now happily married to a guy she met at the running club) described it as a sweetshop mentality. She was out for dinner with a bloke who was on Tinder whilst at the table with her!!! I also had a bad experience with a man I was speaking to online over the summer for work reasons, that turned into flirtation and I was ghosted. But that's me. Each to their own.

My friend's a different matter. She's unstable, and says she is desperate for a man. Not just for sex, but because she's never been out of a relationship other than six weeks between her ex and meeting her late husband. He was older than her by a good many years, too.

She seems too fragile to cope with the ups and downs of it. She started chatting with a guy a few months ago who sent her a friend request. He was actually her husband's cousin, but they'd never met. This developed into flirtation, and became sexual banter. He was married, and told her he would be 'round there if I wasn't married'. She became very quickly dependent on their chats, talked about him all the time, and started calling him at work to assure him she was not a bunny boiler, as well as telling him she felt suicidal. He blocked her and it had a terrible effect on her. She was in pieces.

Since then there has been a scammer allegedly from Houston in Texas whose pictures looked like the footballer David Ginola, who sent her a message out the blue. Of course he had robbed the pictures. They featured a huge swimming pool, him wearing a Rolex, a red Ferrari and a massive house. When I did a Google image search he had robbed the images from a business website of a frenchman. There's also been her former brother in law, now remarried, flirting on Messenger and talking about scrubbing her back in the bath.

But hey, let's leave her to enjoy it!

@gutful It sounds like she is the kind of person who is talking “at” you not having a 2 way conversation

Indeed it can be. One time, we got cut off whilst talking because I dropped my phone. I tried several times to call her back over almost ten minutes only to get the busy tone. She finally called back, telling me she had been talking for all that time without realising I was no longer on the other end.

And all those married men contacting her - that's on them. Hopefully she'll get some perspective on that soon.

Hi OP,

You sound like a good friend to me, you want to support your friend but not at any cost, you are trying to give her practical advice and not indulge in giving her acceptance for her self destructive behaviour. I think most of the critical and unpleasant comments on here are because you are standing up for yourself and you are very matter of fact and robust in your responses. Why can’t you be that way?
You would be no help to her at all if you just agreed with everything your friend said and made yourself ill by listening to hours of her talking at you whilst she doesn’t take on board any of your advice.
The facts are that your friend is spiralling out of control, she is not seemingly fully engaging with her therapy and telling the therapist certain things but not the whole story. Whilst giving you the full version of her life. On a different thread people would have been saying how awful the friend is for ‘going after’ married men, etc. She really needs help to see that how she is behaving is not acceptable even though she is having mental health difficulties and it is making her life worse not better. She is searching for affection when she is not ready for a relationship and looking at the wrong men anyway. She needs to properly engage in getting the mental health support she needs and until she recognises that she will keep repeating this dangerous pattern.

I think you are doing the right thing in being there for her twice a week, putting in place boundaries, letting her know that some of her behaviour is self destructive and trying to be a practical but kind friend. That’s what she needs not someone to excuse her behaviours and letting her talk ‘at’ you for hours without hearing any constructive advice back. At the moment she is not hearing you or the therapist and hopefully psychotherapy will be a step towards getting the help she really needs.

I think you sound like a concerned friend that’s all! Well done on setting up the boundaries to protect yourself.

If it were me, and I’ve gone off the rails a few times, I would want my closest friends to remind me where the line is in regards to my behaviour. So lots of, ‘oi, enough Facebook, none of this is healthy, stop drinking & find a new passion that is NOT a man, because we love you, come for a walk with me etc’

Nothing that sounds rehearsed, she will react badly to feeling patronised or handled.

I’m baffled by the posts giving you a kicking.

Personally I couldn’t be bothered with any of that, grief or not. She’s experiencing some disturbance while processing her husband’s death and the impact it has had on her life. It’s hardly surprising.
She has become fixated on other men for whatever reason and it has become her sole topic of interest and conversation. Oh dear.

There isn’t anything to do in the capacity of friend than offer support from a reasonable distance...like you say, a couple of phone calls through the week and ringing off when she warms to her theme. Checking in, staying an ally, not listening to nonsense about men and sex.

Being a good friend does not equate to being an available audience. It sounds like she is seeking support through professional channels. Time is key here. It may take a while but this will pass.

Be an ally but not an audience.

There are one or two posters here being thoroughly unpleasant to you about this. I don’t agree with them at all. They make me think of people who post pointed memes about ‘true friends’ on Facebook.

I don’t understand why you’ve had so much criticism here. Your friend seems very vulnerable and it’s natural to worry about her. The combination of too much alcohol and an intense desire for sex/love can lead to very damaging experiences, and she’s already grieving the sudden death of a husband who let her down very badly.

I do think therapy should help her but it takes time. Obviously you can’t ‘fix’ her but I’m sure it helps her to know she can talk to you about the pain and loss and even her (maladaptive) coping mechanisms. But if she’s leaning on you too heavily of course it’s ok to step back. It’s all very sad but she has support in several places so she should get through this in time. But it won’t be soon, and things might get worse before they get better.

In my last job I had a 50 year old colleague whose main topic of conversation was men .
It was an open plan office and all she talked about was who was looking at her because they fancied her. It was like being back at school.
Once another (male) colleague happened to speak to me at the water fountain and she went on and on about how he liked me
She had loads of stories about men chatting her up - literally stopping traffic to talk to her (she was nothing special to look at)
We were both married with DC.
I found it strange and embarrassing and thought (rightly or wrongly) that it must be because she was insecure or needed attention she was getting from her DH.

Your friend must be feeling v lonely and is looking for something, however vacuous, to fill her life??

Gosh you sound like Mary Whitehouse, very judgy. Who doesn't want to talk about men and sex now and again.
Leave her alone, for her own good as you're no friend. The woman has been through a trauma and is grieving, it's not up to you to decide how she should do that and if you can't cut her a bit of slack you need to walk away.

There are one or two posters here being thoroughly unpleasant to you about this. I don’t agree with them at all. They make me think of people who post pointed memes about ‘true friends’ on Facebook.

As I said, they're not worth engaging with and I'm just glad this friend or anyone else I know, doesn't have them as friends in real life. (I bloody well hope they don't anyway!) I'm not even bothering reading their comments or commenting on them. Clocked the juvenile name calling - red flag to ignore. Sad there isn't an ignore function on here - if there is I haven't found it yet!

The point is, this behaviour isn't just a bit of fun, for her with her particular health problems it could be very destructive - she hasn't just come out of a marriage, she's been widowed and taken for a fool by her husband and she's definitely going off the rails.

Anyway, I've now spoken to both her sisters and expressed my concerns without going into this much detail, and they're going to make more of an effort to call and check in with her as well. I think it's the evenings that get to her when she's alone. She doesn't work either, which gives her more time to think and feel sorry for herself. So between us that will give her some contact from someone every day. When she feels stronger and things open up again, we'll hopefully start to get out.

She also has a counselling session today, and I'll give her a call at the weekend to see how she is.

Thanks those of you who've offered constructive and sensible comments/advice. Much appreciated.