Dealing with a friend who is draining but not horrible ?

[chattycaterpillar]

How do you deal with a friend who is draining but not deliberately spiteful.

I am 29, have a friend who's 28. We met through work a few years ago, although no longer work together, ( we both now work in different jobs). She has a BPD diagnosis, but obviously well enough to work full time etc.

I am pregnant, ( first pregnancy), and feeling stressed with the nausea/ tiredness of early pregnancy, ( currently 10 weeks). I moved to a town two hours away for work a couple of years ago, so this friend likes to come and stay frequently, ( she says if she could she'd stay every weekend !) She still lives with her family, and finds them difficult to get on with, so that's why she likes to visit. However, I'm finding her visits really draining/ tiring, ( perhaps because of the length...)

1. She has recently "found," / come back to religion, ( her family are religious). This seems to have brought her some peace, so I initially thought this was a good thing. But this has, ( perhaps due to her metal health problems), manifested itself mainly in her talking with glee about how people she has fallen out with, ( former friends, colleagues, sisters-in-law, cousins etc), will be "punished badly in the grave/ afterlife," ( normally for the crime of being rude to / arguing with her)). This constant talk of people who are not horrendous being burnt/ punished in the grave is making me very uncomfortable.
2. She is obsessed, and I mean obsessed, with Facebook/ Instagram/ TikTok. Every time we go out, I have to spend almost the majority of the outing taking multiple shots/ videos of her at different angles. Normally I don't mind, but I've been feeling really nauseous recently due to the pregnancy and this seems to make the nausea worse...
3. She follows/ reads a lot of mental health self-help bloggers/posts/ videos/ TED talks etc. All the time, ( as in every single visit), she wants to show me these and use them to discuss in hour long detail how this proves whatever neighbour/ friend/ colleague/ family member has "triggered her," or disrespected her boundaries etc.
4. She's also a very fussy eater, so I have to spend a fortune on getting in food she'll actually eat, ( e.g. she won't eat our standard cereals, so I have to go and get the one cereal she'll actually eat). 5)Also, she's always falling out with people in her new job, and normally wants help dictating very long WhatsApp messages to her current colleagues r.e. how they've triggered/ upset her.

As she doesn't drive, she realistically has to stay at least one night when she stays here. I don't want to end the friendship, as in small doses we get on, but I am finding the two/ three day weekend stays hard to manage. Any advice ? My partner is also finding her visits quite draining.

She sounds absolutely awful OP ! You sound ground down by her and bullied. What do you enjoy about her company, anything ? There are many people I know who have not done anything truly dreadful to me but whom I would not want as friends.
You are pregnant and will soon have a baby. I predict that once your baby is here she will find you less desirable company anyway, as she won’t be able to cope with your shifted attention. That plus you won’t have as much tolerance as you will be tired and focused on your baby.
I think you would feel better if you gradually edge away from her. No more overnight visits, “too tired” then “baby very unsettled and crying loudly all night” etc.

So I've spoken to dp and we've agreed the following:

• No more overnight visits for the foreseeable future, as I am actually ridiculously tired atm anyway.

-She can come for the day, ( day trip only !) once a month/ once every six weeks or so if she wants, ( or alternatively, I can meet her halfway for lunch/ shopping/ cinema etc).

• In future, if I'm less tired she can stay one night only, ( e.g. Saturday night, as opposed to Thursday through Sunday).

-If she stays the night, we must tell her in advance we have an event/ plans for Sunday afternoon, so advise her she must book the 2.00pm train back latest, ( to save the usual her booking the 9.00/9.30 pm train home for Sunday evening).

• Buy the multipack kids cereal, ( the ones with eight in a pack), and shove them in the cupboard so she can have one each time she stays as they are cereals she actually likes.
• Tell her next time she says anything about punishment/ hell for people that have been rude to her it's upsetting to hear and so ask her to change the subject.

Hopefully this should make things more manageable !

He's also asked that even for day visits, ( which like I said, we want to limit to once every four/ six weeks), I tell him with enough notice for him to make plans.

It’s great you’re setting boundaries. But if this many are needed to be enforced then it suggests it’s not a rewarding friendship for you and perhaps not even for her. I suspect she might push back on these, which may be the indication you need that she doesn’t have your same well-being in mind. Or ultimately the blow up that she may have had with others based on what you e said about her comments about others.

Either way, it’s a step forward and I wish you success

Thanks, I think I do seriously need to look at the people pleasing nature of myself as well x

I hear you, it’s a lot easier said than done. I wish there was an injection for it (I’d take all the boosters too ), imagine what it would feel like to suddenly just say and do what you actually think?!

@chattycaterpillar

Thanks, I think I do seriously need to look at the people pleasing nature of myself as well x

You don't need to 'take a look at it', you just need to stop.

So many people give out this 'I'm such a people pleaser', because they think it makes them sound nice and better than 'I'm a doormat with no boundaries'.

Stop. Literally, just stop. That's it. That's all you have to do.

Your poor poor partner. Why on earth do they have to come second to this utterly awful non friend ?

You're not a people pleaser. You're selfish and you have your boundaries worked out very badly

I’d cut her loose. She’s not a friend she’s a draining freeloading mood hoover.

Explain you can’t afford to keep buying the things she wants to eat so can she bring them or X amount to cover the hassle of getting them in. Does she never offer you money for the cost of staying so often and eating your food?
Your poor partner must feel like a third wheel in your relationship if she’s there so often.

You are her walking talking therapy/enabler and holiday home in one go.

Set some boundaries. Set some distance. And if she kicks off is she really your friend?

You don't need to 'take a look at it', you just need to stop.

So many people give out this 'I'm such a people pleaser', because they think it makes them sound nice and better than 'I'm a doormat with no boundaries'.

Stop. Literally, just stop. That's it. That's all you have to do.

It should be that easy, but it isn’t. It’s like saying, stop overeating, stop feeling depressed, stop being anxious.

Ultimately there’s a reason we’re people pleasers, and for women that’s also layered over and through a lifetime of social conditioning that creates a fertile breeding ground for it. I agree that it’s detrimental to the people pleaser themselves, those close to them and enables the ‘pleasee’ too. Ultimately the behaviour provides a ‘reward’ and figuring out what that is is quite powerful I think.

Ultimately the behaviour provides a ‘reward’ and figuring out what that is is quite powerful I think.

Ultimately, the behaviour in this instance gives the OP a get-out-of-jail-free card for not having to deal with any unpleasant feelings, while her poor partner is forced out of their own home.

I think that's pretty fucking selfish.

No more overnight visits, meet her halfway for lunch or something every couple of months. You will not have time for any of this shit once baby arrives. You are missing out on valuable couple time at the moment that you won't get back for a loooong time!

@Gooseysgirl

No more overnight visits, meet her halfway for lunch or something every couple of months. You will not have time for any of this shit once baby arrives. You are missing out on valuable couple time at the moment that you won't get back for a loooong time!

Yeah i think halfway for lunch is probably the best way forward.

I doubt I'm the first person to say this - If you think you're tired now, just wait until you have a 6 week old infant to care for.

I recognise you have talked the situation through with your partner, but it's still too lenient - you're giving too many 'in's' for this friend.

No more overnight visits for the foreseeable future - No more overnight visits Full Stop*

-She can come for the day, ( day trip only !) once a month/ once every six weeks or so if she wants, ( or alternatively, I can meet her halfway for lunch/ shopping/ cinema etc). You can meet her half way but can't discuss dates now because you're so tired

• In future, if I'm less tired she can stay one night only, ( e.g. Saturday night, as opposed to Thursday through Sunday). NO NO NO You may not be able to imagine the change in your life you will undergo in 30 short weeks - please trust me when I strongly advise you - don't saddle yourself with a vampire of a friend who will not respect the fact you are now a parent.

-If she stays the night, we must tell her in advance we have an event/ plans for Sunday afternoon, so advise her she must book the 2.00pm train back latest, ( to save the usual her booking the 9.00/9.30 pm train home for Sunday evening). See above

I acquired a similar friend from work - very intense, wanting my exclusive attention morning, noon and night. We fell out when I said I had to hang up on the phone at about 11pm at night with my newborn screaming with colic.

Boundaries with people like this have to be absolutely rock solid - they can smell a gap in defences at 50 paces!

OP, realistically when you have your baby you won't have time for this sort of very involved friendship and you will naturally need to take a step back. Based on experience anyway. I also had a very draining friend. We are still good friends but it's now not draining as my boundaries changed.

You realise you are enabling her, don't you? You should seriously reconsider your priorities, your poor DH.

If this was reversed and a man was bringing his awful friend to stay continuously, driving the OP out of her home, she would be told to by me that he was a selfish arse that she should give an ultimatum to or pack her bags.

I would be saying to rethink having a baby with someone so selfish.

The OP's "people pleasing" claim, hasn't extended to her partner up to now.

She has very easily not given him any consideration at all.

You say in your title OP that she is not horrible. Curious what your definition of horrible is as she sounds vile! Work on your boundaries and seriously consider getting her out of your life.

@billy1966

If this was reversed and a man was bringing his awful friend to stay continuously, driving the OP out of her home, she would be told to by me that he was a selfish arse that she should give an ultimatum to or pack her bags.

I would be saying to rethink having a baby with someone so selfish.

The OP's "people pleasing" claim, hasn't extended to her partner up to now.

She has very easily not given him any consideration at all.

Being a people pleaser doesn't mean you sit down with a pen and clipboard and try to work out exactly what everybody wants and how to achieve it all. It means you're frightened of upsetting people, and so you end up prioritising the people who are likely to explode at you and neglecting the ones who are more patient.

This isn't a recipe for a happy life. OP is clearly miserable with the situation and isn't getting anything out of it, and I don't think berating her as selfish will help her to change it. People who think like this are generally talented enough at self-recrimination without outside help.

@EssexLioness

You say in your title OP that she is not horrible. Curious what your definition of horrible is as she sounds vile! Work on your boundaries and seriously consider getting her out of your life.

What I meant by horrible was she's not done anything deliberately spiteful like insult me, spread rumours about me, put me down, flirt/ come on to my partner, shout abuse etc.

I'm also mindful she does have a diagnosis, ( BPD), and that may explain some of the behaviour

OP, what do you actually get out of this friendship? I can't tell. To me, it seems to have run its course. It's exhausting just reading about the new plans to keep the friendship on track. Friends come and go in life. You are moving in new directions, I can't see how this friendship is compatible anymore. I have had friends like this, in the end, I let the friendships fizzle out because they are energy sucking and negative. I would use the pregnancy as a perfect opportunity to limit all contact to maybe once every few months. When the baby comes, you will have absolutely no time to deal with this behaviour or the energy. She may even not like the idea of you putting baby before her. I'd start planning my escape if I were you. Oh, and your partner sounds like a true saint! (Not quite ready to be punished in the grave from the sounds of it!)

I have BPD.... absolutely none of these are borderline traits!
In fact they are incredibly far from them.

@AffIt

Ultimately the behaviour provides a ‘reward’ and figuring out what that is is quite powerful I think.

Ultimately, the behaviour in this instance gives the OP a get-out-of-jail-free card for not having to deal with any unpleasant feelings, while her poor partner is forced out of their own home.

I think that's pretty fucking selfish.

Yes, people pleasing is one end of a spectrum, evidently the other end can be an issue too.

You know you can just stop being friends with her? She might not have ‘done’ anything awful like slept with your husband, but she sounds awful. Why on earth are you spending time with her? Honestly she sounds terrible.

Well, I do agree, @LovedayCL and @ugifletzet, but I think the issue with so many of the people-pleasers I see on here is that they do at some level think it makes them ‘the better person’. They think it’s a ‘nice’ flaw to have, like those chick lit novels where the ravishing heroine despairs of her nose, which is too adorably tip-tilted for classical beauty. If I had a pound for every thread where a poster complaining about a friendship wailed ‘And I did everything for her!’, as though that was the clincher, I’d be rich.

So I don’t think it does people-pleasers any harm at all to hear that it’s not a cute, benign flaw, like being too generous — it’s being so terrified of being disliked that you act like a personal servant to people you neither fundamentally like nor respect, to the detriment of your own life and the life of those you love but de-prioritise because you’re not afraid of their dislike — and yes, you could really ask yourself why that is.

Why, for instance the OP prefers that a man she presumably loves, and whose child she is carrying, should be driven out of his own home for days at a time by someone whose company he dislikes than that her ghastly ex-colleague should have to buy her own special cereals. Whose absence from her life would matter most?

OP, what is the ‘reward’ for your people-pleasing? Is it that pleasurable being the only person she knows not going to hell, according to your awful ‘friend’?