AIBU to be really worried about my best friend?

[Janos]

Genuinely don't know if I am or not and wanting a sense of perspective here and maybe a wee bit of guidance.

For some background, we've been close friends for 20 years but our circumstances are now very different. I'm a single mum, working full time. She's single, no children, with a very demanding job.

She is a lovely person, warm, kind and thoughtful. She has supported me through some tough times and vice versa. I'd say she is my best friend.

Over the past couple of years I've noticed a pattern emerging which is increasingly worrying me (I mean as in worried for her)and becoming quite hard for me to deal. Basically she has a very bad time with relationships. She will get together with someone, be madly happy, fall in love straight away then a few months down the line it all goes wrong and this is the point where she gets very distressed, saying stuff like she wants to die etc and she always comes to me for support. Then a couple of weeks or even a few days later despite the break up hitting her so hard she will meet someone else and then it all begins again.

When she is up and happy I don't hear from here so much and while I am really pleased she is feeling happy - genuinely! I've started getting a 'sick' feeling because I know the pattern is going to repeat itself again soon and well..I sound like a cow, maybe, I don't know, but it's incredibly draining and I'm getting a bit tired of it because I put so much emotionall.

I'm wondering whether I should say anything to her - especially because she's in an up phase at the moment and I don't want bring her down? Is there any point? Am I being a horrible friend? What should I do and how can I help?

Well thanks to anyone that read through that,any advice welcome!

Do the relationships lasts for a reasonable time?

say something, and say it now when she is up. say it based on evidence - give examples - but don't be judgemental. It may be that she is perfeclty happy like this, and how she lives her life is her business - it's not like she has children to damage

Sorry about the appalling typos. Seems to be a bad habit. Last sentence in third last para should read '...because I put so much emotional and physical energy into supporting her'.

It is her business how she runs her life but she has no excuse for constantly putting you hrough the lows of her relationships in this way. I'm not surprised you feel drained. You do need to tell her your concerns but also how she makes you feel when she constantly tells you she wants to die etc.

Relationships usually last about 6-9 months. Things start to go wrong and she won't break up with them because she is so scared of being on her own (her words).

She is not happy like this missingtheaction otherwise I wouldn't be so concerned. She has said she would really like to have a properl long term relationship but has never had one.

It is her business definitely! I honestly wouldn't be worried if things were making her happy but I know they aren't

I would really like for my lovely friend to just be happy.

Sounds like she needs to seek some counselling to address her low self esteem and related issues - I think you need to find the right time and way to suggest it to her. She may reject it completely but then if she does follow this pattern again you have some 'evidence' to demonstrate to her that she is in a cycle of behaviour and needs to change things herself, not wait for the perfect man to fix it.

Thanks kat. She is already seeing a counsellor and I think is aware on some level that it's not 'healthy' to have relationships like this. But then she says she just can't bear being on her own, its almost like anything is better than nothing.