Aaargh! I need some help with a delicate situation that I keep going over and over in my head and can't make a decision on. I am self-employed and had been working on my own for ten years but a couple of years ago I decided to offer a job to a friend. Her husband's business had gone bust and she had attempted suicide and had been diagnosed with a mental illness. She was just out of hospital and needed something to focus on and needed money! So I gave her a part-time job. With hindsight not my best idea.
So she was supposed to complete some training within three months which would have meant she could take on more responsibility and be of more use to me but she found the training too stressful, so we agreed she would drop it and just do the work she'd initially started on. I supported her through some bad patches with her illness, including a prescription drug addiction that affected her work, made her miss lots of days or just do half-days but I still paid her and was there whenever she needed me.
But her not doing the training meant employing her wasn't really working out for me financially but as she was a friend and as I knew how much she needed the job emotionally and financially I stuck with it. She got better and her work is fine.
Then last year we fell out. I have tried to patch things up since but she never makes an effort, partly to do with her illness maybe, but she is very selfish and never thinks of me or my feelings and expects me to do all the running about. Things came to a head a couple of nights ago and we had a row after she cancelled plans (we hadn't seen each other for four months) and I told her I felt she wasn't making any effort in the friendship. She told me she is terrified of me - I have no idea where that has come from - doesn't want to be friends but wants to keep her job.
The thing is my turnover rather than increasing since employing her has dropped by a third and I had been advised to make her redundant. I wasn't going to do it because, like I said, I know what this job means to her. On top of that her medication is currently not working great and she's had a minor relapse. But I just don't want the stress of working with her either, besides the fact I can't really afford to employ her as things stand. What do I do? I know what she would do if the boot was on the other foot.