Over familiar colleague

[Autieangel]

I've worked for my current company for 4 years. Our office is a team of 3 we work shifts with 2 staff together at any given time. I get on fine with both colleagues, not friends but we work together well.

Recently 1 colleague has confided some family difficulties, I've listened and advised and tried to be supportive. However this has led to her messaging me at home for advise/to offload. I've tried to keep it brief, not respond instantly.

Last week she was annoyed at a decision I made at work, Although I didn't have to i explained my reasoning and we left it. The fact that she questioned my decision annoyed me slightly as it's not her place to do so and it didn't affect her job.

After work I got a message from her thanking me for being so understanding and such a good friend. I sent something generic saying it was kind of her to say so. I received another long message saying how she wishes she was more like me.

I don't want this, I am happy being colleagues, I don't want the friendship or the drama .

How can I dial this back please?

Mute her when you're not at work.
Don't engage on non-work topics

Do you have a HR team? I would signpost her to resources that can help her with whatever she confided in to you. Then like PP has said, I'd also mute when not at work, and only discuss work-related topics. If it continues and she doesn't get the hint, then I'm afraid you'll have to have a meeting at work (with HR or similar present) where you explain that your feelings about the situation and set up some boundaries. There's absolutely a way you can do this nicely. It just sounds like she really needs a friend atm, and she's chosen you because you were helpful. She might not even realise she's overstepping.

@Whataretheodds @deliwoman1

Thank you for the replies. It's tricky because I work with her 50% of my hours and it's just the two of us. I agree re not responding at home I think it's the only way and trying to limit personal chat. I work in local authority, so we have a hr team for the whole council but I'm not sure how involved they would get for our small team.

I'd stop replying to messages outside of work

I meant personal messages on your phone/teams/whatever.

You can make polite conversation at work!

Op, I feel your pain. For the past two years I had a colleague whose behaviour was similar to your description of your colleague.
I implored by boss to move her into a different team and thankfully, after 2 long years she did and for the first time in two years I am thriving at work. My relationship with her since she works in a different team is much better. She requested me as a friend on FB and I have ignored it. If she asks me about it I will just say something evasive about how I don’t use fb much or I never add work colleagues to social media.

People told me all along to have boundaries but some people are such trauma dumping control freaks that you’d have to literally take leave of all your professional integrity to get them to comprehend appropriate boundaries and I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do this.

My boss knew that I didn’t have it in me to do another year of her questioning my choices and trauma dumping on me every five minutes. Perhaps speak to your boss about it.

Put your phone on silent after work hours, or set up a different alert if she calls/texts- if possible. Don't acknowledge her messages and don't engage. I'd suggest stepping away slowly. Replying out of work hours fuels the fire.