No longer friends...

[aussiegirl77]

I have been best friends with a family friend that I have known my entire life who has always been very high maintenance. She would subtly put me down in front of certain people and at times would be very moody with me and ignore me leaving me wondering what I did wrong. I always would forgive her (not that she ever apologized for it) because I didn't want to cause problems between our families and she's the type of person who is better as a friend than an enemy...plus I generally try and "keep the peace" with everyone.

 

Three years ago, she moved overseas to live and would come back every year or so to visit family/friends. The last time she was back, I did not see very much of her as I had holidays from work so spent a lot of time at the beach. She was very annoyed at me for this and the times I did go out with her and other friends, she would blatantly ignore me. I decided then that I would not contact her until she apologized as I didn't think it was right to treat me that way. 8 months after she had gone back overseas, I apologized to her and she blamed me saying that she was disappointed I had not spent every day with her when she came back even though it was selfish on her part.

 

I still felt as though she was blaming me for the way she treated me. She moved back home late last year and things were still pretty tense between us but I thought I would make the effort to get things back on track seeing as though as I aforementioned, I didn't want to make an enemy out of her, I will have to see her at family events and we do have some mutual friends. Unfortunately, she was very rude to me when i'd try to contact her and would make me feel as though she was doing me a favour the times I did see her. Other times, she would ignore my calls or messages. I invited her to my birthday hoping to patch things up then, but 2 days before, I had found out that she had been saying things about me behind my back to people we both know.

 

She had said that I hadn't bothered to contact her (which was a lie) and that she was just going to my birthday because she's obliged to. It really hurt me and at my birthday, I didn't speak to her much. Other people had commented she was in a bad mood from the beginning and did not want to be there. After my birthday, she went around telling mutual friends how horrible I was to her and that I'd ignored her (when she would ignore me, I would say nothing....stupid of me) and I haven't said anything as I don't want to be seen as speaking about her or bitching behind her back. I tried to contact her to "work things out", however when I did that, she went around telling people that she didn't even know if she wanted to fix things and what was wrong with me. She also said some other really nasty things.

 

Normally, I would just move on and ignore, but no matter what I do, she keeps saying hurtful things...and as much as I don't want to care about it, I do. I will have to see her in a few weeks at a family function and I'm very concerned about that, because I am still very hurt about the whole thing and no matter WHAT i do, she will talk about me and spread lies about me to people. I feel as though we're too old for this sort of behaviour (25), but I also know, she isn't going to stop. I don't want ot work things out with her anymore but I don't know how to deal with seeing her. As I said, i'm still extremely hurt about things she's done and quite frankly, I don't know how I can move on while she's still talking about me as she is...any advice would be fantastic...

[Guest]

I have read your post with interest as I have become friends then fallen out with someone pretty much like your friend. He too thinks the world revolves around him and so should everyone. He too always blames me for every fight we have - and that's all we seem to have nowadays.

 

I have made the huge mistake of trying to change him into a true friend i.e. someone who would value me rather than belittle me (even if he was joking), hoping this was what would save an otherwise fulfilling friendship.

 

You can't change people though so I have now finally decided to let go. If he comes back to me, fine but he won't find a doormat and that's what he wants, and if doesn't, fine too - I'll concentrate on other people in my life.