Should I continue this friendship

LegacyUser

I have a friend who I met while we worked in the same company over ten years ago. I subsequently left to work in another company but we have kept in contact, almost 100% by email since then. The thing is we live at opposite ends of the same town, work around the corner from each other and it is impossible to pin her down to actually meet up - for a chat, for a coffee, night out, anything! We email each other about 3 times a week, long emails, filling each other in on things going on in our lives. She has three children, youngest is 9 and has recently separated from her husband, leaving the family home and moving into the town I live in. Before she moved out she was about a 30 minute drive away and in the ten years she only invited me once to her house, that was to attend her son's confirmation as none of her own family was able to attend. I though things would change when she moved into her new home, still no invite to visit.

When I suggest meeting up or going out, she always says she is busy running around with the kids and has no money and can't afford to. I can understand this as her husband may no longer be supporting her and she is only working part-time but she always came up with the same excuse before she separated. I always empathised with this and never put pressure on her and would invite her into my house and she would come. However, she never ever instigates us meeting up with the sole exception of when she invited me to her son's confirmation as she had nobody else belonging to her going to it. She has one other friend who lives in the town, and who I have never met, who was also invited to confirmation but she didn't show up much to the annoyance of my friend. Nevertheless, my friend seems to have a lot of time for this girl, who over the years would have let her down a few times, after all I heard all about it by email!

And here's the rub - although she always says that she can't afford to go anywhere with me, she has no shortage of money when it comes to going out with the other friend. In my last email to her I said to her that I would love to meet up for a chat sometime as we hadn't seen each other for ages and I told her the nights that suit me for either her to come to my house or for me to go to hers (so that there would be no expense incurred by her) and could she let me know what times would suit her. She replied a few days later, never referred to meeting up but went on at length to tell me about the night out she had with this other girl, getting taxis to and fro, the drinks, the night club, the guys that were chatting her up etc. and I'm thinking this all costs money and this doesn't stack up with what she is telling me about being broke. Not forgetting child minding costs too.

Anyway this is bothering me every day since and my question is what do I do now. I don't see this friendship progressing in any meaningful way. She has had her woes down through the years and she always writes to me asking for my opinion and looking for reassurance. When I take a step back and think about it I feel I am no more than mixture of a pen friend and an agony aunt and to be honest it has been quite draining but I never thought anything of it, only that I was doing a friend a good turn. I know I enabled this myself to a large extent but only because I didn't want putting undue pressure on her time and her finances. I have friends who live abroad who I have seen more often than her since we first met, because we each made the effort to put aside the time to visit each other.

I am thinking of stepping back from this and am not sure how I can. I haven't replied to her last email which was two weeks ago. I'm surprised she hasn't emailed me to ask me if I got it, which she always would if I didn't reply in a few days. Is this 'friendship' worth going on with? I would be interested in hearing other peoples views. Thanks.

Ursus Horribilis

You know, I think you've done all you need to do here. By not replying to that last email you've put this friendship out of its misery. I'd be surprised if your friend comes looking for you again to be honest. Most friendships that end go out with a fizzle rather than a bang. There's no need for a big dramatic gesture here - an unanswered email will do just fine.

The one thing that came through again and again here was the sheer one-sidedness of your friendship. You sound like a lovely person and a loyal friend. Sadly, you wasted your heart on someone who hasn't been interested in being a proper friend to you for a long long time. You know all this stuff already so there's no point in me going through the various instances you've outlined here. You know she's a user and has been coming up with bullsh1t excuses not to catch up with you. God knows, you've extended the hand of friendship enough times to her. There comes a time when you've got to say Stop.

The White Feather

I was in a very similar situation such as yours,OP.

Emailing away and every time I'd say to meet up, he would say he had a busy weekend or had to work late etc.

I realised that he was just keeping tabs on what I was doing while giving me bits and pieces of info about him.

It was like a relationship respirator keeping things alive so I just stopped replying. You might get a few "hey did you get my messages?" like I did but these will stop and you can just forget all about email exchanges with them.

I realised also that if he wanted to meet up he would have, so there was no point in continuing emailing.

Ursus Horribilis

Here's another thought: maybe your friend is happy not to be hearing from you again. Sure, she might miss the emails and the person to vent to but that's as far as this friendship goes. I wonder was she keeping the correspondence going out of a sense of obligation?

CaraMay

Op, no offends intended but you do sound very intense, almost claustrophobic. I love hearing from my friends but am also very happy that they have their is. Lives and stuff to talk about when we do meet. What do you have in common with this person other than having worked in the same place?

bottlebrush

CaraMay wrote: »

Op, no offends intended but you do sound very intense, almost claustrophobic. I love hearing from my friends but am also very happy that they have their is. Lives and stuff to talk about when we do meet. What do you have in common with this person other than having worked in the same place?

In fairness that's what the OP's problem is - they don't meet. Almost 100% email contact.

MagicMarker

CaraMay wrote: »

Op, no offends intended but you do sound very intense, almost claustrophobic. I love hearing from my friends but am also very happy that they have their is. Lives and stuff to talk about when we do meet. What do you have in common with this person other than having worked in the same place?

Did you read the OP?

LegacyUser

Thanks for your replies. CaraMay, I take your point but on reflection, let's say, we are now in October. We have met twice since about this time last year - once at the confirmation that she asked me to because as none of her family were there and she didn't want to be on her own with the in-laws, and the second time was to call to my house to return things she had borrowed me for the occasion. Do you think meeting twice in that length of time is intense? Just as a matter of interest, how many times do other people meet up with their friends, on average?

This friend is more than happy to keep the email contact going - as I said in my opening post, if she sends an email and I haven't responded within a few days, she will send another one asking if I got it. Also, I will often get a text saying Hi Guest9999, something very upsetting happened at the weekend and I'm wondering when you get a minute could you read the email I have just sent you as I really would love your opinion on what happened. These occasions would be the only time she would text me. ,

My concern is that has been the pattern of our relationship for the past ten years and I don't see it changing in the next ten or twenty years. I don't think it is abnormal to want to actually physically meet up for a chat now and again - especially as we live so near one another.

laserlad2010

Guest9999 wrote: »

This friend is more than happy to keep the email contact going - as I said in my opening post, if she sends an email and I haven't responded within a few days, she will send another one asking if I got it. Also, I will often get a text saying Hi Guest9999, something very upsetting happened at the weekend and I'm wondering when you get a minute could you read the email I have just sent you as I really would love your opinion on what happened. These occasions would be the only time she would text me. ,

If you search PI, you will come across countless threads on this very subject.

OP, here's the reality. You are nothing more than an agony aunt for this woman - she's using you as a crutch to get through life. I'd say she keeps you separate also to be able to spin her stories whatever way she wants to obtain maximum sympathy from you, even if that means lying.

Look, some people are just not that nice, or aware of other people's needs. The fact that you've helped this woman through so much indicates that you're a decent person - but you need to protect yourself here.

Be cool and polite with this woman in the future, but absolutely ignore requests for help or personal stuff. Just act like you never read it.

This is not a healthy friendship for you.

Ursus Horribilis

I don't think you're too intense but you are definitely far too invested in this friendship for your own good. Your posts read like a litany of snubs. She is telling you in all sorts of non-verbal ways that she doesn't see you as a friend in the normal sense of the word. The reason you can't pin her down is because she doesn't want to hang out with you. She doesn't see you as part of her everyday life. Maybe she deliberately doesn't want you to meet her family and other friends?

Laserlad used a great word in his post. I think you are a crutch to her. She's using you and you are allowing this to happen. I'm not convinced there is a friendship here to salvage anyway. It has turned into you trying to cajole her into meeting you and her turning you down with the oldest excuses in the book (too busy/too poor) or simply pretending nothing happened. Then she turns around and uses you as an agony aunt.

Work friendships are a funny sort of thing anyway. They tend to fizzle out more easily I've found. Why is it that you are so fixated on this woman anyway? Have you no other friends?

CaraMay

I take your points op but the glaringly obvious bit in all this is that she doesn't want to meet up. She wants a shoulder to cry on / agony aunt but isn't willing to reciprocate. She's not going to change at this stage.

LegacyUser

OP I was in a sort of similar situation very recently, with someone.

All day long Id get messages about themselves, me me me me, and again me.

And it was honestly wearing me down. Id literally cringe and go "oh no" when I saw a message coming in. I like this person, but I decided no longer would I be the white wall to fling all their cr*p at.

And I said (more or less) to them "if you are looking for a friendship to continue, youve to stop talking about only yourself all the time. And its your choice what you do. But I can no longer bare this. That it didnt change what a great person I thought they are, but I have needs from a friendship too".

And the next message I got was how are you and asking me something about myself, and I nearly went into shock.

What I learned was you cant control how people decide to treat you, but you can make it known if youre not happy. And leave it there. Its up to them to try and change it. If they dont, they dont. Nothing you can do.

Matteroffact

It's weird that she doesn't want to meet you OP but yet she wants to confide in you. The next time she looks for advice why not suggest meeting up to discuss it as you would be better able to offer your opinion in person and see what she says.

LegacyUser

I guess you are all telling me what I already know, but was afraid to acknowledge to myself. Yes it was hard to read that she was using me a crutch, didn't want to hang out with me,is only using me as an agony aunt etc. But I needed to read that and it's just as I thought deep down even though it hurts. Nobody has posted that they think this relationship is worth pursuing and as one poster said, there is nothing to salvage anyway.

It's only when I look at the healthy mature relationships that I have with my other friends that I see how vacant that this one is.

Many thanks once again to you all for your replies.

tara73

Op, if you don't hear from her again, I would leave it at that. I wouldn't contact her at all anymore.

If she sends you an email asking again if you got her mail or anything trivial, I would let her know that you are not interested in writing mails anymore nor in meeting up. you could aslo tell her what people here wrote (as it's true), that all you can see is, she's just using you as an agony aunt etc. and you have enough of it.

I think it's always good to tell people who are users like her directly how crappy they behave. No need in holding back, they can learn and think about their sh*** behaviour so there's a chance they change.

LegacyUser

I know how you feel with a so called friendship like this.
Like you I got sick and tired of her finding me when she needed someone/a shoulder to cry on or at times when no one else was around. I decided to stop contacting her to see if she was willing to make any effort with me. About 6 weeks later I sent her a text say have not seen you in ages why don't we go out Sat night?
I got another poor excuse and I decided then that this so called freindship was over.

I realised that she was a drain and not a rad. A drain takes all the life out of you and a rad makes you feel good. Most people will have good and bad times but some people can always find you with tales of woe but never find you when you need them.

In your case I would move on and if she contacts you again I would just say sorry I am to busy to help you. Keep in contact with proper freinds and thoes that are there for the bad times as well as the good.

laserlad2010

Guest9999 wrote: »

I guess you are all telling me what I already know, but was afraid to acknowledge to myself. Yes it was hard to read that she was using me a crutch, didn't want to hang out with me,is only using me as an agony aunt etc. But I needed to read that and it's just as I thought deep down even though it hurts. Nobody has posted that they think this relationship is worth pursuing and as one poster said, there is nothing to salvage anyway.

It's only when I look at the healthy mature relationships that I have with my other friends that I see how vacant that this one is.

Many thanks once again to you all for your replies.

OP, lots of responses on PI are ruthless. They are exactly that, because time and time again readers see that OPs are completely unwilling to listen, or even twist what people advise to suit themselves.

As a result, advice on here is often brutal and hard to take. None of us wish you ill will, we just want you to wake up and realise your own self worth.

Best of luck in the future.