Am i being selfish?

LegacyUser

Hey everyone,

I am looking for a bit of advice.

I am having trouble with a friend of mine at the moment. I recently moved home due to family circumstances so I don't get to see her every day like I used to. I haven't seen her for about 2 months as she lives in a different county. The reason I moved home was to look after my Dad. From the start she wasn't supportive at all. She told me that it was the wrong decision for me. I strongly think this was because she has no other real friends where she lives and didn't want me to go.

Anyway since I moved back I have been up to my eyes with my Dad and dont get a lot of time to text her or ring her. He has been up and down and in and out of hospital etc.

She was up where I live a few weeks ago and couldn't be bothered arranging to meet me - I has said that I could meet her for a couple of hours as I had been feeling a little guilty for not staying in regular contact. But no, she couldn't be bothered. Gave me crap excuse about the people she was with wanting to go somewhere else.

It all came to a head last night. I called her on Friday at about 5pm just to say hello etc. She said she was driving and would call me back. Grand I said. I went shopping with my Mam so when she called me back I couldn't answer. Had a mental weekend with Dad as he was very sick and I didn't get a chance to call her or text her. So I texted her last night and she went off on a mad one saying that I wasn't making any effort etc.

Now I know that its probably true but she doesn't seem to realise that its a full time job looking after my Dad and she hasn't exactly been supportive to me. I'm supposed to be going to visit her and some other friends this weekend (im making the effort to pay for a train ticket even though I am not working) and she cant be bothered to meet me then either.

I just don't know what to do. I really don't. At this stage I think its time to cut my losses and say goodbye to her. But then I am the niggling feeling that I am being unfair to her.

Sorry if that is quite long winded but I wanted to give you as much detail as possible.

I suppose the real question is I am just a selfish bitch or do I have a valid reason to be annoyed?

m83

You have every right to be annoyed and in my opinion have done absolutely nothing wrong. This girl doesn't sound like much of a friend so definitely cut your losses with her and stick to what's important - taking care of your dad.

wolfpawnat

My bf had a dad that was really unwell, alzeimhers, strokes impairing his ability to talk consistently and walking became more like shuffling slowly. All very stressing on him and his family. No matter what I wanted or needed, I ALWAYS respected his dad came first. Sadly as you may notice from my use of the past tense he passed away on us last May. But he is my bf and I wasnt making the demands that your friend is making on you.

There was times my bf could not see me for about 2 weeks and times we were suppose to spend the weekend together but couldnt because his dad needed him. I respect that completely to this day and your "friend" should too. Time with your dad seems very precious at the moent because he clearly sounds sick. You are not being selfish, to say your looking after him so much shows you are selfless.

Hope your family and you continue to keep strong for your dad and all the best. Tell that other one to f off if shes ot going to respect your decision to be a good person:)

cantdecide

I have friends who I love dearly that I never see. It doesn't stop us being close friends. It just happens that most of my friends are elsewhere.

It sounds to me that it's your friend's problem that she is overly dependent on you. You are doing a noble thing and it was obviously going to separate you to some extent and if your friend can only see how it has affected her, she needs a priority check...

jessbeth

Maybe instead of losing the whole friendship if you make one more effort and try to talk to her and explain what it's really like. People who've never been in the situation of looking after someone might not understand how time consuming something like that is.
I do not think that you're selfish, in fact you're being very caring and loving so don't beat yourself up at all. Sounds like she has a lot of growing up to do but if you take a chance to explain it all fully to her she may be more understanding. If she remains the same then I would say cut your losses.

SueWho

You are doing such a selfless act looking after your sick father- your "friend" should be impressed that she has such a kind person in her life. I do think she probably doesn't intend to make you feel bad- 99% of the time people do not intend to inflict pain or guilt on others. She probably just really misses you. BUT, she should be supportive. Like the last poster, some of my very closest friends are actually the ones I see least.

I think you should try one last time to talk to her- tell her you miss her and your friendship but that your father must come first in your life at the moment. If she doesn't understand now, she will someday when she ends up in a tough situation. Even if you sort of fall out now, you might patch up in future when she sees sense and reason.

who007

I don't think you are being selfish but I see a partial piece of your friend's point.
I had friends for years who got married and had kids etc. (I have one too, but am single and never married). Anyway, as time went by and I saw them less and less I decided to try and make some effort by asking if they were free to meet for a beer. The reply, if any was always the same - busy at work, wife is sick, child is sick, having dinner with her mother etc. etc. On the rare occasions we did meet up I got the "we must meet up soon and do 'x' " and as recently as this Christmas - "next couple of days a blur, will come over in the next week, def".
This refers to how I have recently just bought my own place for the first time and I had been asking these friends to come over. But they didn't, and whilst I had been expecting that with such an important thing happening in my life that my "friends" would come and visit me and be part of helping me make it a home, they didn't. In the meantime I spent months there alone and fed up with other issues (child's ex kicking up, limited access, job loss possibility, social outlet cut off by shifting parental arrangements) I hit the bottle and ended up feeling very lonely. Of course my friends were not aware of this but I still had negative feelings about them. One drunked snotty text lost me one of them and then when the "see you next week" turned into a 4 weeks with no contact I started deleting numbers from my phone of anyone I hadn't heard from or had visited me in the then 4 months since I moved in or the couple of months before that. Sadly it seems the end of a chance to have a housewarming and as yet it doesn't feel like a home but somewhere I just live. Now, I am sorry to have brought this off on a major tangent, but my point is that you don't know what's going on in your friend's life and she doesn't seem to have any idea how much help is needed from you to take care of your dad - and so it is easy enough for resentment to build up. Before it gets to the point of deleting phone numbers and losing a friendship why don't you call her up and explain just how hard it is to do what you are doing and promise to set aside a night every 2nd weekend to meet her - that's not a lot out of 14 days is it! And surely someone else could jump in to help you out for those 2 nights? And ask that in erturn your friend try and understand that by doing that you are making an effort to keep the friendship alive.

Admittedly she does at first seem to be selfish about the situation, if she still is after you make some effort to include her regularly again, then <delete>

LegacyUser

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the replies everyone.

@ who007. I see your point. But the thing I have to spend money on a train ticket (44 euro) to go and visit her as I live in Dublin and she doesn't. I cant afford to do that every 2 weeks. I had initially said that I would visit her as often as possible and she said the same thing.

I have tried to talk to her, but she is so self involved that she doesn't get it.

Another point I want to make is that when I met her (last Jan) she had broken up with her fiance, and I was there for her every step of the way even though I had just broken up with my boyfriend too.

i know this is painting her in a really bad light and I don't mean but I am at my wits end with it and its starting to effect my humour and I take it out on my Dad which isn't good for anyone.

tbh

if one of my friends was in your position, I'd be thinking "you go and look after your family, and if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know". Then, I'd try to give you as much support as I could - I wouldn't be pissed off that you weren't in contact, because - y'know - your dad is sick!
And I'm not a great person or anything, I'd say 99.999% of people in PI would be exactly the same - it's just what you do.

You have enough stress in your life at the mo, you have a duty to yourself to be gentle with yourself right no. Concentrate on looking after your dad. Let the friend thing work itself out, anyway it has to.

you are not the one being unreasonable here, and don't be shy to tell your friend that either.

MsFifers

Maybe you really need to explain whats going on in your life to her. It sounds like she is used to relying on you, and maybe because of all the support you always gave to her in the past that you might find that you kinda created the relationship to be on that basis.

It can be a real difficulty for people to change their perceptions of others - ie you now need her support rather than her relying on you. Are you sure you aren't just expecting her to realise that automatically?

Yeah it would be nice if people could read our minds, but if you have always been "the strong one", it may not have occurred to her to view you differently. Or maybe it would even scare her to think of you as feeling down and under pressure - so its just easier and less threatening for her to get annoyed at you for not being around.

Before you write her off as a friend, maybe you need to take responsibility for ensuring that she is aware of the stuff going on for you at the moment. When you have a bad day why don't you ring her to cry on her shoulder (metaphorically)?

It seems to me that you are both annoyed at each other because you both have expectations of how the other one is supposed to act, but I don't know if either of you have really opened up to each other and are instead blaming each other.

LegacyUser

I have told her numerous times whats going on at the moment. She knows full well thats its a hard time for me and my family.

I take on your point MsFifers about me making our friendship that she depends on me but I was being a good friend to her, why cant she be the same for me?

Its got to the stage where I wont ring her cos the conversation invariably ends up with her talking about her ex and whats happening with her. She seems incapable of letting me talk about me and my feelings.

Blazer

She's being extremely selfish with you.
My advice is to cut her loose. The less hassle you have in your life the better.
Looking after your dad is the most important thing at present.

Sugar Drunk

no you are not being selfish. A true friend would not need to see you all the time and not weight the value of a friendship by the number of hours spent with someone.
Your dad comes first. You are going through a tough time and your friend really does not seem to have any smypathy for you. If she was so keen to see you surely she could have made the effort to come and visit you?
Cutting your losses may not be a bad move. You really dont need this person weighing you down with a guilt trip when you are already dealing with so much

MsFifers

Well, if you have already told her that you have so much on your plate there isn't much else to be said really. You have to do whats best for you at the moment, and if she is stressing you out then you are best making a decision to avoid her.

jim o doom

It sounds like she is being a totally selfish "rhymes with runt", when you are going through a very emotionally stressful time already.
My fiancee had a mate like that. HAD.
Now she doesn't because her mate treated her like crap for ages, and she ain't willing to be treated that way no more.. I suggest you follow suit.

Pat Mustard

[quote= she has no other real friends where she lives[/quote]

Major alarm bells going off here.

If people have no friends, there is a reason. Think about anybody that you ever met that had no friends. Maybe there can be excusable reasons, but in my experience, it's because these people are fairly intolerable, selfish individuals.

She latched onto you because you look out for other people and because you may have a tendency to blame yourself for things that go wrong rather than others. Maybe you try to see things from her perspective, instead of telling her where to go.

A reasonable person would not try to get between you and your father in the situation you described.

She is no friend to you. Cut her loose.

LegacyUser

Hey,

Thanks for the replies everyone. I just thought I was going mad and being a little bit selfish. Its good to know that Im not.

I think the best thing to do is avoid her for a while.....

Salome

No you're definitely not being selfish but I imagine whatever problems she is having at the moment seem bigger to her than yours do. I guess the only thing you can do is keep the lines of communication open - if she doesn't make an effort to come and see you, that's her problem, not yours. Btw, kudos to you for helping your folks.

starchild

no your not being selfish at all , its simple your dad needs you

i am speculating slightly but it seems to me that even though you mention not seeing her for a while you would still like to remain friends with her, its clear that she obviously misses you a lot

it sounds to me like your friend is not very independent & is taking this all the wrong way, she seems to think you have abandoned her, i think its a measure of how much she likes you that she is reacting like that

peoples lives change all the time with marriages , relocation , new jobs, children & sometimes while we want to we cannot spend as much time with our friends as we used to

in our new lives it is very easy to slip into a situation where regular calls or meetings become irregular to non existant

i would suggest that perhaps you write a letter to her, tell her what she means to you, let her know you need her support & friendship & explain that distance & infrequent meetings do not change your feelings towards her

after that just keep in mind to drop a text or call now and then

McCABE1

How good a friend is she? Is she your best friend? You mentioned that you didnt have time to ring her but with my closest friend, if I had a hard day, I could ring her at 1.30 in the morning, get her up and she'd listen to me moan or cry and comfort me as much as she could. I'm saying this because if you've had a difficult day, she doesnt seem to be the one you run to for advise or comfort. If you sit down and think about it, what are you really loosing if you leave her, not a great, fulfilling friendship that you cherish. She doesnt sound like she cares about what you're going through at all, she uses you as a sounding board, to moan about her own life and gives out to you when you are not available to her 24/7. I mean I get the impression that you aren't exaclty out clubbing every night or seeing friends every day, your life is taken up with something very stressful and you are tied by committments to your family. She doesnt support you and she's very selfish. Stay away from her for a while and see how she reacts.