Challenging Friend

[The New Me!]

Hi there,

I have a friend, who constantly interrupts me when I'm talking, goes off on a tangent and just talks at me constantly. We went out just before Christmas and I was dropping her off and she constantly criticised my driving. Whilst driving she was talking non stop and I missed the turn off. I said I was struggling to concentrate because of all the talking, which didn't go down very well! 

She isn't working at the moment and her husband keeps a tally of her spending, therefore she expects me to pay for her!  This time I said I couldn't afford to pay for us both. I sent her a message outlining her behaviour and she turned it back round to me and failed to take responsibility. I have said we will arrange to meet up to talk about our friendship as I feel it has become one sided which she thought would be a good idea.

Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated.  Thank you.

[Rebel13]

Hi The New Me!

I have to say, your experience so far doesn't give me a lot of confidence that your conversation will have the outcome you might be hoping for.  (It might be good to spend some time thinking about what that is. Do you want an apology? Do you want a behavior change? If so, what would that look like? What is your plan if your friend keeps behaving the way she has so far when you've brought up problems?)

When you said to your friend that the talking was distracting you from driving, it 'didn't go down very well.' Your friend didn't apologize and talk less.

When you sent your friend a message about the impact her behavior was having on you, she "turned it back round" to you and didn't take responsibility. Again, she didn't apologize for her part in the difficulty.

These are not good signs, in my experience. So please don't go into a conversation with her without some guard rails and plans for how you will extricate yourself and care for yourself afterwards if things don't go well.

You might also look at the DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills and the Cope Ahead skill which could help you think through the issues and make good plans.

Best of luck with this!

[The New Me!]

Hi Rebel13

She said sorry in the car but then carried in. When I messaged her she said sorry if... I then replied in more detail after that.

I am going to give myself some time and then think about it. I have a plan in place to meet somewhere mutual and not drive there.

It's still quite raw because it only happened a week ago, so some distance will help.

This will be last chance for me if I do decide to meet up though if it's not the outcome I'm expecting.

Thanks for your reply.