Needy friend is exhausting and enough is enough
DEAR CAROLYN: My good friend’s life was completely turned upside down over the course of several years. Her wife’s medical problems turned into a permanent disability and she has a young family to care for. They are financially stable, thankfully, but the emotional turmoil plus the isolation from the pandemic has taken its toll.
Her friends have pretty much ducked out. Possibly because she has boundary issues and will continuously ask for help that is beyond their means. She will unload on literally anyone who will listen, at every soccer game, school event (pre-pandemic), and even at celebratory events. I think that’s where the camel broke, and I’m the last one left.
I know how horrible this is for her and I continue to help where I can ... All. The. Time. I’m not ready to end the friendship, but I’m at my wits’ end. I am exhausted from being a constant therapist, when she already has one, and seemingly only support system. Even things that seem normal are attributed to this situation.
Friend is offended that people lost interest but honestly it’s exhausting and overwhelming. She unloads about them. And I am the primary target of her support requests — emotional and practical needs. I know how that sounds to someone who isn’t going through this, but friendship can’t be one-way forever.
How do I draw some boundaries here? I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I cannot be her everything person. No one can.
— Overwhelmed
DEAR READER: There is an easy answer and a hard answer.
The easy answer, by the way, is also hard, but it’s straightforward and quick and entirely within your power and it’s several years overdue:
She: “I am offended that people lost interest.” (Or she “unloads about them” in some way.)
You: “I don’t think they stopped caring about you. I can speak only for myself, but I feel overwhelmed by the amount of help you ask me to give. It’s possible they felt the same way.”
If she dumps you for this? Halle-freakin-lujah.
And yes, I know exactly how cold and mean that sounds. But sometimes the value in asking a disinterested third-party adviser like yours truly is that we’re allowed to say out loud what you feel bad about even thinking.
I can also make the argument that your endless, bottomless, thankless supply of one-way friendship may ultimately be a disservice to your friend, though obviously a loving and well-intended one.
The support that she keeps demanding of you is not working. We know this because your friend is not getting any less miserable, as far as you can tell. Right? And her demands have meanwhile exhausted you and driven off all her other friends. So she’s not coping any better than before and is down to her last friend.
Ideally she would have figured this out for herself by now. But she hasn’t. Meanwhile, you’re always there for her to keep dumping on, so nothing has forced her to reckon with such a hard truth. You have become the thing that makes it possible for her to keep postponing the hardest work, of managing her emotional/boundary/whatever problems for real.
There is no shame in either side — in having bigger problems than a friend’s love can resolve or in being the friend who tries so hard to help. But there is a responsibility embedded in both. For her, it’s to stop putting friends in roles they lack the credentials (and energy) to perform.
If she doesn’t have the strength to stop leaning on you for everything, then your responsibility is to make yourself less available. To say, “I will help you sometimes with an errand or always with a cup of coffee, but I can’t be your everything person.” Nice phrasing, by the way. “I don’t see you feeling any better and yet I am feeling worse. You need to take these things to your therapist.” Either she is your true friend, and will see the love and courage behind your telling this truth — instead of running away from her like the rest of them — or she is not willing or able to be a friend to you.
This, like I said, is the easy part.
The hard part is for you to figure out why an instinct to protect yourself didn’t kick in much sooner. To give generously is a beautiful thing. To allow people to take from you to the point of self-erasure is a dangerous thing, for you.
This friend might be merely exhausting, but what of the next person? What if future “takers” you run across are abusive, or worse? Will your priority remain not hurting their feelings at your own expense?
It is basic self-care to know where your “no” is at all times, and be courageous enough to use it — even when it costs you a relationship. Because not using it might cost you yourself. Therapy can help if you struggle with this on your own.