[daimieb]

i need some help! i'm generally a selfish person already, but i need to know if i'm being TOO selfish. here's the scenario:

i live in a 2 bedroom townhouse with me & my girlfriend on one side and my bff/roomate on the other. my bff and i do pretty much EVERYTHING together but a few days ago my lupus flared and i don't have the same attitude as i did before. i'm finding that everything she does gets under my skin. little things that normally wouldn't even matter make me wanna throw a pot at her head! for example, today i laid out all my nail polishes and got my area all set up to give myself a pedicure right before i got in the bath. (a little pick me since i've been so depressed lately) well, when i got out of the bath she was in my room polishing her toes.... in my area.... with my stuff. just the mere sight of this caused me to get extremely p!ssed. any other day i would have been fine with this.
me and my bff came to be roomates in the first place because i took her in after she had a bad breakup with her ex. i was in a 1 bdrm place then so we decided to get a 2 bdrm. i'm a very private person, she's not. i clean, she doesn't. i pay bills on time. she don't. we never see eye to eye on money situations and i always end up contributing more to 'the house' than she does. all of these things caused me to be extremely stressed and (i believe) brought on this flare.
so how do you tell your bff that her every breath gets on your last nerve and you wanna move back on your own when you know that she still isn't finacially stable enough to be on her own? i'm not the kind of person who can leave a friend stuck out, but being here for her is killing me!

 

[acard]

I feel so bad that you are in this situation. My motto is never live with friends or family that you truly care about keeping a relationship with. What happens is you take each other for granted or in your case one ends up being the giver and the other the taker. I would give her a 30 day notice and explain that it is getting too complicated. 30 days ought to give her time to find another home. You are not responsible for her. You are just responsible for yourself. You have to take care of yourself because no one else will.
I hope I don't sound too harsh, but that is truly how I have had to live my life because like you I was always taken advantage of by my sister who is my bff. I finally learned the hard way and thank God our love got us through. I will live with just with hubby and daughter.

Good Luck!!!
Becca

 

[Clare.T]

Hello
I can't work out what a bff is unless it is best female friend? The world is divided into Takers and Givers. The chronic takers are inveterate spongers and the chronic givers are saps. Chronic giving is as much a dysfunction as chronic taking and it's arguably worse because the giver is allowing abuse and not acknowledging their own feelings which are always justified and reasonable once they get to the point of admitting them.

You could draw up a protocol of her short comings your resentments and your expectations and have a formal meeting about it. That's the sort of thing the books talk about but I doubt if it works in practice. You need to decide if you really and truly want her out period. The trial period will be a very great strain in itself and will introduce new stresses and dynamics into an already bankrupt relationship. Then of course she has you on the hook of your own words. Things might be fine for a while but almost certainly she will revert. Anyway who wants to be in that role with a 'friend'. It would be worse than having a lodger you didn't know at all.

I would be determined and ruthless in such a situation especially if I had given the person every chance. Probably you want to be fair so if you think she has no reason so far to be aware how she's offending then I would just say things have to change round here because her lack of respect for your space and your property are intolerable and see how she reacts.
But being fair isn't always the best consideration nice as it sounds. Being firm is more productive in the long run.



Clare

Good luck

 

[mysharonna]

Hello,

I can only echo what the others have said...you must stand up for yourself and your health which will be effected in the long run. And, the longer you stay in the situation, the more you will resent your friend and it will ruin your relationship.

This is truly a difficult decision, and I hope you can come up with a solution that benefits all.

Clare: BFF is best friend forever..at least thats what I remember from my younger years! LOL

Good luck to you,
Sharon

 

[Maia]

I think one of you has to move out, and I would present it to her as an effort to save the friendship before the stresses of living together cause too much water under the bridge so to speak...

I also would not ever live with a good friend, because it is a very real risk to the relationship. It sounds as if she is the type that will not "be ready" to move out on her own without a little push too... so you will need to be ready to push her out of the nest whether she proclaims herself to be ready or not.

By the way, I would be quite irritated too if I had witnessed her using my things without asking. If I was on prednisone too, I would be beyond irritated! *lol*