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Regret rekindling an old friendship
I keep trying to fix how this shows up, but I'm not having any luck, so I apologize for the formatting.
A few months ago I got an unexpected text message from an old friend/co-worker that I lost contact with several years ago. I always had a lot of respect for her - she grew up with an abusive father, in a communistic country, and literally escaped in the night, on her own, at a very young age, ended up in America, got married (no children) and earned her PHD. We stayed in contact by phone for about a year after I quit when contact dried up on her end - I tried calling her, sent Christmas cards and, when I got engaged, invited her to my shower and my wedding, with no response. I gave up. About a year after my wedding, I got a vaguely worded card from her saying that she was sorry that she didn't respond, but that she was going through a rough patch in her life. That was our last communication. Since then, my husband and I bought our first house, moved, and decided to start a family. I am now expecting twin girls and, needless to say, I'm dealing with my own set of issues at the moment. None the less, I was excited to hear from her and agreed to meet her for lunch and invited her to my baby shower. I immediately regretted it. While talking to her, I remembered that it took me quite a while to like her at all and, over the years of working with her, I think I had just gotten used to her personality issues. But with several years of no contact, I had forgotten just what she was like. Lunch was awkward and uncomfortable - she immediately gave me the third degree about not responding to her card, asked about my life, then abruptly said, "So, do you want to keep talking about you or do you want to know what's happened in my life?" As it turns out, the "rough patch" from a few years ago was extreme agoraphobia and PTSD triggered by an attempt to go back to her home country - she didn't leave her house for two years! After seeking help and medication, she has a new job that she loves and seemed to be doing great. I would have been happy to leave it there and have us both go our separate ways but, unfortunately, I couldn't rescind the invitation for the baby shower. Worse yet, she insisted on paying for lunch, saying that I could buy the next time. I explained that, being 7 ? months pregnant (with twins!) at the time, I wasn't sure when that would be, but again, she insisted. She then began to text me frequently - at the crack of dawn, no less. If I don't respond to her texts, she worries that I'm mad at her (sorry- I didn't know a goofy picture deserved a response). At my shower, she brought a gift, stayed for a little while, made conversation with the other guests, but said that I seemed to be mad at her and wanted to know why I was "avoiding" her. I explained that, as the "guest of honor," I was just busy and overwhelmed, but that I wasn't mad at her. To top it all off, her husband abruptly left her last week. I expressed my sympathies and offered words of encouragement, but being two weeks away from a scheduled c-section, I could not and did not offer much else. Yesterday morning, I got a voice mail from her. She told me to call her back so she could "hear my voice." She said to leave her a voice mail and tell her how I'm doing, but not to say "fine" because she wants specifics. She then went on for quite a while to give me an update on her life - to be honest, I stopped listening. I dread calling her back. I feel like I owe her for lunch and I feel bad that she got me a baby gift, but at this point, I can't take her out to lunch or sit on the phone with her to support her through this. What's more, I really don't want to. The last thing I need at this point in my life is a needy, draining friendship. I'm mentally and physically exhausted and overwhelmed with how much my life is about to change. I regret rekindling this friendship in the first place, but I don't want to deal with a confrontation. Is there any way that I can get out of all of this?
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Re: Regret rekindling an old friendship
Simply stop responding to her contacts with you.
Or you could call her, tell her that you and she are at 2 different places in your respective lives and that you'll be out of touch for awhile; you can also say you will be busy with the kids so you won't have much time to be in touch.
Just either stop responding or just tell her you have a lot going on right now and you aren't going to be available to talk to her for awhile.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I'm a pretty blunt person. I would thank her for everything she's done for you lately. Then explain that you all seem to be crossing signals; she thinks you're mad at her, but you're really just very pregnant, going through huge life changes, and don't have the time at this exact moment to devote a lot of energy to your friendships. You have to focus on family first.
I'd also say that it sounds like she is going through a huge number of personal issues, has probably burned a lot of bridges with people close to her and needs someone. For whatever reason she picked you. I would not just ignore her, but would try to distance.