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How to gently tell my best friend she is immature?
My best friend and I have been friends for a really long time and she met her fiancee through me, he was a friend of mine. Recently I moved into an apartment in their building and we have been together a lot more and I've seen a different side to her and I don't know what to do now that its pulling us apart. When ever they fight she throws me in the middle, they both call me their mediator, and she comes to me for advice. I told them I would give them my advice but I wanted to hear both sides to each argument everytime and it has always been that way.
Until last night.. We were playing a card game, she was on a team with her fiancee and I was on a team with another friend. Me and the other friend were winning and her fiancee wouldn't listen to her on how to 're-arrange' their cards eventhough she told him that would make them win. She ended up freaking out over this and when I tried to calm her down she pushed passed me yelling at me "dont *bleeping* touch me!", slammed my front door and locked her self in her apartment. Her fiancee and the other friend helped me clean my apartment up and then her fiancee went and slept over at the other friends apartment (above theirs, below mine) to let her cool down.
I work very early in the morning and I turn my phone off at night. She doesnt work.. Apparently, though, in the middle of the night she decided she wanted to talk to me. I got a million missed calls and texts from her, blaming me for everything- she went walking off down the highway and left a voice mail telling me that if something happened to her I knew why- she was saying that I am never their for her (when I always am, even coming to her apt at 2am on a work night because her ferret passed away and then coming home the fallowing day to bring her other two ferrets stuff to keep them from getting depressed, I have never ditched her when she has ditched me, I have always believed and trusted her when she has stopped talking to me over rumors and lies etc, etc, etc) but, unlike her, I work and I work early in the morning so I cant be talking and on the phone all night long and aparently that makes me a bad person.
When I got her messages that told me that 'i always take his side' that she was 'walking down the highway with nowhere to go' and im 'not a true best friend' and telling me that if something happened to her it was my fault---- it broke my heart. I freaked out and called her fiancee to make sure he found her, he said he had found her and brought her home but she is still being really immature. She broke all his CD's (most of which werent even his, they were his friends) and she dented in the side of his car door.. with something, though he isnt sure what. She knows that I always look at everything openly and I didnt have an opportunity to talk to her face to face yet she is still freaking and saying were not really friends and I dont care about her. I told her she can say that all she wants but I love her and I am not going to give up that easily (her fiancee said the same thing when she said that they're no longer together) but she ignored him and texted me saying that im not her friend because her fiancee said that im his friend and I cant be both their friends. She isnt even making sence anymore- I dont know what to do. People say "forget her, she is acting like a child" but we have been though so much together.. I dont want to loose her now- How can I make her see how she is acting with out hurting her?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
I could go through many varying techniques and examples, i could delve into your relationship with her, her relationship with her partner, her mood swings etc but in the end i don't think that would necessarily help. I think the answer is quite simple here.
There is no way of telling her this without it hurting her feelings and from how it sounds she's going to take it badly if you dont approach the subject the right way. Should you start criticising her - or seem in any way threatening - then she will push right back and begin her strops, tantrums and aggressive behaviours.
You gotta treat her like a best friend and what is it that best friends do best? They're so close that they can tell eachother everything. Friendship is a two way street and make this point before anything else that you need her to listen to you and understand you in the way that you have done many a time before.
Now comes the best friend part. You know her so well and you know how to speak to your best friend. Say it from the heart. Let her knnow that shes gotta stand on her own two feet and learn how to resolve her own problems; she's got to know how to be in an adult relationship that shouldnt be putting you in the middle of arguments; she should realise that youre there for her but she cant completely depend on you. She needs to find herself as an adult and an individual person, and just like the rest of us, shes gotta learn how to deal with problems and situations on her own.
You are not taking your support and guidance from her: on the contrary, youre helping her be the adult she should have grown to be too long ago. You can be there for her without acting like her mother and without her acting like a teenager.
Youre one of the few people who really know her and how to talk to her so use that knowledge and communicate with her the way that you know how.
Even if she does get angry at you, give her time. She needs to realise this and since its affecting your life, you gotta talk to her. Who can you talk to if not your best friend?
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