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What's wrong with her?
So I am 25/f and I have a really good friend that I've been friends for the last 2 months. She's also 25. Now She's a recovering alcoholic/drug addict who's been arrested numerous times and has even had her son taken away from her. Now she has a job and she's starting school. However I noticed from the beginning of friendship she has gotten very insecure, possessive and tries to use me for rides because she doesn't have a car. I told her how i felt about her asking me for rides and she said well I want to hangout with you and I don't have a car, and you're my only friend (basically guilt tripped me). Now I made the mistake of telling her about this guy I met while we were swimming one day at her apartment complex. He's 41 and we've been hooking up and she's super judgmental about it. We've even gotten into arugements about it. I told her to stop judging me. I forgot to mention ever since she's gotten clean she's become a born again Christian and feels the need to judge me and tell me I should go to church and stop looking for love! The other day I told her about this guy I'm going on a date this weekend, and oh my god her reaction was so ridiculous! She started saying OMG! there's always a new guy every week! first it was so and so and now this guy! and I told her it's called dating and that's what people do in their 20's. She told me I was making excuses and that I needed to stop using dating site apps like Clover and Tinder and find a real guy, "a man of god." I was like are you scared of losing me if I start dating? and her reply was no not at all I have other friends, although I doubt it since she uses people and sits in her apartment that mom pays for. She also told me that I need to go to 12 step program, that's what she's doing. She says it's not just for people with drug/alcohol problems. It's like she doesn't want me to happy. And I had a friend like her who became Christian and she would say the same things to me. But I finally stopped being friends with her. But anyways I told her I might be moving If i get a job in a specific area of our town and she was like ugh why do you want to move there? I was like uhh because it's closer? I don't get it, is she jealous or something? It seems like she is, and can't seem happy for me. I don't judge her at all for her past. She told me once after a fight that I brought up her past even though I didn't. I basically told her to stop judging me, because that's not very Christian of her. I am sick of this, I know I can't change her but should I try to talk to her about it? I mean I'm not sure If that'll do any good, so does anyone have any ideas? Should I just end the friendship? Please help! thanks!
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I used to attend church so maybe I can shed some light. What churches do, they do with good intentions. They beleive strongly what they are told. For someone who like a pendulum has swung so far the opposite direction where their life was out of control, people like this can tend to go to the other extreme opposite instead of swing to a more middle ground where their life is better but they don't judge others. I used to be close with both those who grew up in church and those who came in later in life, either looking for themselves or invited or pressured to come by a Christian.
I love God and live my life to be as much like him, Godlike as I can be. But I no longer attend churches nor hang out with Christians because I just don't have much in common with them and everything I say or do or how I live my life will come into question by them. This sounds like what she's doing with you.
I hate to call it brain washing cus no one forces it on a believer, but many do choose to stop thinking for themselves and just believe what is told to them from the pulpit. The Bible has been misinterpreted many times throughout history. There is plenty of information in literature to support that statement. However I was told to simply believe, and if I question anything taught in church, then I was disappointing God, making Him sad, and I didn't really believe. Basically, no matter which church I attended and I've been long enough in five of the major religions churches to know that to a great extent, one thing is the same everything, you are subtly steered towards researching for your self and choosing to "Blindly Believe". And yet, in each of these churches, I also found real true believers who were as loving as the Lord and hanging around simply to be good examples for the others in case they "finally woke" and realized they were kinda off the right path.
It's easy to find those who call themselves Christians but they never ever once in life developed their own beliefs or convictions about GOd.
LEts see if I can make it more clear. Think of a child, often male children who won't just accept that a mechanized toy or small appliance works. They want to know why and will tear it apart to see what makes it work. They will test it too to be sure that other configurations will work also or not. However when it comes to faith, this is exactly what we need to be doing to have our very own beleifs that we actually know to be true by experience or by our research. Too many never go this route and simply accept what they are told.
One thing believers are told is that sex before marriage is wrong, and some places actually tell you to let Jesus be your lover instead, that Christians need to associate only with other believers so that people who dont believe the same can't lure you down the wrong path.
I suspect she's heard plenty of this and that is why she's harping on you to not date anyone and also not to attend any meetups groups. It is also highly stressed that if you really love and care about someone (even if you really don't) it would be a shame to not encourage them to go to church and accept Jesus as their savior. You are made to feel guilty at every turn by stories, plays even, and teaching at bible studies or from pulpit if you are not reaching out to those you know and convincing them of their wrong and convincing them to accept Jesus, then you're sleeping on the job and will be judged on judgement day by God for not really caring and loving other people by choosing to not do so.
I have to admit that as a teen and young adult, I did some of this, usually a cassette video of the Easter story we where supposed to give to neighbors we knew didn't attend church. I knew it was wrong when some one from another church came to my door and when I said I was a believer and already attended a church, they grilled me about it, thinking it was my tricky way as a non beleiver to push them off. I answered their questions correctly and was friendly towards them but recieved the opposite from them, suspicion, unfriendly and pushiness. Now i knew what others felt like when I did it. Never did it again. I later learned from my own research that it is indeed the job of the Holy Spirit to move the hearts of people to grow spiritually and to learn about their creator and come to want to start acting and living their life just like their 'heavenly parent' much as kids will watch and try to act just like their earthly parents.
Another problem is that we are taught to not read anything but the Bible, to not read anything else labeled Spiritual or in the religious section of bookstores or librarys cus its always stuff from the Devil and his teachings, unGodly literature meant to lure you away from God, and in most cases, I've found it to be not the case. What I have learned has answered the questions the pastors had no answers for and asked me to just believe. Heres an analogy: ANd I've heard older mothers say this before to younger ones, "Nonsense, its okay to give your kids aspirin or honey at a young age. I did it for mine and they turned out okay." You counter with, "But current medical data has proven that it is risky and can be very bad for and maybe even deadly for my kids."
Then they come back at you with, "Oh, but you shouldn't be going out and reading all that medical nonsense. You should just be trusting in God to keep your kids safe."
You have to use common sense and make your best decisions for yourself based on where you are at right now in life. We all hopefully change and grow into better and wiser people as we get older. We all make mistakes out of innocense such as parent who used to feed their kids honey, but when there is data to support that concern for a childs health and to ignore it in choice of blind belief, its kinda nutsy,, isn't it. And yet, that is what many CHristian do and I used to be there once and I wanted more than anything to be pleasing to my heavenly Father so when I began talking to God, I was gently and slowly shown other things that opened my eyes to the fact that I was only choosing to force my so called beleifs on God when God had proven to me by giving me assingments that I actually doubted God would be there for me, that I was hearing Him right when told to go tell a stranger that God shared with me that they felt unloved and needed a hug, for example. I felt dumb and foolish and repeatedly for many other incidents, always doubted. It took Gods gentle but constant working with me to show me where my weak points were faith and belief wise and to help me learn to trust Him fully. I can't say that all CHristians cam claim that. Some yes, but a great majority from my experiene don't even really believe what they claim to believe and whats even worse, they don't even realise that they don't really believe but they have never had circumstance in their life where they were tested such as I was.
I could have simply said, don't try talking to her cus it won't help. But in my story, I hope you see why you will never get anywhere with her. You both are walking two very different paths now and will never see eye to eye on lots of things. If you decide to stay in close touch with her instead of letting her acquaintence with you just drop away, then likely you're a stronger person than me, cus I personally don't like being harassed about what I currently believe and I would never dare interfere with another persons beliefs. Looking back, I was once there. I can understand and I also know, its for god to work with showing them a better way to behave, not me.
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Ok im gotta break down everything you said here piece by piece because youve given alot of information (which is helpful) but there are many facets to this whole situation that need to be addressed and not just with her but with you as well. So here we go:
"So I am 25/f and I have a really good friend that I've been friends for the last 2 months. She's also 25. Now She's a recovering alcoholic/drug addict who's been arrested numerous times and has even had her son taken away from her. Now she has a job and she's starting school. However I noticed from the beginning of friendship she has gotten very insecure, possessive and tries to use me for rides because she doesn't have a car. I told her how i felt about her asking me for rides and she said well I want to hangout with you and I don't have a car, and you're my only friend (basically guilt tripped me). Now I made the mistake of telling her about this guy I met while we were swimming one day at her apartment complex. He's 41 and we've been hooking up and she's super judgmental about it. We've even gotten into arugements about it. I told her to stop judging me.
Ok, part of this could be that shes a recovering drug addict or alcoholic and she may feel that your the only steady enough person in her life that has their shit together so shes clinging on to you more and doing/saying whatever she thinks she can to keep you closed off from others even if its mean. I have a feeling that she would be unhappy with ANY other relationship/friendship you have thats not HER. This is a situation where you have to figure out how much your willing to deal with.
If i were her i would honestly be a little concerned about the age difference of you and the guy you "met up with" but thats a whole other ball of wax that we dont need to get into right now.
"I forgot to mention ever since she's gotten clean she's become a born again Christian and feels the need to judge me and tell me I should go to church and stop looking for love!"
OK some people who are in recovery do things like this. No one says its right but they may think that now that they have a fresh start on life that they need to fix others lives as well and in doing so can end up coming across as better then others because they "found god" or what have you and thats not ok to do to anyone, no matter what stage in life someone is in. Im not a very religious person so honestly i would have dropped her like a hot potato once she started in with the god/church talk. I respect other people right to believe in whatever it is they want but its not ok to push that shit on others and i think if you want to maintain a friendship then you need to set down some boundaries with her and let her know in a nice way that your not interested in being preached to. Thats not what friendship is about.
"The other day I told her about this guy I'm going on a date this weekend, and oh my god her reaction was so ridiculous! She started saying OMG! there's always a new guy every week! first it was so and so and now this guy! and I told her it's called dating and that's what people do in their 20's. She told me I was making excuses and that I needed to stop using dating site apps like Clover and Tinder and find a real guy, "a man of god." I was like are you scared of losing me if I start dating? and her reply was no not at all I have other friends, although I doubt it since she uses people and sits in her apartment that mom pays for."
Ok this is what you get when you have two people who are in MUCH different stages and phases in life. Not everyone can make great friends and as an adult thats something your going to have to come to terms with. Shes not in that phase where shes open to dating and going out (and its probably for the better right now because of her past) so telling her that your going out on dates and meeting all these people to HER probably doesnt sound healthy because she might be thinking your going down the road she might have already gone down before her child was taken away and all that.
So what it comes down to here is that your just not a good match friendship wise. Its like a soccer mom with 3 kids trying to be friends with a single, swinging party girl that still is free to go out and have that kind of fun. see what getting at?? you cant force that kind of friendship to work because shes got alot of obligations right now (even if her mom does pay for her place) other then that her life is a mess from the sounds of it and she needs to be AWAY from the type of life style that could suck her back in and cause her to make bad choices and her just being friends with you leaves her susceptible to that. So for HER sake and your sanity i think you need to take a step back from her.
"She also told me that I need to go to 12 step program, that's what she's doing. She says it's not just for people with drug/alcohol problems. It's like she doesn't want me to happy. And I had a friend like her who became Christian and she would say the same things to me."
Ok see, this is what im talking about in the answer i gave before this. She is in a different phase of life as you and this is her way if dealing with what she see's as "a problem" in your life and this response is her solution to it. While it may be true that AA isnt just for people who have those specific problems (because ive done it before to help aid a friend who ACTUALLY had those issues) it doesnt mean you "need" to do it too. Its not a cure all like she may be thinking it is. This is showing more and more that your life paths are headed in different directions right now which is an important part of having friends.
"anyways I told her I might be moving If i get a job in a specific area of our town and she was like ugh why do you want to move there? I was like uhh because it's closer? I don't get it, is she jealous or something? It seems like she is, and can't seem happy for me."
Well it seems that its obvious that she doesnt want you to go but she has no place saying anything negative if its for the sake of you supporting yourself. thats kind of not fair for her to say anything if its for an important reason like this. It also seems obvious to me that she may not understand what a healthy adult friendship is, because so far what ive read it doesnt seem like she does. Adult friendships arent supposed to include judging or giving unsolicited advice or mothering someone.
"I don't judge her at all for her past. She told me once after a fight that I brought up her past even though I didn't. I basically told her to stop judging me, because that's not very Christian of her. I am sick of this, I know I can't change her but should I try to talk to her about it? I mean I'm not sure If that'll do any good, so does anyone have any ideas? Should I just end the friendship? Please help! thanks!"
I'd say dont necessarily "end" things if you care for her but let her know that your going to "take a step back from things right now" because of her instability and the way shes been judging you and hurting your feelings. If shes being possessive then you need to speak up about it and not be a door mat. You can tell her in a calm, cool, collected manner that you dont like what shes doing, how shes been treating you and do it without allowing your emotions to over come you. Your both adults here, and there are many aspects of ANY relationship/friendship in life that require rational, level headedness and not acting on pure emotion. The sooner you learn that and put it into motion in your life, the better things will turn out for you and her.
what the both of you do in your spare time is really none of each others business (yes even when it comes to friendship)
good luck and i hope things turn out ok for you and your friend.
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