SALON

Thursday, Nov 8, 2012 1:00 AM UTC

My BFF’s family is nuts!

She gets drawn into all their craziness. I keep telling her to butt out

By

Topics: friendship, Mothers, family systems, Cancer, Family, Since You Asked, Sisters,

My BFF's family is nuts! (Credit: Zach Trenholm/Salon)

Dear Cary,

My best friend’s sister has been diagnosed with cancer. She is getting treatment in another city 1,500 miles away. Her doctor has assured her that he has a 97-percent cure rate with this cancer and we are all thrilled at that news.

Their mom had heart surgery last year and has recovered at about the pace expected for her age (70). For weeks, my bestie and her siblings did not tell their mother about their sister’s cancer because they didn’t want to upset her. They finally had to tell Mom and she is worried (of course) and furious because she wasn’t told immediately.

For the last year all I have heard is, Mom can’t do this, can’t be told this, can’t be upset, can’t cook, garden, clean like she used to and so on. Well, Mom is still able to drive and hit the bingo parlors three times a week and get her shopping and hair done, so I think Mom is doing pretty well and is no more fragile today than she was before the surgery.

My friend is worse than a mother hen. She overprotects her kids and has been banned from some activities with her grandkids because she is so interfering. There are six kids in her family and she is always getting in between feuds between siblings. When she has asked my opinion through the years I have, on several occasions, suggested she butt out. She is always shocked at this but it has never ended our friendship.

I know she is scared but this constant care giving for Mom and now Sis is ridiculous. Enough is enough. Mom has lived alone for the last 10 years and Sis has a husband at home to help her. Let these people live their lives; butt out; if they needed her they would call. A couple of the other siblings have said the same thing to her and to me.

After her last venting session I calmly said, “You choose to assist even when they say no thank you, so quit complaining about your choice.” My friend is tired and struggling with depression. How can I tell her to butt out once again and have it not sound harsh? We have been friends for over 30 years and I can’t stand to see her worn out and run down when she doesn’t need to be.

Maybe I need to be harsh!

Dear Harsh Friend,

You have known your friend for 30 years and she is your best friend but you are not part of her family. You are a friend. You are outside the family.

As an observer outside the family you can see how crazily they are acting. What you cannot see is how you yourself have been drawn into the drama. By making your opinions known to your friend, you are participating in the family drama.

You must extricate yourself. You must slowly back away from the family.

Concentrate on your friendship with your friend. Do things with your friend that you both enjoy. If she needs to talk about her feelings toward her sister, let her talk but tell her when it is time to change the subject. Likewise if she wants to talk about her other family members, when it becomes boring and obsessive and seems to be dragging down your friendship, gently draw her interest to things outside her family.

Focus on your friend. If she is sad, or angry, or frustrated, then OK, those are her feelings. If she is hurt because of how her family is treating her, again, those are her feelings. Hear her out but do not be drawn in. Resist the temptation of the family drama.

If there are stories from your own family that you think will illuminate the situation, tell them. Look at your own family history and talk about how you dealt with similar situations. Talk about your own mother and your own brothers and sisters.

Above all, know that you cannot change your friend. You cannot stop her from acting the way she acts with her family. You can’t change her any more than she can change the members of her family or they can change her or she can change you. No one can change anyone else. You can support her and be her friend. That is all.

The more enmeshed you become in her family life, the more your friendship will deteriorate. In friendship, we try to become something better than what we are in the family. We try to rise above our origins and be our true selves. So concentrate on the person that she is to you, and leave her family drama to her.

Cary Tennis

Cary Tennis writes Salon's advice column and leads writing workshops and retreats.

  • Send me a letter! Ask for advice!
    • Letter writers please note: By sending a letter to advice@salon.com, you are giving Salon permission to publish it. Once you submit it, it may not be possible to rescind it. So be sure.
Writing Workshop in Amsterdam More Cary Tennis.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 11 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations