I’m a 19-year-old female, and I have just moved into a share house with a good friend. Recently she has started to become quite possessive about our time together, demanding that I invite her to social functions and getting upset if I invite other friends over. I haven’t raised this with her because I don’t want a falling out.
You may not want a falling out but that’s exactly what you are going to get. If you don’t confront your friend, this relationship will explode in your face.
You think that by saying nothing, you are being nice and considerate. This girl is attracted to you or she is a lonely soul who has very few friends. Either way, you feel sorry for her. You don’t want to upset her by telling her how you really feel about her possessiveness.
Instead, you allow her to get away with her demanding and manipulative behaviour. She becomes upset if you don’t do what she wants. Knowing you are weak and compliant, she insists you invite her out.
Where do you think this is heading? Do you really think you can continue to give in to her demands indefinitely?
You don’t like being manipulated and bossed around and yet you are too afraid to confront her. From experience, you know that when you confront someone they often get annoyed. You fear you’ll lose her. Also, you want to think of yourself as a nice person. You want people to like you.
You are not being honest and you are not expressing your true feelings.
There are dozens of excuses for not being honest and right at the top is our favourite, “because it will hurt their feelings.” Of course, it will hurt her feelings but that is no excuse for allowing a situation to continue that gives you grief.
This girl likes you. She thinks you are a sweet, tolerant person. She doesn’t realise your smiling face hides discontent. You keep your dissatisfaction hidden so she, and others, perceive you as nice and likeable. None of them really know you. Pretending to be nice in order to be liked is folly. The personality they like is a fraud.
She needs to know how you feel. Her behaviour suggests a personality that is needy, insensitive and lacking in self-awareness, but you cannot blame her if you keep allowing her to behave this way without any protest. She will assume you don’t mind. She is incapable of working out for herself that you don’t appreciate her possessiveness. By not telling her the truth, you are leading her on.
If you don’t act, you are going to get more and more annoyed with her. You will build up large stores of resentment. Then one day, over some minor annoyance, it will all burst out in one, over-the-top confrontation.
You will have created the very thing you feared and hoped to avoid, a falling out.
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