Hey she picked him!! She is living with him and his ways she chose it. So you need to let her live her life with him. You did not chose him so you can avoid and ignore his lazy behind!

Judge Judy always tells the woman hey you chose him hunny now live with your decision or divorce.

I tried being friends with a woman who's boyfriend used to say "she's so stupid", then laugh....and look at my DH & I like we were going to agree with him. I talked to her about it, she said it bothered her at first, then she got used to it.

I decided I didn't enjoy being around them....because of THAT! And he was lazy, unsuccessful, broke, a bigot....a loser. So I didn't respect her....or enjoy her company once I associated them as a couple!

I'm not in a situation like that now, but when I have been, I listen and depending on the situation, I'll either offer the best advise I can or I'll ask questions that help lead her to a solution but if the friend doesn't follow through and I'm at a point where the venting bothers me, I'll be honest and in a nice supportive way tell her I don't want to hear about it anymore. (You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink right?)

Yes, he's her husband and yes it's not your place to tell her to dump him, but you shouldn't have to suffer through years of listening to the complaints either. She needs to either make a change or stop complaining.

The most difficult part is that she is complaining about him. I would have suggested that you keep the friendship between just between the two of you, but if she is always talking about his faults, then you can't.

I have a friend who has a very odd husband. He is inappropriate and difficult to be around.

When my DH started to feel uneasy being around him, I started to just see my friend. But, after a while she tried to pull him back into the mix.

Right now, although we have kept in touch, I haven't seen her in over three years.

The difference in my story is that when I got together with my friend, she did not complain or say anything negative about her husband. It was always the OTHER person that did something wrong, or was disrespectful etc. and never her husband. She is also very defensive about him.

The truth is, you can't get into another person's relationship. As sad as it is, there are reasons why she is staying.

I really don't see the up side to staying friends but I wouldn't necessarily break ties if she is a long time friend. I just wouldn't initiate anything either. Be happy to hear from her when she calls.

You will know when the time is right to stop altogether.

hi bossyvossy,

You said - "When I listen to her complaints about him, I want to SCREAM" and then "I've chosen to keep my mouth shut but she notices as all the socializing happens at my place, never hers. When she complains I just nod. What do you do and why?"

I would ask my BF if she would please stop complaining and spend that energy doing something about it. And I would offer to help her do that something. And I would tell her that while I understand how she feels and shy she feels this way, I am tired of hearing about it.

Friends are precious in my opinion and so I hope you can find a way to keep yours in your life.

Firstly, if I enjoy her company, then I'd continue to see her - but only her. There'd be no getting together as couples. The only time he'd be included would be if it were a group thing, like a barbeque. Secondly, every time she complained about him I'd allow her to vent, then just shrug and say "You married him". She'll eventually come to her own conclusions.

In mentioning this, you need to be sure you're seen as minding your own business. Bring it up at the right time but do it in such a way that the "problem" is something YOU are trying to deal with, not something that relates to her or her husband.

The next time she mentions anything about him, say, "You know, Annie, I'm sorry to mention this but it makes me very uncomfortable when you talk about Fred this way. You know I'm your friend and will always support you, but conversations like this are very awkward for me". See how she responds. If there's no change, then you've raised the issue respectfully and you have a "take it or leave it" choice to make with respect to your friendship. That's likely the same choice she has with her marriage.

Friendships end for many reasons. Problems the other person is having or discomfort with what happens when you're with them are just two of many.

@bob_cville. That's hilarious.

i think the reason she complains is b/c that's the way she vents and then feels "renewed" to deal with the a@@whole. I have grown tired of the whining and have learned to discourage it w/o antagonizing her. But you know, whiners have a radar for finding ears to suit their needs and I don't doubt she had a pair of ears b4 me and will have a pair after me? Lol.

I don't know if any of you know any battered women. Sometimes they leave their batterer. Sometimes they go back. Who knows why their self esteem is so low that they have to stick with these worms.

This guy sounds like a worm also.

By complaining about their wormy bfs, some women may be looking for validation. Sadly, it takes some women a lot longer to see the handwriting on the wall than others.

I've known her over 15 yrs and have never seen so much as a scratch on her and I've not heard him call her names but his complete disregard of her or her value to the family has def. ruined her self confidence. His type of abuse is insidious. This is a 25+ year marriage.

One of my wife's friends, who I run into periodically when my wife isn't with me, started a habit of asking me questions about very personal and intimate aspects of her life. It's not that it was difficult for me (I can take anything from anyone) but rather I just didn't want her to think of me as her personal shrink. Maybe it was a male/female thing, but if you're looking for a vent, don't choose me.

Anyway, I said to her -"You know, Annie, I know you're dealing with a lot of issues but I don't think these are things I can help you with. Often you mention personal matters that I'd rather not talk to you about. Okay?"

That was all it took.

Not to derail here but what do you do when its your sister in law?

I really don't want to be around her at all, I can't stand her. My brother has chosen to "renew" their relationship and since then, he acts like they are a single unit.

It is ALWAYS "us and we", and he won't come over by himself, he ALWAYS has to bring her.

I want to have a relationship with my brother but I would rather keep her at arms length.

Texas_Gem, the best way to deal with your sister-in-law, unfortunately, is to try to make friends with her. Find a common interest and see if you can do that together, hopefully in a situation where you don't have to talk a lot. Enemies closer and all. If she actually feels like you're a friend, the crap that bothers you might get a bit better. And you can also ask her at some point if she'll let you have a date with your brother now and then, just the two of you. Your brother may be so pointedly "we"-ish because he knows or feels your antipathy and is intent on supporting his wife.

Re the OP, I had the same thought as Bob. ;) And I agree with S-lash. Just set boundaries for what you're willing to listen to.

Someone who has been in a 25 year marriage, is not being actively abused, and just rags on her husband? Totally different home life, but I have a friend who's like that too. It's very wearing to hear the same litany of complaints over and over when she doesn't do anything to change her situation. I'm brutally honest with this friend and talk to her about how to make herself happier rather than getting into their marriage, which is their private business, and I'm not a marriage counselor. The relationship is obviously working on some level if they're still together. The grousing may just be venting, but I don't have to listen to it. They say it's men who try to fix things and women who just want support, but I'm more of a fix things person. My answer is honor your husband enough not to run down his character to your friends, and work on improving your own self and creating your own happiness.

I have a similar situation with a SIL. I am respectful and kind, but I don't like her for many reasons. When I do something for her, it's really for my husband, is how I look at it.

I must be the only one... a friend is a friend. Period, full stop. We all have quirks and shortcomings. I'd not try to fix a friend (who am I to say my way is better?) or suggest ways they should change their life. I would accept the spouse/boyfriend even if I didn't like him. Truly. My siblings have spouses with whom I have nothing in common, and I can stay carry on a conversation with them. Why not? I don't have to love them and I don't have to live their life. I hope it works out well for you bossyvossy! Bestest wishes for peace ever coming from me to you.

Family relations are harder. We have a male relative that has married numerous times. The first wife was welcome to family with open arms but after a few years took off with the husband's best friend. The family was scandalized and devastated. By the time he presented his fourth wife, the family was blasé and coolish towards her. It hurt her feelings badly as this was the wife that took. Family relations--hard, lol. BTW, I'm not part of a swamp family, we just act like one sometimes...

"I must be the only one... a friend is a friend."

For me, listening to someone who is troubled and emotionally battered transcends friendship. If an acquaintance was troubled and needed someone to listen, I'd give some time.

I have done it before myself, and will suggest it here... apply a moratorium on that subject.

Tell them straight-up that because you consider them a close friend, appreciate and enjoy their friendship, and treasure that relationship - while you respect their decision on a partner and mate, you will not listen to complaints about a subject of which you find repellent.

Let them know how you feel about the sharing of chores and responsibilities, and that their circumstance is outside your desire to get involved. How they choose to live their life is their own choice. Also let them know that if the problem becomes serious, you will be glad to listen or help if need be.. but hearing everyday complaints will only frustrate you and damage your relationship.

If they can not respect your lines, then you may have to temporarily (until their conditions change) cut off ties. It sounds harsh, but if the problem is so serious, then continually subjecting yourselves to the issue will eventually cause a breakdown in the relationship anyway. At least if you are loving in the way you explain your opinion, it leaves the door open.

what lucille's 2 posts said.

Lazy, won't do a thing, yet things get done because she does them.

This sounds like a woman whose self-esteem has been eaten away, & she needs validation.

I think I'd make my responses about her, but I would make the responses:

"so you're doing this & this & this, & he's doing...uh, he's letting you do it?"

My ex never did a thing around the house, yet he'd wake me up in the middle of the night & demand that I get up & look at what a mess I'd left in the kitchen & make me watch while he Ajaxed the range, counters, sink, & table. He never would do it directly after dinner, he'd go sit in his recliner & read or work on whatever hobby he had at the time.

He always went back to the kitchen when he'd run out of other things to do, & then he woke me up.

We also had had an agreement about the division of the bills;

he was to pay the house payment, & I paid utilities.

House payment never went up, his salary did go up.

Utilities went up, & my salary did not go up.

Toward the end, I was riding the bus to work & carrying a sack lunch, & he was driving to work (at first in his car, then in my car so he wouldn't put the miles on his!) & eating expensive restaurant lunches every day.

When I approached him for a re-write of our agreement, he refused, saying, "That's what we agreed."

It took years for me to recover any semblance of self-esteem, & at least a year to get over the physical & mental exhaustion & the jumpiness.

He was a bum & a parasite, & I wish I'd let the utilities get disconnected & left him long before I finally left (never did let those utilities go).

I wish I had had a good friend with whom I could have shared my feelings & doubts & who would have given me some reflection & insight.

Take care of yourself, & take care of your people.

I wish I had had a good friend with whom I could have shared my feelings & doubts & who would have given me some reflection & insight.

That's a true friend! You're really good at doing this Sylvia. Truly.

I wish I could remember the three most typical reasons people go to a marriage counselor -- as related by a marriage counselor in an article I read recently.

One was the expectation that the counselor would affirm that everything was the other partner's fault. One may have been to get some kind of official recognition that the marriage was over. (I'm not sure if that was on her list, but I've heard it.) One was that, although both partners *knew* what was wrong with the relationship, neither would address it.

Your friend knows what's wrong, but if she won't address it, she is party to it.

While there is value in being 'an ear' for a friend's woes, you may be enabling her to distract herself from the core problem and her options to address it. Do you have the name of a good psychologist to give her? She may need to rebuild her SELF as a first step.

well dd2 finally woke up when xdh slept with the nanny....and I verbally spar with one dil on fb, but never in person...my ds2 isn't the type to stray and is loyal to a fault...and right now I get along with sil better than dd1...last, ds1 has made a break with dil, but i'm treading a fine line, as she is very loved by their 2dd's...never a dull moment with 4 kids and 9 grands...oh dd2 was married over 10 years and ds1 was married 15..,

maybe your friend doesn't have the education or job that she feels secure leaving...and what happens to the children even if older?

If it is really bothering you I would tell her how you feel, then you can back away if thats what you want to do. If its just that you don't want to hear about her troubles let her know and maybe she will keep it to herself. If you stick around maybe you can be a help to her.

@chisue, you hit it right on the nose

Rob, I didn't mean fix the friend! I'm a very loyal friend to whom people often confide specifically because I can help solve problems. The only friends I've ever dumped are ones who went out of their way to hurt my feelings--which, since I'm pretty tolerant, isn't easy to do. I do listen to friends vent, just as they listen to me. Venting is important. And within a few months the issue goes away and I choose to forget about it because I don't want venting to color the way I see my friends' husbands. But when a friend grouses about the same thing in her relationship for year after year, without any progress or change, I stop listening to it. If you're miserable enough to get out, go. I'll help you if it's too hard (but I'd rather not because you'll dump me when you get back on your feet even if you promise not to (classic divorce behavior--get rid of the people who helped you through the bad time to get on with your new life)). If you're happy enough to stay, do what you need to do to make yourself happy and make your homelife peaceful. Maintaining an equilibrium of misery is neither good for the grouser nor nice for the people around her. And it's boring.

Oh! Bossyvossy, if Chisue hit it on the nose, then maybe you do need to step up and get your friend into counselling even if it means a strain on your friendship. My comments were about friends who don't have clinical level problems. If your friend won't go to counselling, and you want to help her, perhaps you could set up an activity that you can do together where she has some control and success, and be in a low stress social environment. A knitting class/group or some other craft or cooking thing, maybe.

We covered this long ago. He said that she was looking for someone to side with her so it HAD to be a man to ensure some measure of impartiality. There were no male marriage counselors within a convenient driving distance. She said that male or female, it made no sense to go by herself because "fixing herself" wouldn't fix him. You see, she does want to complain but too lazy or powerless or combo to do anything about it. My decision was made long ago to not intervene. I was curious as to what others did. Postings have been interesting.

One time she was crying, no, sobbing that her house was a mess and nobody wanted to help her. I was struck by her pain so volunteered 3 Saturday afternoons (in a row) to help her clean. We vacumed, laundered linens, moved heavy furniture from 2nd floor to bottom floor and grown children/a@@hole just looked on. A month later we went upstairs to discuss paint and the rooms were the same mess I had encountered the very first time. Nobody did anything. Lesson learned and I was so proud of myself that I said nothing when I really wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, lol.

In her defense, had it been me crying about dirty home, she would have come, not 3 afternoon, but 3 entire days to help me. But she would do it as an escape from her house. It seems so ungrateful to question her motives but I've never asked her so neither here nor there. And she is really a lovely woman--warm, funny, smart, not a malicious hair in her body, but oh, what a hot mess, lol!

I have a friend who isn't as bad as some of the men described here, but he does seem quick with cutting remarks and criticisms towards his wife to the point where I sometime feel uncomfortable around them.

A favorite local singer/songwriter of mine has a song that reminds me of them. The song itself is happy, bouncy, upbeat and uptempo, but the lyrics depict a women who hides away in an imagined happy place, to escape from her husband and her loveless marriage.

La La Rosie Goes
Written by T.A. Allard
(c) 1998 Terri A. Allard BMI

Rosie goes to La La land
Just like she goes to town
slips her mind into reverse
and turns herself around
La, la Rosie goes
La, la Rosie goes

Rosie goes to La La land
when he steps through the door
Flips a switch and "presto"
He can't see her anymore
La, la Rosie goes
La, la Rosie goes

Thirty years she cooked his meals
He never failed to put her down
Rosie goes to La La Land
And never hears a sound

Rosie goes to La La land
When he turns off the light.
Reaches with his cold hard hands
and she takes off in flight.
La, la Rosie goes
La, la Rosie goes

Driven by the darkness
And the pounding in her brain
Rosie goes to La La Land
And never feels a thing

If he ever loved her
Never told her so
Doesn't have the strength to leave
So she just goes -- she just goes

Rosie goes to La La land
More and more each day.
She's no longer in command
of when she slips away.
La, la Rosie stay
La, la Rosie stay
La, la Rosie stay.

my gosh, what a sad sad song! I'm afraid this is the story of a lot of marriages. I'm lucky, I do have a sweet loving husband! I do know people that live this though, unfortunately.

Bossyvossy, it sounds like your friend could perhaps have clinical depression. I had a friend who was in a similar situation. She denied that she was depressed, too. Her family walked all over her because she didn't have the oomph to make them treat her with respect. Then she was hospitalized for a general medical problem and they diagnosed the depression and got her on medication and counselling. Then she had problems with her family, especially her husband, because she wasn't being a doormat anymore. The counselling helped that too. And they got used to her not-depressed self after awhile and the whole family seems happier five years later. The insidious thing about depression is that it stalls people so badly that it makes it really hard for them to shift enough to get help.

Can you help your BF find a counselor -- and push her to keep going?

She's stuck. It will probably take a few months of therapy for her to realize that she has options than staying stuck. Playing martyr is toxic to her, and to her family and friends (like you).

"He" doesn't have to attend any counseling. This isn't about him. It's about her getting herself back.

This may sound harsh but, from personal experience I've learned that life is very short, and often it is not worthwhile to continue an unhappy relationship whether family or not. My older sister always put me down and treated me shabbily until finally, knowing one cannot change another, I withdrew from the relationship. Many lost years later, I'm thankful that we do talk by phone and enjoy reminiscing about younger days.

I always think it's better, nicer, more decent, to do the best you can & to be there for one's friends when they're in need & when they reach out for support or validation.

I'd "withdraw" only if/when the relationship became draining.

I see no indication that this friend has dumped her problems on op.

I agree with pink warm mama. There are people who suck energy and happiness out of those they interact with. Life is indeed too short to let others bring you down, whether it's a relative or friend. Other than my immediate family, I don't feel any obligation to do more than try to get on with a difficult person. When the problems become a recurring pattern, it's time to cut losses and move on.

My barber has a sign on the wall, it's probably common in many forms:

"Everyone brings joy to this place. Some when they enter, others when they leave."

If she doesn't complain about him, just be friends with her, or do whatever you usually do in the activity department with her. If she does complain about him as you indicate, at some point you will have to open up and make some suggestions -- maybe not as blunt as "LEAVE THE IDJIT" -- at least not right off the bat, since you haven't been doing that -- but telling her she needs to draw boundaries. Otherwise, you are just helping her to enable him. And, ultimately, that's not a real friendship.