I have had the wonderful experience of having it up to here with this woman. Some background: so my sister (23F) who I’ll call Anne, has a friend with whom she has been friends with for around 6-7 years. Let’s call this friend Liz. I only hung out with Liz because I liked hanging out with my sister, and more often than not she liked to butt in when Anne and I were having sister bonding time. I wouldn’t have minded that so much either but I would wish it to be any other of my sister’s friends, anybody but Liz.
Liz has always been the type of person to make jabs and be passive aggressive when she gets the chance, saying things about my size (even though we’re similar sizes, the only difference is I’m more filled out in the hip area) and often times when I was working overtime she would say things like “I’m surprised your family recognizes you, it’s like you’re never home! I’m here more often than you are!” And then laugh as if it was a fun joke. Any time my sister and I were having a serious conversation about something completely irrelevant to Liz, she would always get offended that we were “excluding her” and making her feel like “she wasn’t welcome.” She must always be in the know about our personal life. Not that you can’t include certain friends in things like that, but this was to the point that it was just plain invasive and obsessive.
Other ways she would seem intrusive was by “accidentally” calling my mom “mom,” always messing with my cat claiming that she would be “so much more spoiled and loved if she lived with Auntie Lizzie,” and even would outright say to Anne “I would make such a great sister, and I know I would be your favorite, too!” While looking at me and laughing. There’s countless more examples where that came from. Those things I was able to tolerate, I didn’t let it get to me at the time, she was simply an annoyance that I could easily ignore. That was only the beginning, which started happening around 4 years ago.
But it gradually got worse within the last couple of years. In almost every story I gave she had to top it, in every sickness I had she definitely had it worse at some point, but she “never complained because she’s tough.” Almost every time she was around she just had to mention how weird my makeup looked, or that I caked it on, or made creepy comments about how my style and clothes would suit her better.
But the worst was this: ever since I started dating my now fiancé, she would always find a way to hang out when he was around. She would then proceed to try to flirt with him and make passive aggressive remarks about me, including the classic embarrassing stories of me to make herself somehow look cool or something. Of course he would defend me, and take my side whenever situations like that would happen, he didn’t just sit there and let her do it. But unfortunately that meant nothing to her.
There would be times she would act clumsy around him just so she would “trip” and grab onto him forcing him to help her up. She would get really close in his space and flatter him and tell him he was a nice person. She would “accidentally” call him pet names such as “dear” and “love” and other names, and when other people would hang out with us she would make it a point to always sit near him, and she would say how they got along great and that they just connected so well.
That was the last straw for me, so I decided to confront her during one little get together with some friends, while I was able to get some privacy with her. I told her that her actions were making me uncomfortable and I asked her to kindly keep her distance when it came to men who were already committed. She told me that I was blowing it out of proportion and that she was just being herself, then continued to turn it around and say that I was acting insecure and jealous, and that “just because she was a sexy, confident woman didn’t mean I had to act so intimidated.” I then pointed out to her that I had many friends who were very attractive and yet I never felt insecure around them because they were genuine people who didn’t have ulterior motives. She just shrugged and said that I was still being too protective of what “belongs” (?) to me and that I viewed her as a threat, she even made a comment about how I should just go to therapy instead of projecting my insecurities onto other people.
That’s where the conversation ended, and after that I just kept questioning myself whether or not I was actually making a huge deal out of something that wasn’t worth bringing up. I know for certain that the way she’s behaving is out of line, but I don’t know how best to approach it because she hasn’t done anything directly to make me confront her again.
I have been afraid to talk to Anne about everything, but I know that I should. I just feel bad for turning her against a supposedly good person when she’s really only targeted me so far that I know. Anne is such a sweet and genuine person who always sees the best in people, and I know they were close when they were younger so I don’t want to hurt her. But then again, I still need to get her in on what’s been happening because I think she should know. I know she would take my side but I don’t want to cause drama for her. How should I approach this?
TL;DR: My sister’s friend is trying to invade my life, has attempted to make subtle moves on my fiancé, and then blames it on me as me just projecting and being insecure while she acts naive and innocent about her behavior. Wondering how I should approach the situation now that confronting Liz failed.
Submitted November 27, 2021 at 07:41PM by theholiestcow https://ift.tt/3p9mOif
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