Marc (my boyfriend) and I allowed a friend who was on hard times move in with us about seven months ago. She had the credit and hopes of getting a house soon, at the time she just didn’t have a place to stay. When that fell through we asked her to contribute some many to the household for expenses etc. Then she lost her job. For the next four months she moved between jobs but the economy sucked and she wasn’t able to keep a job. Finally she got a job and has held it for almost three months now. Marc and I had decided to reask her to give to the house hold. But she is moving out now so it’s a moot point.

What, you may be asking yourself, was the point? That was the nice version. For the past seven months we have tried our best to help this friend but all we get in return is a messy kitchen and what feels frightfully like a lack of thanks. She said to me that she says thank you all the time. I can’t really remember the last time she said it though. This feeling of being taken advantage of has persisted for about four months now and has caused me to whine about the circumstance to my boyfriend. The poor guy finally broke today. Between the two of us we just lashed out with tons of pent up anger and frustration.

I fear that I’ve lost someone I consider a best friend. I share the blame. If I had the courage to confront her about rent or about the little things she did that were annoying then maybe things could have been salvaged. As it is, I think I’ll accept that her moving out will be a time for new beginnings even though I rather wish it was different. She definitely leaves with our blessing and our hopes that she will resolve all the things in her life that need to be changed. Her anger and her mood swings will hopefully be controlled. But really, our breaking point was reached weeks ago, we’ve just been clinging to each other in the hopes that this would have never happened.

Best luck to you girl, and hopefully you’ll see that we DO care about you and DO love you and only want the best and that we are all at fault for the demise of this relationship.

-Deb