Any advice would be appreciated

[peejay]

I am new to the forum but any advice would be appreciated. My issue involves a person with who I was friends for a long time. I decided for many reasons to end the friendship because I felt that it was a very negative relationship and far too competitive. I did not feel that the other person really considered me a friend but rather a rival and just wanted to best me at everything. I did not feel good being around this person. I just let the relationship drift and did not pursue contact with this person. They did not pursue contact with me either after a while and I thought I would just move on. This person has since resurfaced in my life and is now insinuating herself into my life and I feel powerless to get away from her. I have joined several local groups and have spent a great deal of time cultivating new friendships and now she has joined the same groups and is constantly asking me to include her in my activities. If I don't include her she contacts another member of the group and asks them to include her. I do not want this person to know who my friends are because I know she will actively pursue her own relationships with them. I don't particularly dislike this person, I just don't want to be around her and now I feel that I have to either include her in all my activities or leave my groups and friends and go and find others. I have tried to use the Law of Attraction to resolve this situation but I think I have probably made it worse by actually attracting her into my life. Does anyone have any advice how I can turn this around and find some kind of peace with this. Can you use the Law of Attraction to remove something or someone from your life?

[Angela]

peejay, I think by resisting her so hard, you are keeping her in your life. What you resist, persists. Perhaps you could take a look at why her competitiveness and rivalry pushes your buttons -- is this something you've experienced before? Are you holding onto some leftover childhood rivalry, maybe with your mom or sister? Take a good look, and practice acceptance of what comes up for yourself, and then of her (and your old rivals) as well. Don't forget, accepting does not mean condoning. Of course you can take steps to change your situation. But as long as your resistance rules you and you are reacting to the feelings of rivalry, you are holding these feelings tightly to your heart. When you practice acceptance, then you're free to act powerfully and with love.

[Brutha]

Are you male or female?
Is she romantically interested in you? How deep was your relationship?
What kind of local groups are we talking about?

I have tried to use the Law of Attraction to resolve this situation but I think I have probably made it worse by actually attracting her into my life.

You won't solve this by focusing her attention on her, reframe your problem so you can make positive intentions. Negative intentions don't work. Focusing on the benefit instead of the problem is necessary when you want to have any with the LoA or positive thinking.

You also seem to have a communication problem, a thread title like "Any advice would be appreciated" doesn't say anybody anything about your problem. The lack of paragrafs make it harder to read your post.
You don't give enough information for us to analyse your problem.
I don't know whether it is on purpose or on accident.

[peejay]

Thanks very much for your reply. I will try to give you some more detailed information. Sorry but I have never sought advice for this before I have just tried to work it out myself so I might not be very clear.

I am a female in my 40's. This person and I have known each other for about 15 years. There is no romantic interest on either side. We were quite close for a number of years. Our lives were very similar, we lived on the same street, our kids were the same ages and in the same grades at school and on the same sports teams. We did a lot of things together with the kids.

This person's entire family is very competitive, her children had to win at everything, they compete with other friends over who has the most toys etc and she even competes with her husband, (they are both runners). I felt uncomfortable early in the friendship because she would imitate everything I did and buy her kids everything I bought my kids. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but it started to really bother me. Anyway I don't want to go on about this too long.

The family moved to a more upscale neighbourhood in our community and suddenly had lots of money and were driving new cars etc. I had a hard time with this because I kept getting nagged by my kids as to why couldn't we have this or that or new cars etc. I was always explaining to them that we had made different choices. I did not want to get into a game of keeping up with the Joneses because that is an absolute no win situation. They constantly seemed to be rubbing our noses in all the stuff they had and we did not. It sounds like I'm just jealous and there may be an element of truth there but I really would not want to have her life, it is way too much maintenance for me.

As I said I just let the relationship drift, I really had the feeling that they wanted to move into a more influential social circle and we didn't fit the criteria. I did not see her for a couple of years.

As I mentioned I have made new friendships and actually have a life I am quite happy with. I belong to a running group and also to a golf group and I have a group of friends I do a lot of social actvities with. This woman has now joined our running group and has dropped hints about joining the golf group and every time I make plans to do something with someone she wants to be included. She tries to make friends with the people in the group that I am closest to and the more I try to avoid her the more aggressive she gets. I feel like I am being used because she seems to try to piggy back on everything I do rather than go and make her own friends and get her own things going.

I feel kind of stupid to be having a problem like this at my age. I would have thought that she would have gotten the message a long time ago that I did not want to be friends with her. I have avoided her as much as I possibly can without being rude.

I just know that I have to bring this to a head and deal with this once and for all. I have never had anything like this to deal with before. I haven't ended very many friendships but I have never had one follow me around like this. I don't want to have really bad feelings for this person, she is the way she is, but I am getting really resentful of her persistence in my life.

[AmandaP]

Sounds basic, but have you tried just sittung her down and telling her how you feel. I discovered a frienemy in my social cicrle a few years back. We tried just not including her, we tried to make plans without her, but we were lives in a small town (100,000 or so) it meant she normal found us. In the end I just sit her down and said "look this is how it is". There were some hurt feelings and some tense times afterwards but life got a whole lot better when I just stopped hiding from it and dealt with the issue.

[RT Wolf]

I agree with Amanda, in that it seems that it'd be best to talk to her one-on-one. Not many people have experience with this sort of thing, so I would suggest looking for books on communication. Some good ones I've found are Crucial Conversations, Difficult Conversations by Anne Dickson and Difficult Conversations by a whole bunch of people.

If you have a friend that seems to have a knack for delivering bad news or dealing with people, you might consider asking them for advice. Alternatively, you could find some sort of counselors and ask their advice as well.

If you believe in a benign universe, then perhaps this is an opportunity for you to face someone or a situation you perhaps subconsciously felt you didn't deal with properly. It takes courage to do something like this.

Also, as Angela said, you might want to try to understand where she is coming from and why she acts the way she does. You could try finding out why she's decided to restart your friendship, however be careful of assigning blame or getting angry. Be genuinely curious and you can learn a lot about others and yourself.

Good luck and hope this helps!

[Conan Stevens]

You may just find that she is lonely and feels she has a connection with you because of your similar pasts and knowing each other for so long.

Why don't you sit down and talk with her, find out what she wants and talk about what you want, but LISTEN to her first

I am surprised nobody here even mentioned to find out why it is that she "follows" you.

[peejay]

I think you may be right to a certain degree about her being lonely, but I believe I know why she "follows" me.

I have known this woman for quite a long time so my comments are made from this perspective. She is very much a "me first" type of person. I don't think she wants to invest the time or trouble to cultivate new relationships and I think she finds it easier to let me go out and do the leg work so to speak. Her and I have similar interests and I have gone out and found the groups and people who are into the same stuff I am (running, golfing etc) and I have spent the last few years developing these relationships. I think she would just like to have me bring her into my social circle so it is ready made for her so to speak.

I have noticed over the years that the only things she has spent any time on are things that will provide some kind of payback in either social status or to further an agenda for their kids. (ie coaching a sports team so their son will make the team, being on the executive of sports associations their kids are involved in etc). I believe most of her social circle revolves around business contacts for her husband's career.

She is looking for friends who fill a need for her, she does not bring much to the relationship. I don't want to make her sound like a horrible person because she is not. If you met her you would probably like her. As I said in my earlier post, I don't dislike her I just really don't want to be used to fill her needs.

It's kind of like you spend the time to build a house and someone walks over and says thanks very much and moves right in.

I can talk to her but I'm not sure what I would say. She hasn't done anything terrible, I just don't like her style. The problem is really mine. I don't own my friends and if she decides that she wants to call them and find out what our plans are and be included I can't tell them not to be friendly to her and I don't want to tell them how I feel about her because these are my feelings and I don't want to bad mouth her.

The way I see it I either have to put up with her being with us when we socialize or I have to find other things to do. I guess it's a like it or lump it situation.