Steph Claire Smith

You don't have to always be that way.

Like if you need to respond to them and just say, hey, you're actually making me feel really uncomfortable.

You're excluding me.

You're making me feel like I'm not good enough.

You also, if you feel that that's something that you want to do, just know that you can.

All right, next question.

Hello, ladies.

I would really appreciate your advice on this.

Me and my best friend have been friends since middle school and we're now in our late 20s.

For a few years, I felt like I can't relate to her and like we're at completely different stages of life.

I would be very accepting of this and the idea that maybe our friendship is just naturally shifting.

However, she is incredibly dependent on me.

She doesn't have any other friends, hobbies, or any social life.

She tries to stay in contact with me every single day, but my job is very demanding and I have other relationships and priorities in my life to tend to.

Anytime I've tried to set a boundary with this, she apologizes profusely but then eventually returns to the same habits.

Unfortunately, I feel like we haven't been able to meet as equals in our adult lives.

I'm not sure how to continue to approach this friendship because I feel like she has enforced a power dynamic that I don't want to have in a friendship.

How would you suggest approaching the friendship going forward without cutting it off fully, but empowering the both of us to be able to live more independently?

I think what makes this very hard is just from, like, the facts that you have sent through, it feels like your friend is very insecure within your friendship.

Which makes it even harder.