Is length of relationship a sign of a good relationship?

BigAunty

Saturnalia wrote: »

Crikey Big Aunty, I'm getting flashbacks reading your posts! If it weren't for the fact that my little leech was male and enjoyed living in squalor, I'd swear we'd both encountered the same one.

Yeah, I'm a bit of broken record on this trauma of being used and abused by a PA but usually my reminiscences sparks a memory for someone else or a Light Bulb Moment for a new victim.

I wouldn't say she lived in squalor but she was very,very untidy and nothing ever got fixed or replaced unless it was by someone else's hand or pocket.

Thing is that their sense of entitlement and protective attitude towards others generosity is so deeply entrenched and their strategies for getting their free goods and services so sophisticated that hardly anyone else around them sucked into their vortex actually notices.

Even now, around 5/6 years on, I am in no doubt that her wide circle of friends and family are yielding to her every desire and whim with the odd rebel expelled from it by her.

I believe she probably used the incident of our friendship break-up as another basis for continually manufactured sob stories that resulted in advantage for her.

Apparently, she had no choice but to 'unfriend me' for failing to apologise for my insulting behaviour to her, such as my temerity to ask why she went on a luxury holiday after pleading poverty with me which led me to shell out to improve her spare room for the lodger she never bothered to get....

Btw, she didn't even get me a holiday prezzie (she's tight, of course)- my other mate who went along on holiday with her, and wanted to kill her by the end because of her diva behaviour, bought me a nice jade bracelet.

She was apparently in the habit on holiday of taking a long time to get ready, being late for scheduled events and unapologetic about it and sulking until she got her way with the air conditioning - compromise, she cannot.

That actually now reminds me of a time when a bunch of us decided to go cycling together and obviously one of us ended up having to overhaul her bicycle so she could join us, as of course, she was too precious to get her hands oily.

Saturnalia

Oh yes. The stinginess, the disorganisation, the sulking, the subtle sabotage of everyone's plans (like the taking forever to get ready until it is too late to go - yep mine did that too) their pay that never goes through properly, the lost/forgotten wallets, every card they send gets lost in the mail, their never-ending litany of sob stories about how everyone they've ever met has tried to do them over*, and of course the uncanny ability to ponce money and favours off everyone they meet!

(*i.e. had the cheek to stop the handouts.)

Problem is, as soon as one young naive mug cops on and ditches them, or ends up bled dry and not useful as a cashpoint anymore, they have no problems picking up the next. Can't deny there's a pretty shrewd brain behind that lovable buffoon facade.

BigAunty

Saturnalia wrote: »

Can't deny there's a pretty shrewd brain behind that lovable buffoon facade.

Yes, while my friend and the OPs friend have a facade of misery about them (necessarily to create the right atmosphere for un-noticed scrounging), you've got to hand it to the OPs pal for victimhood.

He has a life of leisure, able to follow his interests in reading and working out on a full time basis without having to do anything as tedious as having a job, in a relationship with a woman who hasn't pressed the issue of her fertility that's about to fall off a cliff, yet he's miserable? And people feel sorry for him?

System

Is length of relationship a sign of a good relationship?


No it can often mean you've learned how to put up with each other.

aileth

My parents have been married 30 odd years and they can't stand each other.

So no, definitely not!

Toucan_Pecan

Bit of an update: Nothing's changed! He's still as miserable as ever. He almost apologised to me over his anger, but told me that although he knows that he and his girlfriend aren't right for one another he still wants to sleep with her and she wants to sleep with him. It's a bit strange directing his anger at me and then justifying his relationship to me as if I am the one putting pressure on him to leave his gf, seriously... he just complains so much I thought it would be part of a solution.. well primarily getting a job!!! He said he will think about returning to work in January next year... and that maybe he will decide to break up and create a "gentle ending" with his gf but he would like to still live with her as he is "comfortable with her, and it's hard to find nice people to flatshare with".... I asked him how on Earth she was supposed to move on? I mean is it even healthy to live with an ex (esp since she is in love with him and he told me he doesn't love her). He said it will be up to her to decide that. Different strokes for different folks eh....

FBaby

He sounds very selfish and lazy, however he justifies his actions or plans. Although that doesn't have to make a bad friend, it certainly wouldn't make him a good long term partner!

Morglin

Judi wrote: »

Is length of relationship a sign of a good relationship?


No it can often mean you've learned how to put up with each other.

A sort of relaxed war of attrition lol

Lin

Toucan_Pecan

FBaby wrote: »

He sounds very selfish and lazy, however he justifies his actions or plans. Although that doesn't have to make a bad friend, it certainly wouldn't make him a good long term partner!

I think he's primarily looking out for his own interests but maybe it's unconscious (although 'his own interests' is really short term....)? Because he honestly can't seem to understand that it might he seen as quite selfish. Well, I suppose his gf says she's okay with it. I think though she's terrified to deal with being alone... I don't know, I don't think I'd stay with someone who doesn't love me.

JoW123

Toucan_Pecan wrote: »

I think he's primarily looking out for his own interests but maybe it's unconscious (although 'his own interests' is really short term....)? Because he honestly can't seem to understand that it might he seen as quite selfish. Well, I suppose his gf says she's okay with it. I think though she's terrified to deal with being alone... I don't know, I don't think I'd stay with someone who doesn't love me.

This friend isn't the one you were dating for a while and he went back to his ex who was a therapist is it??