She drives me crazy!

I’ve come back from my trip feeling totally weird. This friend of mine is considered by most highly annoying. Even my husband gets quite irritated when she is around. But she is a good person and has always been there for me when I have needed her. She puts up with me better than my relatives. She has four children 11 and under, she is a home schooler, and going by what I could see, she is driving her husband up the wall.

She is unorthodox in that she has a unique way of doing things, but on the other hand, she is afraid of what others are going to say. In other words, she acts weirdly and annoys everybody, but she's clueless. In her mind, she is portraying the image of a perfect wife and mother, and being admired by all.

We had a serious disagreement after church on Sunday.

We came to church and she just threw her jacket on the pew, when she could have hung it on the hallway. I took it and went outside to hang it. Then, she took her boots off, and her six-year-old daughter moved from two places away, by walking on the pew, to her arms, to be cuddled. Since we were singing standing up, she sat the girl (taller than most six year olds) on the back of the pew in front of us.

I looked around and people were looking, bewildered. Most folks teach their children to behave in church, so to me what she was doing was highly unusual. Then her little guy started acting out, and daddy on the opposite side of the pew, handed him to her.

He continued to be difficult and at some point, she run out of the sanctuary, barefoot, to calm down her three year old. She did that two more times after that.

At some point during the service, she had insisted that her eldest put away his Garfield comic book. He refused.

When we got home, she scolded him, for having disobeyed her. At that point, I couldn’t shut up. I said, “He was quietly reading his book, behaving perfectly well, while his sister was walking on the pew and acting out, and you’re scolding him? People were looking at us, bewildered.”

She went on to insist that there was nothing wrong with the girl standing on the pew or sitting on the pew’s back. I was wrong. People weren’t scandalized.

I feel awful for having argued with my hostess. Awful.

But the arguing didn’t stop there. I had been there since Thursday and had seen enough. Her priorities don’t include feeding her children. Sometimes, it is 11 am and the kids haven’t had anything to eat. Since I had to eat, I had to share what I made for me. I gave them yogurt, chopped fruit, sliced sausage and what not. In fact, the day I left, the little one said, “I like ---. She gives me yogurt.”

We were talking about traveling when she said to prefer going out with the children alone, without her husband. I, stupidly, jumped off my seat and blurted. “Oh, my gosh, don’t do that. You’ll starve the children to death.” That didn’t go well, since she's not only careless, but she's also a terrible cook.

I also said later that she should send me the children so I can take them to the Olympics. “No, not you, only the children. I’ll send them home overweight.”

The kids and I got along great, and I had great conversations with her husband, who is also my friend. We all met when we were single, a lifetime ago.

For what I gathered, she has trouble finding people to visit her and to stay with when she comes into town. She says the children drive everyone crazy. She couldn’t believe they didn’t drive me nuts. But I think it isn’t the kids who make people climb the walls, it’s her.

She believes in “communication skills.” So she is constantly “perception checking.” Every moment she is with you, she wants to know if she offended you, if you really want to, say, go out, or whatever. But she doesn’t ask you once, she asks again and again. “Are you sure?” “Is it really OK to leave the children with you for a few minutes?” “Is no problem, is it?”

After the third or fourth time, I get quite irritated, and showing annoyance say, “Why wouldn’t I want to stay with the children?”

The weird thing is that up till the last second, she kept saying how glad she was that I came, how much the children liked me, and how much she’d like for me to come see them again soon. She even wanted us to figure out which room my husband and I could use when we come together, this winter preferably.

Why would she want somebody grumpy like me to come visit? Why isn’t she offended by my nasty retorts and lack of patience? Why does she want to have a visitor who constantly disagrees with her and sides with her weary husband?

Sometimes I daydream that I’m telling her all these things. Or at least, I’d like to know why she wants to have such a disagreeable friend. I truly don’t get it.

I know I came with presents for the kids and they loved me for it, but it was cheap stuff. Nothing to write home about. I am also trying to convince her to stop trying so hard to be perfect. I say things like, "Don't be so hard on yourself. There are no perfect parents. No matter what you do, you'll always make mistakes." Or, "The purpose of life is to be happy, not to be perfect."

I just feel that I showed her in too many ways, nice and nasty, how much I disagree with the way she goes about life. And I don't like that. I believe in accepting people as they are, not in trying to change them. Basically, I feel that my co-dependency flared up, and I don't like it.

Today, I’m puzzled. On one hand, I am glad I went and enjoyed her lovely kids. Great kids. I loved feeding them and giving them attention and being useful. But I’m not sure that I should go back. I feel bruised and traumatized. Shouldn’t she feel the same way?