Tell Giselle: Coming clean in stages

Tell Giselle: Coming clean in stages

“My girlfriend is annoying. Of late it has become way more difficult for me to enjoy my girlfriend’s company. She has become even more self-centered than she has been for as long as I’ve known her. She is in her mid-forties, recently single by choice I believe, working a lot more hours. She seems to be living more beyond her means. How do I tell my friend that she’s been acting unstable? I am wondering if I should bring up therapy. Do I come clean with her about what I am thinking?”

G: Let’s get real here by posing the question, are you interested in helping your friend mature with grace, or are you more interested in helping your friendship not end badly? It’s important to get that figured out before stirring the pot.

If you are genuinely interested in the well-being of your friend, and this applies to anyone in your inner circle, you’ve got to base your interactions with them on the trust that you have built up over time.

If you have not been forthcoming about intimate issues in the past, now is not exactly the perfect time to bring up their narcissism.

Truth be told, most of us will go through more than one period where our closest family members and friends think we are too self-absorbed, and they’ll be correct. In my spiritual playbook it is fine, and even essential to our development, to get more deeply focused on prioritizing oneself.

The real issue is if that stage/phase is prolonged and becomes detrimental to relationships or to oneself.

At different times we may not be so willing to listen to, or else we are unable to, take well-meaning criticism. If that is the situation with your friend, it would be especially challenging to try to confront her with your observations and displeasure.

Having said that, if you do not speak with her soon about your concerns then you are being less than an ideal friend. So, for starters, spend some time to determine what you want to risk. Is it her well-being? Are you willing to jeopardize what you have built with her or let your ongoing discomfort dominate your relationship till it combusts?

Those unpleasant feelings you have, if left unaddressed, will likely get worse unless she suddenly morphs back into a more tolerable level of narcissism, if there even is such a thing.

Should you open up to her about what you are feeling, the way you do this will set the outcome. I have found one of the most effective ways to be heard, in order to achieve the best results when broaching difficult subjects, is to begin by divulging something deeply personal about yourself. Like something that you have dealt with and the way you processed the ordeal.

You might, if true, say you didn’t handle this or that as well as you wished you had. Or that you were surprised and happy to learn there was someone in your life that cared enough about you to be honest with you, who brought it to your attention.

You can tell her you have gone through x y or z that created the conditions where all you could do was fixate on yourself. You can convey that you understand that it is normal to go through things that we don’t want to divulge because it is too personal. Then ask her, is that the case with you. Are you struggling or conflicted about something of that magnitude?

Without asking her to name what may be going on with her, see if you can at least get her to acknowledge that she herself recognizes she has become more erratic or stressed whenever you are together.

She may be able to recognize this is coming from your genuine concern. If so, she may be more willing to look at her behavior through your eyes.

But, here’s the big but, do not bring up the word narcissist right now. I have found that it is one of those fightin’ words that makes it harder to get past once it is out in the airspace.

Keep the judgmental views, any of the derogatory adjectives, out of this discussion. Reveal that things just don’t seem to be the same between you, and that it is affecting how you spend time together. Then let her talk freely, or watch her squirm and evade. Either way you will come away with a better sense of where things are and what you are willing to watch and/or endure till this phase mercifully ends.