How to handle a depressed friend who keeps repeating mistakes

[SwedishViking]

Hey look at the bright side, she'll be too old to have kids with the next douche...

[Snd485]

Sorry that you're in a tough spot. I think it was nice of you to renew contact with your friend to help her out while she's going through a tough time. Unless it's too difficult for you to disconnect yourself from her problems, I don't see why you can't be friends again...although maybe not as close of friends as you used to be. It sounds like your friend does need some counseling and a boost of self confidence to keep her from getting in this situation again but self confidence is the kind of thing that needs to come from inside. You can offer her some attention, listen to her problems and give sound advice...hopefully this time she decides to take it.

[Gudra]

She needs to get sterilised.

[=Lavender=]

i would not associate with someone like her. Also do worry about her because she cares very little for herself if she keeps repeating her mistakes over and over and does not care how you or others feel or have tried to help her in the past........ she is a waste of time and not worth yours.

[redvelvet709]

One more thing to add to the rest of these posts-

No one EVER listens to the well-intentioned friend. Ever. No one ever says to themselves "Ya know...she's right. I am doing all the wrong things. I think I will make these oh so positive changes to my life right now and avoid the years of future heartache and pain that will inevitable come from my continual bad decisions!"
Never happens.
I have made attempts to show people of the messes they are in before, but I think while we are in those messes, we are learning. No one can learn if they don't find out for themselves. That said, some people need to make the same errors over and over until they finally reach their breaking point.
We cannot know when that point is with another.

[theluckygal]

Thats so sad. It seems like a pattern with so many women. Self-help books really help a lot in improving perspective on life. Movies & fantasy stories have distorted our views about relationships. Books by experts can help understand the reality.

Try to talk her into reading these books:
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft
(this is a must read for every woman)

Why Men Love B*tches by Sherry Argov
(fun read & helps a lot in differentiating genuinely interested guys from time wasters)

He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo

[peter-1]

Your getting good advice with the prof help recommendation . What I might add, is that when people come on with huge problems repeatedly in this type of relationship scheme....don't forget you can always say,

you know I'm not really trained for these things and don't want to say the wrong thing, so its hard for me to give feedback........

this can shut them down, be firm ...these people in a way invade your life with their problems because they cannot discipline themselves...so they really are looking for the example in discipline from others...that means NO MORE...so they then take that example of NO MORE to their situation....the listener-friend often winds up on the bad end of it...will be hoping the mentioned...get prof help works out for all concerned

side-note....sometimes people can seem like friends, but will use in order to learn how to reject disordered behavior...so the well tempered friend is set up to enact the rejecting from the get go A doomed from the start friendship....they just keep going trying to dominate most interaction endlessly..... giving bits here and there....theres always some big deal....so many people trample on people. Even-even or find some other nut case is my rule.

[Mightyqueen801]

This is exactly what psychotherapy attempts to do--change people's same old same old ways. We repeat patterns because we see the world from a certain point of view and a certain set of beliefs that govern our behavior (not talking about beliefs as in religious beliefs here).

I have a good friend who, when she was a child, was abandoned by her father, who had another woman and another child. This woman is now in her late forties. Her life has been a series of relationships where she takes another woman's man--someone else's fiance, someone else's husband--breaks up their marriage or engagement, wins them for a little while--and then inevitably, the man dumps her for someone new. It's obvious to everyone, even to her sometimes--she is repeating this pattern of getting Daddy back. And it fails every single time.

This goes on and on. We see it with the person whose biggest heartache in their life was that a parent was an alcoholic. And who do they marry? An alcoholic. They are repeatedly trying to fix some relationship that was wrong early in life.

That is what we do unless we make structural change to the way we view relationships. Most of the time, we are not even aware of the depths to which we believe certain things to be true, and unless we can peel away those layers of defense we've built up on which our relationships are based, we are doomed to repeat them.