There are some interesting threads on this forum right now, and I have a friendship matter weighing heavily on my heart, as to whether I've ended a friendship in an appropriate way, and whether I need to take any further action.

During the 1980s, I had a friend whom I met in a codependency outpatient treatment program. She is seriously bipolar. Although she is attractive and educated, she is a little overweight and a lot needy. Her relationships with men do not go well, as a rule.

At first, we struggled with relationship issues together. Then I became involved in a committed relationship with a man. However, we were very poor. So poor that it was struggle to keep the bills paid.

My friend has a very successful career, as well, apparently, as some family money from here and there. She owned her own home, cars, could afford nice vacations, etc. While my beloved and I were scrambling to keep a roof over our heads.

She wanted to talk endlessly about her men troubles. But there was no sympathy whatsoever for what we were going through. "Can't pay your bills? Don't know where your next meal is coming from? Damn shame. Now, can we talk about something really important -- my romantic problems?"

Eventually, my beloved and I moved to another state, and I let the relationship fall into an exchange of Christmas and birthday cards.

When we moved back, I resumed the friendship to some extent. However, we were both busy. She now had a relationship in her life, and seemed happy and together.

However, then she decided that her bf, who has a very small business, didn't earn enough, wasn't going any place and she asked him to move out.

And the man troubles started again.

Some time thereafter, my own life fell apart, as I watched health, career, and my own relationship go down the tubes. By this time, she owned a 4-bedroom house and lived in it all alone.

She was now caretaking a 93-year-old aunt, and struggling with issues about using up all of her aunt's savings on health care -- bec. she sure needed some of that money to pay for her new, big house.

So I figured, okay, she is dealing with issues of life and death; I am only dealing with issues of keeping a roof over my head. So I will listen. And we were on the pity pot together about men issues.

She would hint that if I ever really needed a place, she would let me rent a bedroom temporarily.

Finally, that time came when I had to leave my house while finishing out the last 5 weeks of my employment contract. But she was too "emotionally fragile" to follow through on a place to live. 15 years after the first time I dropped her, she still had no compassion for what money troubles does to a person.

Her aunt had died. My friend had been warned that the aunt might die if she removed some forms of health care, but she did so anyway. With her aunt gone, she was now back in her bf problems. I said I really could not help her with that -- that I was dealing with homelessness.

I didn't return several phone calls. Eventually, I wrote her a letter that was as gentle as I could make it, saying that I had been feeling distant from her for quite some time, that I was sorry about that, etc. It was a very careful letter that made me responsible for my feelings.

She wrote a letter back that said that she wasn't going to let me "guilt" her into offering me a room by using a word such as homelessness. Oddly, at just this time, I channel surfed into a discussion by the National Coalition for Homelessness -- and I'd used the word entirely consistently with their definition. It does not mean only people who are living outdoors or in shelters, but people like me, doubling up with friends and relatives, moving from place to place, without a permanent address of one's own.

She told me that I didn't "have" to sell my house -- making herself the complete judge of my legal, financial, and emotional situation. She added that she knew that she probably shouldn't be making so many "you" statements -- and she has an M.A. in psychology -- so she jolly well ought to know that this is not "fair fighting."

And then on the outside of the envelope she scrawled that she didn't have time to write a neater letter.

I was so angry. In fact, I am angry just rehashing all this! How dare she tell me that I must monitor every word I use to be sure that I don't use one in a way that offends her (such as homelessness), whilst she can make any judgments she bloody feels like. Of course, she has done this to her ex-boyfriend, calling him something like 12 times in a row to leave frenzied messages on his answering machine when she was mad at him.

I waited 2 months to call her. I thought I could be calm and explain how I felt about her letter. But I wound up being angry and accusatory. And she said, "I don't have to listen to this."

So I called back and very calmly asked, "So where do you get off writing me a letter like that and then making yourself unaccountable for it?" There was a very, very long silence, as if she expected me to be angry again, and then she hung up.

I have come to think that the relationship only works in 2 situations: (1) If I am in a good place, or at least a better place than she is in, and I can be the giving friend or (2) we are in pity pot dysfunction together.

Sometimes I want to get in touch, try to have a more civilized conversation about the letter she wrote to me. She is not a bad person, and neither am I, and friends with whom one has a long history do not grow on trees. There is something to be said simply for having a long history with someone.

So that's it -- what should I do? Let the situation rest. It is over. Try for some kind of better end? I don't know.