tl:dr My friend moans about her career and life but won't do anything to make it better, while being nasty and spiteful to the rest of us when we succeed. Help!
I've been friends with my friend Rebecca for about 6 years now, we met in our very early 20's at the end of uni. We're part of a group of about 5 of us, we're all about the same age. Since graduation, most of the group have moved on to get jobs in their chosen career - I've been working in marketing-related jobs for the last 6 years, my other friends are in teaching or retraining to do what they want to do.
Rebecca, on the other hand failed her degree, and has been either unemployed or working in retail jobs ever since. She hates her job so much and complains about it constantly, so over the years I've been trying to help her - I have rewritten her CV for her a few times, send her jobs to apply for and I've even tried to get her a job at a couple of my workplaces. Every single time, she comes up with some rubbish excuse for why she can't apply for the job and just constantly says 'I'll apply for jobs soon' but never does it. She has been saying she will apply for jobs for 5 years. This in itself is a bit annoying because I'm tired of giving her pep talks when she never takes any action.
Anyway, I recently bought a flat which I was SUPER happy about. It's a huge achievement for me and something I really struggled to get so I was really excited. I told Rebecca on Friday and she was really nasty about it - her immediate reaction was 'Your flat is in a crap location, why didn't you buy in central?' (I bought in North London, and I couldn't afford central - obviously). She then said 'I'm going to marry rich and I'll get a flat way better than yours'. I was so shocked at how nasty she was being. She never even said congratulations or feigned happiness for a second - just straight mean comments.
She has been like this for so long now - every time something good happens for me she somehow makes it all about her and her 'poor me' attitude is annoying when I just want her to be a friend and celebrate my successes with me. Yet she always, always brings it back to how bad her life is yet she hasn't even applied for a job to try and make it better. She's my friend and I care about her, but I'm really losing my patience with her now.
if anyone has any smart suggestions on how to deal with this, it would be great! I don't want to cut her out of my life completely, she is a good friend, but her behaviour is really hurtful. I have tried talking to her before so many times but she never, ever listens.