How to deal with friend who expects apologies anytime she is offended
I have a friend who I’ve known many many years, but our relationship was mainly over text for a number of years as she lived out of state. She’s back in my state and I’m I think that’s why I’m finding it so difficult all of a sudden. She will read negative intent in my questions or comments and then instead of communicating “hey that hurt my feelings I took it to mean x and y” she gets passive aggressive before finally saying she’s angry at what I said and wants me to apologize. When I say I am willing to validate her feelings but not apologize every time because I didn’t do anything wrong, she gets even angrier and thinks that is ridiculous.
For example, she told me she was interviewing for a job that paid 40k salary, I said oh okay so like 19 an hour not bad!! She got angry at that and said I was trying to act like I was better than her and should apologize. Was never my intent, I don’t think I should apologize for translating a yearly salary into hourly?? I can sort of see how she took it, which again I am willing to hear her on. But I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to apologize over all of these interpreted slights. I’ve seen people discuss the idea of apologies and if you should apologize just for intent, I think in our particular relationship this would become a problem due to how passive aggressive she is in response and overly sensitive.
She’s a very funny person and she’s been my friend forever, so the relationship is important to me. I just don’t know what to do about this dynamic happening.
Advice and opinions are welcome, or if you can share a similar story.