i am venting! need your advise...sorry if it is long

Tweet

I am very active in my parish church, purely voluntary. Unfortunately in most every group I get involved in, there is one person who always seems to join us...she is a paid employee by the church, and also a good friend of mine. At one time, she used to say that she was the Liason for the Pastor. While I had no problem with that, I do have a problem with how she needs to control the groups, by making everything her decision. One small group, that her and I were members of, left me with listening to her do all the talking, and how she thought no one else's input was good enough. Of course no one else knew the comments she made against them, because she would only say them to me. To their face, she was as polite as any one could be.(which made me gag all the time). I finally dropped out of that group but never let her know that she was the reason. I was also a member of the Woman's guild where there are elected officers, President, Secretary, Vice President, and Treasurer. She didn't have one of these roles, however, you might have thought she did. She often lead the group instead of the President,because she didn't think the person was good enough. The group was a fairly large group, but quickly diminished. I believe it was because of her controlling issues, but I can't be sure. Instead of being miserable and resenting her, I decided to drop out of that group, and never told her why. I finally came to the conclusion that while I enjoy her as a friend, I cannot work with her on anything, because I cannot deal with her controlling issues. It would be best for me to be involved with groups that she is not in. Recently, we started a fundraising group that consisted of 6 people. Again, it was my idea to start one, but enjoyed the idea of having the input of others on what kind of functions we can have. When she wanted to join the group, I went along with it, because it had been some time since I worked with her, and thought I was over her issues. Well, The first fundraising event was decided upon by my friend, naturally. It wasn't all what we had discussed previously, but it was her idea that we had to settle on. Then during one of the meetings, after someone had given her opinion, she laughed and told that person that she was stupid, and what kind of idea was that! The person she said this to never batted an eve. If it had been me, I would've walked out of that meeting, and never returned. Every fundraising event that we have held, she has never did the grunt work. Instead she plays the role of Hostess, and leaves it up to everyone else to do the sweat work. While I have never regretted doing the physical work, because I love to keep busy, I have despise the fact that she can sit back and take part of the credit. Now it seems that her work schedule is so busy, that she feels that she can't be involved in any fundraising events, so instead of walkinig out of the committee, she has told the pastor that the Committee has been banished for now, because of her hectic schedule. I was fuming! How dare she desolve our group because she can't be involved! And I am angry because the others on the committee have sat back and let it happen. Neither one of them has spoken up about it, and they have allowed the group to fold. Am I the only one who sees who she really is? Am I imagining things, and am I very critical of someone when I shouldn't be? Am I in the wrong? Please let me know...I am so angry at her, that I can't see straight. I know I should just let it be, but why is it that everything she gets involved in, it folds, and it hurts the rest of us. I love to be involved in our Parish, unfortunately, if she is going to make her self involved in everything I join, how am I going to be able to enjoy what I do. HELP!