In this text the author writes “It was a very difficult time for her and I”. Wouldn’t you rather say “It was a very difficult time for her and me”?
Well, yes. It is just that some people think it posh to use “I” as if it were nominative, whereas here accusative usage is needed. Some very posh friends of mine will not admit to being wrong and keep saying “a trying time for him and I”, although when I point out that by that reasoning they should also say “a trying time for him and she”, they only smile politely.
You and I clearly do not need to feel posh 
I wouldn’t say it’s about being posh. It’s just a commonly used expression in certain circles. If you asked me when I was sleepy and not really thinking I would probably say “her and I” because it sounds “right”.
How can we say it’s wrong and not just a variation in some dialects? That question always confuses me.
But anyway, if you want a tip to figure out which to use in standard written English, split up the phrase and it becomes easy.
- It was a very difficult time for me. It was a very difficult time for her.
“It is a very difficult time for I” sounds horrible to anyone who has studied English for more than a week, so this method is very effective.
NO , IT SOUNDS WRONG! And it is wrong.
Sorry for shouting. This is a pet peeve of mine. My ears sting every time I hear someone use a subjective pronoun when it is the object of a verb or a preposition. You hear it all the time, but that doesn’t make it right – not until after I’m long gone.
Foreign learners of English need to recognize the incorrect usage and not be confused by the mixed cases, but they should also learn and use the correct forms.
This situation came about because kids would always say something like, “Me and Timmy are going outside”, and mother would correct with, “Timmy and I”. That is correct in this example be cause it is a compound subject, necessitating subjective “I”, and proper English convention is to put “I” or “me” at the end of a compound subject or object.
Pronouns are the only words in English that retain case differences, so folks aren’t too used to dealing with cases in general. So everyone who was saying “Me and Timmy” got it wrongly in their head after so many corrections that it should always be “Timmy and I”
If the pronoun is the sole subject or part of a compound subject, it always uses the subjective case: I, he, she, we, they.
If a pronoun is the sole object or part of a compound object, then it always uses the objective case: me, him, her, us, them.
It’s easy to get right: the pronoun in the compound usage is the exact same as it is in the non-compound usage:
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I love Mom.
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Timmy and I love Mom.
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Mom loves me.
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Mom loves Timmy and me.
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Mom made a cake for me.
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Mom made a cake for Timmy and me.
“It was very difficult for her and I” sounds just as bad and incorrect as “It was a very difficult time for I.”
It particularly irks me when TV and radio presenters get this wrong – people whose job it is to talk, and should know how to do so properly. I am fortunate enough to be married to a literate woman who finds this as irksome as do I.
Moms! Start correcting with “for you and me” when someone says “It was very difficult for you and I”.
Next lesson we can talk about how some words such as “as” are not prepositions and therefore do not take the objective case, though that’s how everyone uses them.
It’s been a long day. I’ll take off my curmudgeon hat now.
Meanwhile, the Russians in the audience are scratching their heads and thinking, “How is this difficult?”
Look up prescriptive vs descriptive grammar.
Anything that native speakers regularly say can be considered “right” except by pedants who want to define the terms of the language arbitrarily. Who decides what is “proper English”?
Here are a few more examples: In African American Vernacular English, people often say “He/She/They be adjective/verb”. It’s not standard English (whatever that means) but there’s no way to say it’s “wrong” without being completely arbitrary. In other dialects of English, the word “ain’t” is common. A lot of people say that’s wrong. Why? According to what standard can a word that native speakers use to communicate be “wrong”.
There are tons of exceptions and quirky aspects of the English language. Why shouldn’t this just be considered an exception to the typical rule?
Thank you very much. I only wanted to ensure that this grammar wasn’t correct.