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July 29, 2008, 11:50 am PDT
toxic friendship
Quote From: kr555duI have a friend that I have been friends with for four years now. We met at work and instantly had a special bond. We were inseperable. I was always one that had several friends, she was one that was a loaner. I found myself spending all my time with her. We talked all day at work, had lunch with each other everyday, I would go to her house after work, etc. When we started becoming friends, I was in a relationship and soon was engaged. She was single, divorced, mother of one child. We did everything together, I was with her all the time, more than my fiance. With time, we controlled each other. She did not want me to have other friends, we started fighting. When we would fight, we would make each other sick, physically. Our friendship started getting worse and worse and we would fight and fight. She then started dating a man that is much like her ex-husband, verbally abusive and an alcoholic. I wanted nothing to do with it, too many problems for me to deal with. One day we both decided to part ways. I left the friendship saying nothing, she left the friendship saying everything mean she knew that would hurt me. We both took new jobs. We did not talk for 3 months. I got an email out of the blue. She missed me, was depressed since we parted ways, but did not know how we could get back on track. Her boyfriend was jealous of me, did not want me in her life (keep in mind I was pretty rude to him on several occasions). I invited her to my wedding. She refused to come, wanted nothing to do with me at all, got upset that I wanted to send her an invitiation. After I got married, we started emailing, we started to get back on track. We started to have lunch, would see each other pretty much weekly. She wanted to jump back into my life full force, I was not ready for her to be back in my life like before and I do not feel I ever will be. She recently declared her love for me. I have asked her not to tell me how she feels if it is something like that. She gets upset with me when I tell her to keep that to herself and that I don't want to talk about it. As of two weeks ago, she is not not talking to me. She said that she needs to clear her head and we need to not be close anymore because she gets her emotions confused. Is this something that can even be fixed? I miss my best friend but I hate all of the drama. I am tired of being upset about this friendship and allowing it to bring me down but I feel like I cannot break lose from it no matter what. Can we even be normal friends after all of this? Before this friendship can move forward, you have to find the strength within yourself to forgive her. Forgiving her isn’t for her benefit, it is for YOU, so that you can heal and, hopefully, move forward to rebuild this friendship, making it a healthy one this time. It would be tragic if the two of you became friends again but went right back to your old, dysfunctional ways. What would be the purpose in going forward with the friendship unless you were going to make it a new and improved friendship? My advice to you is to make that your goal- to not slide into old, toxic habits. When you notice you and your friend having dysfunctional interactions, do not argue; instead, say to her, “when you said/did “insert what the issue is,” it made me feel bad. I want our friendship to be good and healthy, I don’t want us to go back into our old habits from the past…” Her reaction to those words will tell you whether that is a possibility or not. If she reacts in a defensive way, you’ll know that continuing this friendship won’t be possible because she isn’t ready for positive, true change in her life. She might react in a calm way; she may take in your words and learn from them, working towards creating a healthy relationship with you. That would be great!
I wish you the best. I know it can be confusing; what to do, what to say? But you can create healthy, positive friendships with or without this person in your life.
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