Topic : Ending Toxic Friendships

I appreciate your response and the time it took to write it. You must be a very fast typist? :)

 

I have to agree with almost all of your post. Of course there will be some discrepancies because of the missing parts. I have thankfully, been working diligently with my therapist on assertiveness and agression and I have been finding my learned approach to the different types of people has been a little misconstrued. Not being a victim, per say, I had a pretty shaky upbringing, unavailable parents, rejection and verbal abuse. Then it just became a belief system that people are basically schmucks. :)

 

But I know this is not true for all.

 

So, I am seeing that different people require different approaches. My mothers boyfriend, one week after my mom died, and I, met at a restaurant in her neighborhood. After lunch and getting ready to pay the bill he told me about his needs not being met (since my mom died) and would I want to go to a hotel. So I would say that was blatently abusive. I took his calls because I thought the miles apart would keep me safe.....but a conscience and the heart cannot be separated by time or space.  I don't feel responsible for his happiness....I did feel compassion for him......but now I see how horrible it was. I talk to him maybe one a month ? and it is very non chalant...thank goodness.

 

I agree that I am not emotionally healthy enough to fall in love....real love....unconditional love...only because I have also been separated for close to a year now.....the divorce hopefully will happen in a few weeks. I tend to feel "sorry" for people. without tending to my sorrow...thats the problem. I don't think I am co dependant just a sucker for a good sob story.

 

The sexual thing is something I have dealt with all my life and I know men drool over their sisters for christ sake......I am not that nieve...and I don't think I am special because men want to have sex with me. I know I am just another notch in their bedpost...but I believe I hide behind my sexuality because that is what I think is the most powerful tool to attract...then when I do attract I am surprised? Not really. I know I am the one controlling it to an extent. If men weren't attracted to me I would be very sad..:(

 

Somehow I did not pick up the tool of assertiveness and self needs. But I belive I am on the way. My therapist cried today when I told her about an epiphany I had......It gets easier when we are honest with ourselves, first.   Have a good one and I appreciate your good wishes.

 

 

I'm just curious about what the rest of the world would say about my situation.  Two months after my divorce from an emotionally abusive man, I met what I believe to be the absolute love of my life.  We dated for about four months and he took a job 5 hours away.  We had talked about the entire spectrum of life together, and I thought we were set to go, but then one day he said he was "scared" and I blew up.  Throughout the last year we have been in touch.  We've met a couple of times at weddings of mutual friends, and hung out.  He got sick and I rushed to be by his side, only to have his mother tell me to leave.  After he recovered, he tried to call and at first I told him I couldn't handle this "love me, love me not" game.  But then, I decided to be a "true" friend and he began calling me about once a week, to talk for a couple of hours at a time.  This has been going on for the past 3 months.

 

I've grown in the past year.  I'm not the shell of the woman he met.  I'm more confident in my direction, more stable in my life, and more comfortable with who I am as a person and what I bring to the table.  It surprises him now, and at our last conversation he said that he had gotten used to being "careful" of me because I was so "needy" before.  He was sorry for not giving me enough credit.  Sad that we didn't talk about what really attracted us to each other because apparently the feeling is mutual that our level of attraction is a lot deeper than just physical.  I'm at a place in my life where I don't need him to feel whole, but I enjoy him.  I don't know what he really is feeling...and he doesn't either.  In the same conversation that sparked what I said above, he admitted to pretending like he wasn't talking to me to a mutual friend who had asked him if he'd invited me on a trip they were all planning.  I told him he needed to figure out where he stood on everything...either he's ashamed, scared, or embarrassed.  That insecurity makes me feel like this is a "toxic friendship."  If he was secure with where we stood, he wouldn't have to pretend and I wouldn't be left to try to figure out if it's worth being friends with him.   I want what's best for him regardless of whether we work out as something more than friends.  At the very least I'd like to remain friends because I value him as a person.  I just wish he'd get it right in his head what he feels/thinks...

 

 

I'm glad there is a place to discuss these things.  Looking through the 45 pages thus far, I see that a lot of us face similar issues...just different players.

 

I also feel the need to clarify something.  If the person I spoke about earlier were to come to me right now and say "I've been an idiot, you're the one, let's do this," I wouldn't.  I've grown a lot, but I'm not ready for marriage yet.  I've still got a lot more growing to do.  I don't dislike that he's confused or unsure, as much as I love him and honestly hope that a few years down the road it really could be "Him."  What hurt me was knowing that after everything we've been through and the long, heart-to-heart conversations, he still feels the need to tell others that we're casual friends and yet admit/agree with me that our bond is stronger than a regular friendship...regardless of if we ever get married.  BtW, we're both 30 and he's been in three serious relationships with me at five months being his longest, and I've been in two relationships counting him and the emotionally abusive ex-husband of 6 years.

 

I just want him to get it right and I want me to get it right because I want us to get it right.  It's the only way we'll know if this friendship is right!!

 

P.S.  I don't consider myself "waiting around on him" because should a good man cross my path and we make eye contact, I'm open to it...

 (Please excuse the long post, I felt the whole story needed to be told and this is my first post here.) 

 

 

 I had a friend of six years that, well, it wasn't the perfect friendship, but we seemed so compatible anyway. We understood each other and had very similar views on the world and how it worked with only a few things differing. She was a little bit abusive, but I always kind of took it as a playful thing, you know, and she was bigger than I was.

 

 I didn't notice until recently how many excuses I'd been making for her. Her family wass not one of nurturing, she was just another mouth to feed until she could start pulling her own eweight and her sister was obviously the favorite child. Her sister was often a bad influence on her, which it broke my heart to watch ass she slowly became her sister. When over at her apartment my friend's sister would let her drink and smoke pot with the rest of her friends, people who her own sister didn't trust half the time, I don't know how any one could let go of their good judgement around people who didn't have any good jugement from the begining anyway!

 

 I always let my friend know where I stood though, and she was very respectful of that. I knew I couldn't convince her to stop being so stupid (not for my lack of trying, however) but we did come to an understandding that she would not do anything of the sort around me!

 

 I like to think of myself as a very social person. I enjoy having people around me, all kinds of people, and I like to think I'm easy to get along with. My friend was the one who introduced me to AIM and all that stuff and we got to talking on there.

 

 I hated it. Talking to her on AIM it... she somehow seemed dumb, like someone had dumped half of her brain out and we were quick to get into arguments. So we didn't talk for a while like that and ran up the phone bills instead.

 

 Eventually though we both ended up doing our schooling online, which meant it was just easier to talk to each other that way, so we did, and things seemed to go well for a while.

 

 Then we started argueing again. It seemed no matter what she was out to disagree with everything I said. Again though I made excuses for her and continued to talk to her in person which, thank God, was so much easier. Until her sister moved back in with her and her parents. Her parents had given her sisterthe bigger room to share with her boyfriend and my friend was stuck in her old tiny one. Then the fights started happening in real life. We would fight about EVERYTHING! it got to the point where I would make excuses not to see her.

 

 But we become friendly again and I made the mistake of telling her one of my most hidden secrets. I don't want to say it here but it was something very personal and she didn't even react. I felt so terrible after that, that I hadn't gotten a single bit of comfort from her and that she'd even turned my problem around so she could pity herself!

 

Again though I gave her excuses.

 

 ventually though it got to the point where I couldn't make excuses for our fights anymore. We're both way into art and I'll admit I have more talent than she does, but I've been nothing but supportive of her. (She is much better at working photos than I am though.) Our last fight happened a little over am onth ago over some advice I was giving her.

 

 I was showing her a drawing of a common mistake most people make when drawing the human body, and she was very quick to tell me what a jerk I was for saying that that picture had anything wrong with it. She defeneded that picture like it was her pet cat and I was some knife weilding maniac, smashing "It's just the STYLE!"s over my head, which is a common defense for anyone who can't take a little critiqueing.

 

 By that point she was swearing at me and I'd had enough, I started to hyperventilate because it was like all those other fights we'd had that I had kept quiet about come up and slapped me in the face. I was boardering on an anxiety attack over this and I told her EXACTLY how I felt about her being so rude to me (maybe a little meaner than I had intended but at that point I was tired of being hurt.)

 

 When she'd had enough of me her sister suddenly became her best friend and came to her rescue,  insulting me and being a huge, well, you know what, just for the sake of making me feel bad. Not guilty, no, she doesn't care about that, she just wanted to make me feel lower than mud, telling me how bad my own art was and how I shouldn't critisize until I could paint a Davinici (all this coming from a person who couldn't trace a stick figure.)

 

 I'm a very sensitive person, so all of this got to me, but when Icalmed down and realized that we'd had probably the biggest fight of our friendship I quickly IMed her again, saying that the internet is not the place for us to talk, since it seemed to start our troubles, and that if she wanted to talk I would be waiting for the phone to ring. I quickly blocked her from contacting me on every sight we knew each other on.

 

 Her sister couldn't resist IMing me on her acount then for another stab at me, buit I quickly blocked her too. Then I came to a realization. My friend has had a history that I didn't even realize of being my best friend one minute, then if we do fight, finding a new best friend to defend her from me.

 

 She was a good friend when she wanted to be, and I'm still waiting to see if she'll call. But I'm not sure if she's healthy for me. She has very extreem views on some things that I find important (for instance she firmly beleives in beating children when they're bad. Not spanking, beating, thank goodness she doesn't have any yet.) And she's irresponsible with her health, along with having this obsession with saving her money up for a tattoo, instead of things she really needs, like a working computer for school, which my own brother would build for her for less than a tattoo would cost! 

 

 Am I being too picky, and  should I apologize to her? Or is she as toxic as I think she is, and just give her a final good by. My emotions have been running rampant over this, and I don't think they can rest until I can finally fix this relationship, or end it for good.

You are very articulate and can get your point across. I doubt she was no able to understand what you were saying.

 

After much learning myself, from what you wrote, and I say that lightly because words can be dangerous, but impression is that you like to control your environment. You are social, literate, creative, a good person, compassionate and trying to make proper decisions. Yet, you quesion if you are being too picky; maybe apologize; then question if she is toxic; should say so long.........sit down and be honest with yourself. When we truly can love someone, we can handle criticisms, rejections, differences of opinion without creating an argument over them and you know why? Because we love ourselves enough to know that anyone criticisms or rejections are ok and allowed and it doesn't change anything about who we are. That it is someones elses version of love. You sound like you are caught up in the drama of her life and the expectations of your own. If you don't want to live with a person that flip flops, then don't flip flop. If you want honesty and trust, be honest and truthful. The answer to your quesions are already there. Why aren't you paying any attention to them?

Thank you so much for the advice! I've said many of the same things to myself but reading the words coming from another person just seems to make it so much more clear for me. I really appreciate the advice and I think you again.

When we stop trying to change what is real and right in front of us, we can make decisions that are better for our growth and well being. If we wait for someone or something to do something to make the decision easier, we are sitting on the fence. We can sit there for years and nothing significantly happens. So we have to make something happen. When things are stagnant, we question it, When things are chaotic, we question it. When things are good, are bad, we question it. Questioning why someone can hurt us, or lie to us, etc. is not going to make anything easier. When we question why that something or someone is able to get under our skin, thats where the meat is. People that piss us off are our best teachers. We don't like to feel angry, hurt, picked on, rejected, but when we think about how fragile we can be that someone else actually has the power to do this to us???! That is just another one of those oddly shaped beautiful gifts that the universe gives us to see how angry, hurt, picked on and rejected, we feel, in general. Once we see this, we can't be hurt by others words, actions but see it as a flag that something inside us is still in need of attention and tweeking. We question things ad nauseum and miss out on letting our good intuition and uniqueness steer us. I have learned not to question my feelings so mauch as to see what it is that I am experiencing and knowingly be prepared for it to change. :)))))

 

I

I was friends with two girls for over 10 years... it was always the three of us.  Long story short... they both turned on me for hard drugs.  I guess I was not "cool" like them - plus I had two jobs and didn't have the time to be "cool" anyway lol.  Well I stopped talking to them 3 years ago.  I still think of them and we did have a few "not so choice" words on facebook a long while back.  They blocked me from their profiles. 

 

Well just recently they allowed me to see thier profile with pics of them on a trip to Cancun.  All I see iw beer in their hands in every picture.  It looks soooo boring.  I would rather go to Europe and see things... not sweat and drink myself stupid on a beach.  I wish I could tell them off but I won't. 

 

So I thought I would vent a little.  We all have young kids and I think they got thier act together... but I guess I'm still the bad b***ch.  Whatever :cP 

 

Since then my life has been way less stressful and I have found some old girlfriends (on facebook of course) that I have way more in commen with.  And I am going to say it again... I just wish I could tell them off - but I won't.

Don't give them the time of day....telling them off might make them think you don't have a "LIFE" yet.
Silence is golden...
don't waste your energy on them...its
not worth it. just don't give them a chance to put you down again about telling other people how you treated them by telling them off. You will end being the "bad" person for doing that... that would mean more people will have something bad to say about you.
Go on with your "LIFE" without them and
"LIKE" the person who you are for having the "COURAGE" to get out of relationsjhips with both girls that would have only led to trouble. You did make
a good decision, so don't resort to anger
or resentment to get back at them. It will get you nowhere.