Topic : Ending Toxic Friendships

as a married man, I formed an attachment with a woman in my office 10 years my junior.  she lavished attention on me, and I returned the favor with much willingness, since my 8 year old marriage had been going stale at the time.  total lack of sex, closeness and intimacy pushed me to this woman who was nothing more than a convenient outlet for my attention.  she did send mixed messages by doing questionable things with a married man, like going lingerie shopping.  she had a boyfriend of her own, and complained about him ad nauseum, which gave me more fantasy material to chew on.  Yes, i was weak and let myself be put in that situation because i thought it could lead to an exciting affair, but now I see that i let myself be the victim.  now that she has left the company we used to work at, we speak or email perhaps once every three months.  any real friendship would have kept up a much more regular pace of communication, but ours doesn't.  I don't even call her anymore, only she calls me and when I see her phone number flash on my caller ID, I cringe.  I tell myself over and over that next time she calls, I'm not going to answer, but I am still weak 18 months later.  I feel this enormous hole in my heart and hope that with time, it will heal.  in the meantime, the marriage at home is no better, and I'm trying to pick up the pieces, whatever that may mean.   

Office romances usually don't become anything unless both people are available, in this case neither of you were. You were married and she was dating but also, she was flirting with a married man, which makes her unavailable. too. Let me explain.

 

Whenever a person goes after a married person, they are in a way, saying they too are not available. Why would someone be interested in a married person unless they didn't want the committment too? I think you need to see that her approach was initially coming from a place of getting certain needs met. I don't know what they are but they could range from needing attention, admiring you for your maturity, financial gain, sex, and as a married man, you were seeking some kind of intimacy that you weren't getting in your marriage. You were both being played but when its fun and it works, then its fine. When it starts to change then its not.

 

Its never the answer to a problem when we look to someone else to fix it or fill a void. If your marriage is truly that bad, then you need to focus on how to make it better, or accept that is stinks and do things to move on. The answer is never going to be to get involved with someone else unless you know for a fact that it is only going to be temporary and any feelings that form need to be put into a perspective.

 

She left and moved on and you are still in your stinky marriage. That is why you are hurt or pissed.

 

You will be "weak" until you get your life in order. What does (your name) want? What does he need? My therapist gave me an analogy one time in regard to "picking up the pieces" as you mentioned......and she asked me what the difference is between "trying real hard" to pick up the pieces, *your words - to "picking up the pieces........the answer lies in = are you trying or doing it??????

 

If you want sex with your wife, then become a sexual being. If you want closeness, become more open and intimate, if you want intimacy, become an intimate person. The answer to your problems are right in your hands........not in someone elses. I hope this helps.

Sounds like you guys have drifted apart. No harm in that, it happens. You really don't need to do anything about it. It sounds like it's taking care of it's self. Good luck.

Did I read that you were a victim? I don't think so.

Sounds like you went all sour grapes because you were not the married man who was taking her shopping for underpants.

Focus on you marrage & it will get better. How is that going to happen when your obessed with some young girl who by your own admission did nothing with you besides talk about the men she was seeing. If you are serious about "picking up the picecs" then get into some therapy.

I feel really sad for you because the way you have worded this post is really telling. Everything is happening to you, you are not an active particapant in any of your relashionships it seems. You see your self as a victimwhere sex in concerned. You have had some sexual abuse/abandentment issues in the past? You can't deal with what in the present if you are still living in past.

 

you say

". Their intentions seem genuine, at first, then sex usually becomes a part of it with the men and even some women, and if sex isn't in the equasion, then its some kind of attachement that they feel towards me that makes them want to be around me. I have no time nor do I want to make time, for people of this sort, yet, on a daily basis I am confronted by men that approach me in sexual ways; even if I am not interested."

 

You very well may be sending mixed mesages.

 It's one thing to get alot of catcalls on the walk to work, those people can't tell if your interested or not. Something you might not know, & I don't mean to talk down to you at all, is: men are attracted to women.

Hetro men love women, saggy chest, wobbly bum, old, young, ugly, smelly, pretty, bitchy, men just love women.

If a man can hit on you & thinks he will get a response he will...& even if he thinks he wont he will just in case. A man is always ready to flirt even without the hopes he could ever date or bed the girl. Try to think of it as love & admeration for women & their sexual attraction, not agression. If a man wanted to be agressive sexualy he could do more then come on to you if he wanted to. 

 

But every friend you have, male & female, trying to sleep with you, you have to take responablity for at the least the choices in friends you are making. If you find that you can not get away from the victim/predtor issue, even with friends, you need to address that issue of feeling helpless with your doctor.

 

As far as your mothers boyfriend making a sexual comment to you after your mothers death says a few things. & looking at the way you worded thisreally has me worried for you,

Your dead mothers boyfriend makes a sexual comment to you. What this comment was I don't know. You are hypersexulized it seems because of some bad stuff that went down so did he tell you that you have nice legs & if he was 30 yeas younger he would be your sweetheart or did he ask you if he could come over to your home & have sex with you?

 

Being sexual is not a light bulb that flotes behind us, only turning on & off at certen times. Our sexualy  is a fluid part of us that can not be taken away  if you want to be a healthy person. Someone can be attracted to you & still love & respect you.

Now can your mothers boyfriend let you know of his attraction & still be showing you love & respect? No. His calling is abusive if he pushes the attraction issue. If he is being abusive & you are still taking his calls then you need to talk to your doctor about finding the guts to stop picking up the phone, & if need be get a restraining order.

 

"I don't know how to deal with my hurt of his ability to see me as a sexual object, even though he has come to terms with it, and I am having a hard time being his friend because underneath I will never be able to forget he violated me and m y mom with his sexual needs"

 

Please tell me you are not still taking calls from a man that molested you & abused your mother. If he did that to you then you NEVER have to talk to him again. You have no oblagation to make someone feel good that treats you bad. As soon as someone treats you bad they  brake the contract that is a relashionship. It's now null & void. You own them nothing.

 

"I know people have sexual needs, but how does a girl remain friends with men that she knows are intersted sexually? Is it possible?"

 

It is possible, but at this time in your life I don't think it's healthy for you to be around people that are expressing sexual intrest in you. You are having a hard time with choosing the right people to be friends with & sending mixed messages. At the moment you need to worry about you. Put the peoplein your life on the back burner. Some day it will be possible for you to have frendships but not right now.

 

"To the men: Can you be friends with someone that does not want to have sex with"

 

Again, Yes, men can be friends with someone who dosnt want to sleep with them. If they are sane they wont be angry or weird. Take it as a rule for the next year: anyone who express an interest in sleeping with you in a way that makes you feel bad, even if it's the smallest thing, let them know that you need a break from the friendship for your health, or heck, just dont tell them anything, you can always make new friends. Think of your city or town. Well there are more of them out there then you could go through in one lifetime.

 

get well

 

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?