Topic : Ending Toxic Friendships

Your "friend" doesn't have any consideration for your feelings or your beliefs.  

When two people have a friendship and they are mature, they agree to disagree about things they don't have in common, and they talk about other things. It sounds like your friend enjoys treating you like crap- in fact it sounds like this person is a very angry person, and not a friend at all. THis isn't about mood swings, or about trying to make someone believe the same things that you do; this is about common courtesy and common respect. My advice to you is to analyze what exactly you are getting out of this friendship, besides a whole lot of greif and aggrivation from this person? Does this person enhance your life, or take away from it? I wish you luck. 

Hi all, 

This is my first post on the boards...hope I'm doing it right! Well, I just needed to get some advice. I have had an extremely challenging year. Since Christmas 2004, my right lung has collapsed 6 times. I'm 24 and otherwise healthy, and we never found a cause. I've spent 33 days in the hospital between February and July and have had 3 lung surgeries. The last one was an open lung surgery where they removed the entire outer lining of my lung. Now, this is pretty major surgery if I do say so myself! I've held up through it all, but I have learned quite a bit about life this year, and have learned a lot about friendships. I'm not looking for pity or anything, but needed to give the backgroud so you'd understand. 

I have one friend that is pretty selfish, and I'm more laid back and giving, but we'd been best of friends for the past 6 years or so. Right around Christmas she started dating a guy and our friendship started to fall apart a bit then. Well, she came over after my first surgery and watched a movie with me. The second time she called me on 3 different days and told me she was coming up to visit me in the hospital. It was over and around Easter, and she never came. I cried, because I was very disappointed and I think I realized then that I wasn't getting anything out of friendship at the time I needed it the most. After the third surgery she did come up one day (after no-showing a few days), but it was a little awkward since I was in pain and was a little bitter towards her at that point. Since then we've played phone tag but haven't really talked. She called me a couple of weeks ago and I haven't called her back. I have a  problem with letting frienships go. How do I end it? She is definitely the dominant personality in the friendship. I went through a slight depression afer each surgery and needed her, and she let me down.  

The second friend (sorry I know this is long) was a college friend. I was in her wedding in June and hadn't heard from her until I called the night before my open lung surgery in July. She called back three weeks later. We've played phone tag now for a few weeks, and I've intentionally been using my odd work hours as an excuse.  

I have been hurt by both these people-my physical scars have been healing, but the emotional ones seem to be a bit harder to heal. Are both of these friendships toxic? I don't want to feel selfish, but I just feel let down by these people in my greatest time of need. I am lucky to have a very supportive family and many other fantastic friends, some that one come up every single day I was in the hospital, so I focus on that and how lucky I am. I just want to get rid of the bitterness I hold towards my other two 'friends'. Do I just not call them back? Help with some words of wisdom! Thanks so much! 

Hello, 

I have one friend that is pretty selfish, and I'm more laid back and giving: 

It sounds like you have been replaced by the boyfriend.  You should send him a thank you note because she is sucking the life out of him now.  I would agree that this probably is not a healthy friendship.  I'm going to write about my friendship issue in a minute and I would like you to give me your thoughts about it. 

On the other hand, "The second friend... was a college friend. I was in her wedding in June and hadn't heard from her until I called the night before my open lung surgery in July".  This person seems to be less selfish and did call about you and sounds like made other attempts to contact you.  Sometimes I don't call people, when they are ill because I don't want to disturb their rest and recovery.  Also, I don't feel like talking, when I am sick, and I don't want you seeing me looking like total pooh.  Leave me alone and let me enjoy the only drugs(an good ones at that) I'll ever take and let me sleep it off.  I am not a good hospital visitor either, I always show up when the person is sleeping or is in pain and I want to crack jokes because I'm uncomfortable.  It's just real odd for me.  I will check up on them via family members but usually not in person.   

Also, I have a real good friend from elementary school and we don't talk all the time.  Sometimes we go for a few years but we pick right up where we left off.  She is truly a good friend and I know if I needed her, she would be there.  However, I don't call her, when I'm ill because I don't want to worry her.  At the same time, she recently had some terrible things happen to her children and she didn't call me and burden me with it.  We talked a couple of times and had some good conversations and she got some junk off her chest and she received some comfort and healing.  I've never judged her and she knew she could tell me but I guess shame was holding her back.  I don't feel used and she was grateful.  We don't talk a lot or share everything but she will always be there and understand.  She is one of my very best friends and we have a connection.  I guess that goes to show that they don't have to be around all the time, to be a top notch friend. 

Good Luck, TexMess 

Hello All, 

I hope this isn't too much.  I'm upset right now and I'm venting.  

I have a friend, which is also a cousin.  A few years ago, I ended the friendship abruptly.   I returned everything that belonged to her and picked up anything of mine and quit communicating.  Since then, I've learned that I have boundary issues and that I have allowed people to mistreat me, without saying a word to them about my feelings.  I've gotten better but I still have problems confronting the boundary breakers.   

My friend(F) had been taking advantage of me.  She would show up and drop her kids off, at my house and go a few houses away to visit her father.  My thought was take your kids with you.  When she actually asked me to babysit, she wouldn't return on the arranged time.  She was constantly wanting me to do things for her.  I felt used.  She started getting upset and would stop speaking to me , when I declined to help or she pulled out the guilt trip.  This was the final straw.  My teens were riding the school bus, to the stop by her house because it was the closest stop to my house.  Therefore, I would pick them up, at her house.  She started complaining about it.  So I directed the kids, to wait at the bus stop for me.  However, I had an undiagnosed thyroid problem and I would fall asleep in the middle of the day and not wake up to the alarm.   In fact, I couldn't stay awake for more than 4 hours.  Therefore, one day my kids walked to her house to call me but I was at the bus stop.  The kids told me they had only been there for 2 minutes and my F was ugly to me and wouldn't speak to me.  I tried to be friendly after that happened but she refused to speak to me so I accepted it and took action by ending the friendship.     

About a year ago, my cousin/friend and I slowly restarted our relationship.  I have been cautious about investing my feelings, knowing her history.  This time, things were different, since she has moved about 2 hours away .  I thought, she couldn't use me like she had in the past.  It's easy to say, no too far.  However, she has been using my 19-20yr old  children to transport her young daughter for visitation via the train.   

Here is where things get confusing.  My son had recently returned from a weekend visit with my F. The following week, for some strange reason, she showed up on a Saturday 10/8 to pick her daughter up.  There was a long, crazy, and make-no-sense-to-me story about why she was there and that my son was going to leave with her to help with something.  However, I had planned a garage sale the following weekend and I had to empty out a storage building.  When my son left, both of them knew that I needed his help, and I was assured he would return.  I'm not physically healthy enough so I needed his help.  I realized that my F had suddenly quit calling.  We had not spoken for the last week or so.  Anyway, my son was supposed to return on Sun. but she had a bunch of reasons why he didn't get there until Wed. 10/12.  This is when things started turning bad again.   

"Something is rotten in Denmark".  My son returned on 10/12, after some resistance and strange behavior over the phone by my F.  She acted like I wasn't having a garage sale, couldn't make up my mind and it was going to rain.  I had to defend my position.  When I picked my son him up, from the train, he said that he had moved in with my F.  I warned him about being used. 

My son helped with the garage sale and he went to his aunts house, to help her out on Sat. evening but was to return on Sunday and finish up.  On Sunday, my cousin's husband called, for my son and that man never calls my house.  Unknown to me, my F arranged to pick my son up from the train stop.  I called my son around 11:30 and asked when he was coming back.  He said, he was going to get on the train around noon.  I'm like what?  She has so interjected herself into the middle of my relationship with my 20 year old son.  When I called to speak to him that evening, she was ugly, defensive and argumentative about what happened.  How in the heck would she know, she wasn't here.  She chastised me and said, you know he's grown and can do what he wants. Duh!!!  It's not about that.  I'm like, where did that come from?  I suspect she is up to no good.  Why is she putting this wedge in place?  So she can play my son? 

I didn't really speak to her after that.  F went to Vegas (paid for by another friend of hers) the last week of Oct.  I think I've spoken to her twice since then and I called my son on his birthday.  Today, F, hubby and my son show up, unannounced.  She came in and visited, while my son piddled with his vehicle.  She told me she was going to buy a vehicle from her X because hers is falling apart and her hubbys has been overheating.  After about 30 minutes my son asked about the title for the van, which another one of my cousins just GAVE to him, on 10/1.  I asked if he was taking it with him.  He said, yes.  I said, I don't advise that because it's not insured, tagged and the title is not in your name.  Before I was done speaking to my son, F had jumped up grabbed her purse and left my house without saying a word.  I couldn't not believe her behavior.  B comes to mind. 

I sat there a minute and said, you have to say something about the boundary violation.  I looked out and she was blah blahing to her hubby.  I'm sure telling her version of the events.  I stepped outside and said I need to speak to you.  I told her I was not going to tolerate being treated like that.  Running out of my house without saying  a word, good buy or kiss my tail.  She said, I haven't left yet.  I'm like yes you have.  When the bull kept coming out of her mouth and trying to put it on me, I got blunt.  She said, she didn't understand why I was yelling at her.  I was loud and assertive.  I said, because you deserve it.  She said, I don't have to take this.  I said, I don't either.  I said, for that matter, I don't appreciate the sneaky deceitful behavior.  She played dumb.  I said, I don't need sneaky deceitful people in my life.  She said, fine bye and gave me the talk to the hand business.  I looked over at her husband and said, why didn't she pick up the phone and say she was coming over today and picking up the van.  He shrugged.  Of course, he was set to drive off in my son's van aka his new work truck.   

My son is susposed to come over next Friday, wonder how that is going to sit with them.  I fear they are drivng a wedge between my son and I so F can get what she wants.  I really fear that they are going to use my son and his vehicle.  They live in the country and vehicles git driven in the ground real quick.  My son is leaving for the Navy in the Spring, I wonder if they are going to try and talk him out of his 'free" vehicle.  I'm sure by then, he is going to owe them something.  God, I hope he keeps his guard up and uses his head. 

What do y'all think?  I'm sure I didn't handle this well.  I know I had to do something because I was starting feeling the same rotten way I did the first time, I ended the relationship.  Any advise?  Do you think I need to totaly end this relationship?  I'm sure it's toxic and I can't handle it. 

Texmess 

Texmess, 

Yes, you need to end this relationship completely. F is quite toxic and obviously has major issues. As for your son, the best you can do there is sit down with him and talk to him about what is going on with F. Don't start taking F's inventory with him, just ask him why he feels the need to be there. Let him know that you have to end the relationship with F for your own sanity and that you'd appreciate it if he would come over to your home without her from now on. If he needs a ride, provide him with one, but don't give her any reason to come to your home. 

Also, try to arrange some sort of visitation schedule (so to speak) with your son so that you can be assured of seeing him regularly. Once he gets ensnared with F, she may brainwash him into not seeing you at all and that would be a shame. 

Hi, I'm so happy that I have found this board. I have been going back and forth about what to do with this friend I have. I really need some advice.  This girl and I have been friends for probally 9 yrs now.  Most of the time we have spent fighting. If it wasn't for the fact that she married my cousin, I would cut off all ties, but I want to be able to say Hi when I see her at Family gatherings.  She has done a lot of shitty things to me.  She is the type of person that can have all the friends in the world but you cannot have another friend. She will ruin it for you.  Like on her 21st she invited all our friends except me. I was soo upset. I had just seen her 3 wks prior. Which got me and our mutual friend in a fight, since she didn't stick up for me. But that is what she wanted and she got us to not be friends anymore.  This 21st party was going to be a big deal since I was married with a son, I never really went out.  I was really upset, We didn't talkj for probally a year.  

Well now here we are a few years later and she is still trying to out do me, rub in my face that I don't go out and party. I know nothing about kids. I now have 2 she has 1. And so on. Well my Hubby and I just bought a new house a few months back. We now live about 30 miles away. We had made plans for her and her husband to come over,  My hubby and I cleaned went shopping bought food, No Call No nothing they didn't show. I called her  she said they forgot.   A few weeks go by and we do the same thing, Not at all thinking they are going to do it a gain. This time my husband prepares the meat, lites the grill and so on, They don't show or call, We had to have our parents over to eat with us. She sends me an email saying she forgot that she is really sorry.  Wants to come over this weekend. NO WAY.. Not doing this again. 

I feel like she just doesn't respect us at all.  Everyone in my family doesn't understand why I'm still frineds with her. I guess I'm just holding on to a pieace of my past.  

I don't know how to sever the ties? I have tried to talk to her about it but she turns it around to being my fault some how.  It's just more stressful being her friend.  

Shellyn, 

Thanks!  I did talk to my son and told him not to speak about our conversation.  My son and I have an unspoken connection.  We just understand what each other is thinking, even when others in the room don't get it.  I told him to listen and watch out what he says.  F came to his room and asked who he was talking to.  Hmmm, more control?  I think someone picked up the phone line.  I really don't care but he doesn't need to have them bugging him about what I said.   

I did tell him I felt they were after his van and that they would double team him.  I told him how jealous F was over the van.  I also told him I felt he was currently in the honeymoon stage of being over there and that they are doing a lot of nice things right now, (just like his father did in a child custody fight).  He realized that too.  I told him, when the honeymoon ends, they will start billing you for all kinds of things.  They will rack up a bill and offer to take the van, to pay off the debt.  I let him know, if he feels the bill is going to cost him his van, that he could move back home.  I gave him an out. 

Right now, he is working for F's DH.  It sounds like a "company town" situation already.  I did let him know how I felt about transferring the title and we are going to leave it in my other cousin's name for now.  You can't take claim of something that doesn't belong to the victim.  It's best that way because they can't twist it into mom has the title and is controlling you little boy.  I warned him about mechanic's liens, so if they pay for any parts or do any work, they might pull that stunt. 

I know I sound terribly suspicious and paranoid about this, but I've been bitten by F before.  She will be sicky sweet, have something to offer, loyal devoted friend to your face, while she has her hand in your purse and a knife in your back.  She is possession grabby.  She is bold enough to ask for your stuff. :)  I'm not kidding. 

Thanks Y'all 

Hey!  Your toxic friend is a mean one.  She plays a lot of alcoholic games.  Sad to say, but I bet she sat around and snickered about you going to all that trouble.  Most likely she has a mutual friend she is also playing, which she uses to hear about your hurt feelings by proxy.  It's sick, like a power trip because you just played her puppet.  I bet, she likes to watch people fight and she is the instigator. 

All the things you describe tells me that she is very passive aggressive.  The thing about passive aggressive is that you can't confront them directly.  They have designed it that way.  They can simply play dumb or put it on you and make you look like you are picking the fight.  I feel you need to guard yourself against  her because she will want you back, to play with you some more.  Like my TF did.  She will trick you back into believing she is a true friend and may pull a guilt trip about you not paying attention to her and ditching a long good relationship.  Yea, for her.   That is what my TF has done.  When she comes for you, just decline any contact and say that you have something to do right now.  That will be true because the "something" is you are ending a toxic friendship for your sake.   

My TF is also a relative.  Trust me, if you distance yourself from your TF, she will run right up to you, at the next family outing and play super friendly.  Put on a public display.  Just be nice and excuse yourself or wonder off as fast as you can.  It's some crazy thing they do.  They have to show the world they are the nice bigger person, to keep the facade up, so they feel better about themselves and to make you look like the bad one, when you reject them.  Oh poor TF victim.  Something about these types that play the I love you hate you game.  You know,  you could plan a counter attack and approach her first on your terms.  Get you a little script prepared on "how is this and that" and "I hope all is well..." and "Oh  excuse me, I was on my way to the restroom".  Head strait for her the minute you arrive, at the encounter destination, and get it over with fast.  Throw her off her game. :)  Remember, a car ride seems to cause a trip to the bathroom.:0   I've planned that for my future encounter, with the TF relative that I'm pulling off of my back right now.  I'm going to meet her head on. 

I hope you can let her go and count your blessings.  Now go out there and find some good friends. TexMess 

After 2 divorces and a lot of pain over relationships being trashed, I discovered my criteria was to WATCH WHAT PEOPLE DO!  NOT WHAT THEY SAY!  My family relationships and friendships are now stable.  I quit playing the victim to those about me.  It Works!!!