Topic : Ending Toxic Friendships

I am going through a bad patch in my life. I keep attracting victimy type people into it.
The kind of friends who use me to dump their problems on, at the time I am supportive
but in the end they seem to drain me. I end up looking like I am the bady, because I stop giving them my support.

Seeing that I am in a bad point in my life I thought that is was jealousy on my part, but I think
it runs deeper. I think these people see how little I have and think that they are my only friend and
like the importance they seem to have in my life. As I seem to be always free when they call, because I dont have a boyfriend of  large family or other major things going on in my life.

I feel like I have resigned myself to being  second best . I know that for my future mental health I need to end these relationships and concentrate on improving my life. My success in life would mean having to change the relationships I have with these people.  I am afraid of being completely alone, as most of these "toxic" relationships exist with most of my friends. As I dont have strong bonds with my family  and rely on my friends to the point where I appear needy.

I am a young adult and fear that if I do not make myself into the person I want/ need to be now I will ruin my life. I think that if I had a stronger foundation built my my family (extended, as i am an only child)who live too far away and wasnt plagued with teenage depression (past). I could handle the,
belittling I recieve from my friends, as they want to keep me in place, which is the pathetic friend who hasn't got her life sorted..


The reason that I havent ended these relationships is that my friends have more going for them in their lifes and would think that I  am just jealous. They would make it out that they were the victims to bring excitement to their lives. We went to the same school and now are in the semi real world and I have realised how different we are. They are more privledged and I don't think they appreciate how much I have had to over come to work to achieve what I have done. They talk over me and ignore me also. I used to think that this was because of how I carry myself, but have experienced a good level of respect form people I lived with in college, which had lead me to believe that it wasnt a result of  how I carry myself.

To sum up I fear being made out to be a bad person. Having to start building my life again, while they flaunt their success as some sort of revenge for me ditching them.  Though associating with them is eating at my soul. I need advise on how to buid my life up, if I decide to let go.

Hi,  

   

I hear you. It's like I'm reading the story of my own life. My advice to you is get out of those toxic relationships. Dr. Phil always says: "How is that working for you?" It's not, is it?  For me it was not working, so I got out of those toxic relationships and started looking for friends that I could really  

call "friend". People that do not only want to be around me to dump their problems on me, but people that I can talk to also. It has been an emotional rollercoasterride, but it has definitely been worth it. I'm in a much happier place right now. I'm still a bit worried about attracting people that dump their problems on me, because I'm a very caring person. I want to help people. I know it's not good for me and I listen to my family, that I'm very close to, for their encouragement and advice. Because I understand and have gone through the draining experience of people dumping their problems on you. Get out of those friendships. It's not worth it and it will never be worth it. I can guarantee you that. You maybe have a great night out or something with those so called friends and than all of sudden the atmosphere changes and again you're at the receiving part of their problems and sobstories without them listening to you. Start looking for people who deserve to be around you. I wish you the best of luck!  

  Here's my story....I've been involved in a 25 year friendship that seems to be getting more and more toxic.  My friend has made some bad choices in her life, and is married to an abusive, alcoholic husband.  She tells me that I'm the only person she can talk to who isn't judgmental and listens to her (I've told her she needs therapy). She has left her husband on several occasions, but always seems to reconcile with him (to make matters worse her co-dependency affects their three children).  She also comes from an abusive childhood home, left home when she was a teenager, never finished highschool and had her first child when she was very young.    

  

In the meantime, I've had a pretty good life, my husband is wonderful and my family and is loving supportive.  I suppose I feel that I owe it her to be supportive and caring, because she doesn't have that.    

  

The problem is that she is bossy and controlling and expects me to be at her beck and call.  She makes "subtle jabs" at the way I am raising my son, the way I clean my house, the way I planted my garden, my driving, the way I decorate, etc.  We have talked about this and she says she feels comfortable enough to be honest with me because we are "sisters".    

  

Recently I underwent a major life change and undertook an enormous project that exhausted me mentally, emotionally and physically.  When I asked for help she was unavailable.  She is now undertaking a similiar project and expects me to jump when she calls.  

  

My husband says I shouldn't worry about this because my friend and I live 6 hours away and we only see each other a couple of times a year; but, is that too much?  

  

NM 

  

  

I ended a toxic frienship a few months ago because I felt my fiance and I were being taken for granted.  Our phone only rang when this couple needed something.  Also, if we were at the movies with this couple, one of them was constantly texting other friends, and if we were at a restaurant, they were constantly on their cell phones.  I just had enough and ended our friendship.  

  

What I'm confused about now, though, is that I miss them.  I think it's more because when my fiance and I go out, we're alone now.  Not that I don't like being alone with him, but I do miss having friends around.  The rest of our friends are married and have children, and it's not easy for them to get out as often as we'd like.  I am too shy of a person to go out and make conversation with people I don't know.  How do I get past this friendship that has ended?  

 I know this is an old post but I am know going through a friendship "break-up" that I need to vent about.  There is a friend whom I've known for 11 years. We became good friends because our mothers were good friends. The friendship started off cool but I noticed some "red flags" that I chose not to address because I had no intentions of being around her enough for them to matter.  But over the course of years (we were neighbors) I found it difficult to be in her presence without feeling drained and irratible no matter if it was every week or every 6 months. She comes off as needy, paranoid, insecure, and is always the victim of some wrong doing. Every one has bad days and issues to overcome so at first I tried to rationalize things in her favor in of judging her. She's was married to an alcoholic who drained her and she passed that energy to me. When I've finaaly had enough and decided to lessen my availability and contact with her- her husband commits suicide..She had already cut off her famliy, had no other friends, so naturally I was suppose to be her anchor of support. The problem is that my frustration with her and her husband both (R.I.P.) took me past any ability to do that with zeal. I don't want to be a bad person by leaving someone alone in the middle of a tragic situation, but I can no longer force myself to deal someone who drives me nuts. The more distance I try to put between us the more persistant she becomes. I accept responsibility for not being more blunt with her in the past which I'm sure contributes to her behavior but she always seemed to be going through something that kept me from being mean to her. There never seemed to be a good time to walk away. How do I reconcile doing what's best for me and getting past the guilt of abandondoning someone who has no other friends? 

I've always believed that friendships should last as long as people do, because we're all in this together, and there is almost always someone with whom you can bare your soul and always know that you are safe with them. 

  

My "best friend" has gotten herself involved with some stuff with which I completely disagree.  She became involved in a religious cult about seven years ago and has gone to the deep end, and has not been as much of a friend as she has spent more and more time with these people.  She doesn't see them as dangerous as I do, and she has been brainwashed enough at the same time that she follows their precepts to the point of exclusivity of other things.  When her mom passed away last year, she used her newfound "faith" to get her through, but I was there as much as possible for her, to the exclusion of other things in my own life just to make sure she made it through. 

  

Six months ago, she began to correspond with this cult member 500 or so miles away (she's in Massachusetts, he's in Kentucky) and became utterly infatuated with him over that time.  Please understand, she has never met this guy--he just shares her radical views--and yet she announced to me just a few days ago while we were on a trip together, that she was going to marry him when she went down to Kentucky for 10 days to be with him.  There was no advanced warning, other than her 1 hour phone calls to him every single day at least two times a day, and that was about it.  So I got mad with her.  I said she was going to marry a guy she'd only known 6 months just because he believed in the same radical concepts as she did, over listening to the advice of a friend she'd had for over 20 years.  I told her if she married him, she was a fool, and that if she did, it was the end of our friendship completely. 

  

I've felt for some time that our friendship was largely unequal.  While monetarily I was not equal, when I've had money, I've been more than generous, but the main part is for the past 20 years it took a significant effort to maintain a friendship with her, and I was almost always the one who did the work.  I lived away for awhile, but I called several times a week, I wrote, I visited, and at one point, I even paid for her to come and visit me where I was.  I was always the initiator of things, and now, looking back over the course of those years, I find myself wondering where her contribution to the friendship was and not liking what I see in terms of reciprocation. 

  

But now, she has decided her new found cult views are far more important to her life, and that anything outside of that sphere of influence is expendable, even though she doesn't say it out loud.  But after last night, I am done trying to maintain what has become for me something that takes up too much of my precious time and life when I fear there isn't any true friendship coming from the other half of it. 

  

I am not happy I have had to do this, but I fear that it was coming now for some time, and while I have made excuses for her in the past, my own level of energy and health has deteriorated to the point where I can only keep up with those things which keep me going, and don't drag me down. 

  

It is not a pleasant thing to do with someone you care about, but if they are awakened by your pronouncement at all and want to try to save the friendship, it is on your terms, not theirs that such a measure can come about.  Do not accept them back into your life if they are not willing to put the same time and energy into the relationship as you have put into it for the much longer time.  If they try to make it status quo, it is time to say goodbye permanently. 

The other person being discussed is not here to defend themselves.......by reading what you've posted it sounds like you're saying your skill is higher though you can acknowledge you're not as artistically inclined. As an artist myself, I can tell you that this is one of the most maddening things one can deal with: watching another person succeed because they're savvy in other ways and knowing that you have a lot of talent but work strictly from a soul perspective.

 

I've had issues before related to that. Friends that admired my artistry but felt inferior to me because they weren't naturals. My response: all people are artists-some tap in, some don't. I have been creating jewelry for a long time and in working with other artisans have noticed a peculiar kind of rivalry/competitiveness that always rears its head and I don't care for it. I taught one girl the basics and she went on to make money and her work is not nearly as professional, beautiful, or creative as mine. But she is a salesperson. Maybe your friend picked up on what you were feeling but not saying (most artists are very perceptive and that's why we tend to be loners)

 

the fact is you can never hang out with someone  more dynamic than you and expect to shine. I may be lonelier but I treasure the true friends I do find that can accept me and applaud my unique journey on this planet.

I recently ended a so-called friendship myself.  Long story short, it is a hard thing to do but then I remind myself that someone who is always competing with me from my artistic abilities to how many other friends I have, calling up to offer advice on a subject that has absolutely nothing to do with me, pulling me into her doctors appointment telling me she needed me to be there for moral support and then turning it around to everyone else saying she did it to TEACH me something, amongst a list of many other things, isn't a friend in the first place.  So then I have to ask myself, "What's MY problem that I would let someone treat me this way in the first place?"  She did the things she did because she knew she COULD.  I let myelf be walked all over and it showed.  Some people mistake kindness for weakness and this is a hard lesson learned.  I know ending the "friendship" was the right thing to do but then why do I continually beat myself up for it?  Dr. Phil would probably ask, "What's your payoff for beating yourself up for this?"   

I ended a friendship too. It was a very good decision. I hear she still asks about me, funny because never asked me anything while we were friends. Most of the time I sat silently while she was on her cell phone. I even saw her steal money from someone and she always cost me money, and told "stories". I am so happy she's gone, don't miss being ignored or used. You will have many friends in your life time. Bad ones should be dumped quickly to open up room for good ones and to save your heart and spirit. Stop beating yourself up, you are in charge of your heart and you need to protect it. You did the right thing.

Best Regards,
Loulou

 Hello! I haven't been to this site in years, but I was hoping to get some advice on how to deal with a friend who I just realized is toxic. What's funny is that she too got angry at me for not answering her calls right away or not calling back promptly.  I know it's been a while since you posted this message but I hope everything worked out for the best.