How to end a toxic friendship when you have known the person for years
82First for those reading this looking for advice or tips let me say I am sorry that you have to go through this. As most things in life though they tend to happen. We have friends, we make friends, we grow they don't, they grow we don't there are so many reasons that friendships end that they would go on forever. It is never easy though and the closer you were with the person in the past and the longer the relationship has been the harder the split will be. I will break down different scenerios here since everyone is different I am sure I won't hit near all of them so others please feel free to add on!
1. Your request mentioned a "toxic" friendship. This implies that it is damaging. At this point there is a simple solution though our own guilt tends to get in the way. There is no real way to ween yourself off a toxic situation. You stop cold turkey. If you feel it is toxic it is hurting you and there is no reason to contact this person again period.
As people (and espically women) we are taught to feel bad for others and try to help everyone. This creates us being good people, but it can go too far to the other extreme where we get walked on. This starts very young and I have actually read quite a bit on it recently due to having a young daughter. The Psychology reports I have read made it pretty clear that it starts at sharing. I do try to have my daughter share with other children, but if they are not sharing back I do allow her to stand up for herself (espically if it is her toy they are playing with).
2. If you can't bring yourself to just stop returning calls etc the next best thing you can do for a toxic relationship is to honestly tell that person how you feel. When I got married I had to deal with a very similar situation. One of the girls who was to be a bridesmaid had just become so toxic that to have her there would have been miserable for the rest of us. She had become abusive towards my friends and family which is where I drew the line. I could handle it with me, but to do it to people I cared about as well was too much.
I had to finally end up un-inviting her to the wedding. She insisted that she was going to be there and that she was a "good" friend, and would be a "better" person than "those other people" I called friends. I had to tell her nicely, but forcefully that I did not want her there nor did I really want her in my life anymore.
This was difficult to do and just not returning calls would have been easier but I am the type who needs closure. As I have gotten older I have realized that these "toxic" friendships are not going to get better. The other person is not going to change, so why should I waste the time waiting on that? The key with this option is to let them talk all they want, the final say is yours, that you don't want to see them anymore. You are sorry if this hurts their feelings (generally they will say it does but in reality they will just feed off someone else once you make your stand they have no use for you anymore) but you have made your decision.
3. You can try making excuses if you just feel too gulity for the above steps, but this will catch up with you. It will take a toll on you mentally and physically due to the fact that you are going to be constantly worried about it. The other person isn't, or they would not treat you the way they were. Pulling back or making excuses will only delay steps one or two above.
Again I am sorry that you have to go through this, but in life that seems to happen. I found it happened quite a bit when children came into the picture. My mother had a friend (she is still friends with this woman) who is very toxic. The woman would put me down all the time growing up and to this day my mother jokes about it because "I was strong enough to handle it, and this woman's child needed the attention and positive words that I didn't."
I made the choice early that I would not do that to my child. If you have children then you have absolutely no choice but to do one or two, espically if your child is the same sex as you (father/son or mother/daughter). If you don't you are teaching your children that this is how friends are supposed to treat eachother and while I know our children will more than likely have a friend or two that is a bad influence or allow themselves to be walked on a couple of times, as a parent we want to show them what real friendships are. Not toxic ones. Children do what they see, not what you tell them.
Hopefully this helps some and I am sorry if it sounded cold towards the "toxic" friend, but toxic is not a word that has really any good connotations. Just remember that if anyone is treating you poorly you have absoluetly no reason to feel guilty for not wanting to be with that person anymore.
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This is a really good answer. We are having a problem with a friend who we have discovered is really racist. We were too shocked to say anything when he said some really nasty things about some people. Now we do not want to know him really but we have been friends for a long time and his wife is really nice.
I did forget to mention the husband/wife side of things! It is very hard when you feel guilty for one but not the other, but the situation remains that unless she has said something to you (you never know their relationship she may not feel that she can say something to him for various reasons), but if she doesn't at least make some reference that she feels it is wrong the end result is the same. Kind of if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem saying.
It is very shocking when whatever it is that triggers your noticing it shows up. The friend that we had to uninvite from our wedding was that way. Her husband was very sweet, but he had no back bone to stand up to how selfish and plain rude she was. This was not a case where we could do things with one (sometimes the females in a relationship bond or the men, but not both spousal groups).
When we get married we chose our spouse over everyone else. There is NOTHING you can say to the wife about the husband and your relationship if you chose to try and keep one with her will be strained now that you see what her husband is doing. Again you can see step 3, but the end result will be 1 or 2 somewhere down the line. And again if you have children ANY racist comment they hear that you don't respond to negatively will let them think that this type of behavior is OK, which is clearly not the case as you said. (At this point don't bring up an old sitation with them though, unless it was just so severe you feel you need to.)
Thanks for the comment and thank you for bringing up the spouse angle that I had forgotten to address!
It is sometimes easy to spot the toxic friend when they are outwardly nasty to you or your family or your friends. However, I've found you can be duped by the "nice" toxic friend. Until one day you realize that their influence on your life never works out well for you.
I am not sure if they intentionally sweeten their toxins, or if they are totally unaware of their impact on your life; and in the end, it does not really matter. When you identify a relationship that brings you more grief than happiness, it is time to move on by either adjusting the relationship or ending it.
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Very true Debe, those "nice" toxic friends seem to stick around a lot longer as well.
I am so happy that I came across this webpage! A little over a year ago, I went through a horrible time with someone I considered my best friend. She had some jealousy issues which I was always aware of but was never really affected by. That was until I got back in touch with some friends I had lost contact with over the years. Well that's when the straw broke the camel's back. I found out that she had been lying to my friends by telling them that I wanted nothing to do with them so that she could keep my friendship to herself. She was confronted by her lies and started acting really crazy and this is when things started to spin out of control.
Alot happened. Too much to go into detail here but in the end we wound up in court and she finally was out of my life. This whole experience inspired me to write the book, Single Latina Female: Tale of a Toxic Friend and have it published because it was my way of telling the story for others to know that they are not alone. I learned the hard way not to avoid the obvious warning signs of a toxic friend. Now I feel like novice in the friendship department and would love to help anyone out with advice I could give.
How do you deal with a toxic friend and their family is not? I have been "friends" with this person for many years and their family is wonderful but I can no longer be in the friendship how it is?
When you know of someone and you start talking to them on the phone and all of sudden you feel like you are the one wanting this friendship more than the other person does. After talking with them they tell you they’re upfront, straight to the point and not fake or phony. Come to find out they are not true to their word. I spoke with them a month ago and they said something totally different from what they said this month. I sent them a message and their excuse was every time they tried to reply back something went wrong with their computer, so after responding a few times they gave up on sending me back a reply. My thing was why didn’t you call me to discuss what I sent you since you couldn’t respond to my message on your computer. It seems like they made up an excuse just to keep from responding to my message. I also believe they got rid of my number this is why they hadn’t called me concerning what I sent them in the first place. It sounds like to me that they just don't want to be bothered anymore and this could also be a toxic friendship, that I thought was a true friendship, what do you think?
i had a friend i knew from school days we got on really well but over the last two years he has controled me a lot if i dont reply to a text he gets angary i was looking for work and he called me lazy even though he was not even trying to get a job i told him my worries when we where close but now he is useing them against me i said i wanted to end the friendship but he is being horrible because he does not want me to end it what shall i do
Andy- Simple answer comes down to this... do you ever want to rekindle a relationship like the one you are describing. While it sounds cold the reality is that people do not change. If they are controlling they are controlling. Sometimes people come in and out of our lives, if we don't live or work with them it is pretty simple... don't answer the phone/text/emsil when they send it. Eventually they will grow fustrated and move on to someone else they can control.
Are you still available to comment about this subject? Are you a health care professional or just experienced? I really appreciate your response and the internet is kind of my secret place to dwell on what to do with a toxic friend, who is a godmother to my child and have known many years. Unfortunately she also has introduced me to many amazing things, including the network marketing business we are in, so I know she and our common friends will try to tell me if I end the relationship that I no longer am allowed to go to national events with them, etc. She already has me indebted to her for every mistake I make, every promise I make that I can't keep - she charges money for any irritation or aggravation we (this group of friends) cause because she says either you train yourself and discipline yourself to do things better or she gets paid to "train" you. But her training involves rants of verbal abuse and sometimes physical. I am old enough to know better and yet I am unconsciously toxic too because I keep doing the same thing when I should know better and it just seems like she is right - I am lazy and spoiled and don't intend to improve, and I am passing my habits on to my kid. So then I feel guilty and angry at myself and decide to do something different, things are ok for awhile, then it starts all over again with me, or another of the friends. When I have tried before to end it I literally ran away, drove away, moved away, then felt like I valued the relationship so much I could overlook the anger. I've tried hanging up on her, not answering, etc. She will come up with rules and charge money for taking up her time and being rude to her if I do that. Then she will give me a bill for everything she has put money out for our daughter for, and for anything else she feels cost her in relationship to me. She says that if I truly care and show gratitude for all she does I wouldn't have this kind of behavior - wouldn't make mistakes and would be making enough money to be successful. I feel she is right but the rest of it feels like garbage, and tactics that are awful - I am just afraid I won't learn to improve myself as much as I want to if I am around people who are nice but really don't tell you the truth. Does this make sense? If anyone in my family were strong enough we would just say forget it and goodbye, but we have all built good parts of support for each other too. What to do. She will never address her own behavior - she says that's justified for everything others do.
Mom- Let me begin by saying that I am NOT a "professional" but rather VERY experienced. I will also say that I try to be as honest as possible so will respond to what you wrote as such. Let me also state here that I met my husband doing an MLM so the things I am about to say with it are from having "made it to the top" and having attended multiple seminars on what you describe.
Let me begin with what you described is not a "friend" but rather what is known in the industry as a FFAR (Friends, Family, Associates, and Relatives) whenever an MLM starts (or as you refer to it a network marketing group), the first people they tell you to "recruit" are Friends Family Associates and Relatives. That is what your relationship sounds like to me.
She is holding you accountable for quotas and production which in business is needed (I also own my own business doing print advertising and have sales people of my own). If they don't produce the company doesn't make money nor do they. This is not being mean, just realistic.
Still, these people are NOT my "friends" nor will they ever be. Do they consider me a friend? I don't know, many times they confide, give me excuses and reasons, etc, but they are not now nor will they ever be "friends".
As for "not allowing" you to attend national events etc, as long as you are producing which I am guessing you would be or why would you want to go anyway? There is NO way a company is going to tell you, "Hi Mom, we know you are a top producer and making us $x per month, but because Suzie doesn't like you you can't attend our meeting." I can't think of anywhere you would go to a National Convention and everyone there likes eachother.
Just because someone gives you a "bill" doesn't mean a darn thing. You are responsible for yourself and your child period. Not even your husband as he is a grown man (I am assuming) and makes his own choices.
Just remember that the choices you are making now your child is seeing and in my opinion all you are doing is creating an endentured servant in your child to this person when your child did NOT sign up for that even if you did.
I am 34, had a best friend now for over 5 years. We go walking, drinking and have been on holiday together over that period. Over last 2 years cracks have started to appear in our friendship when I discovered he has been mouthing off behind my back to our other friends. It really hurt to begin with but I swallowed my pride, ignored it and carried on. It then got to the point where I confronted him many times about it and he denies all the slagging off, but I have over heard him many times and have noticed other friends distancing themselves from me recently.
They say one of the basic points of a true friendship is trust, but I don't trust him any longer and when I go out with the gang now I feel paranoid reserved and I cannot be myself anymore. I used to be an outgoing confident guy but every time I go out with friends these days to have a good time with etc I come back feeling humilliated heartbroken and depressed. They are my only circle of friends l have in the world and I don't have anybody else around here anymore. I don't want to become an anti social recluse but I really cannot carry on like this. He still enjoys my company and texts me all the time I cannot put up with this 2-faced back biting any longer which has made our friendship toxic.
Do I try and make amends or let him go ??. The latter will mean I give up our other 2 friends too.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in Advance.
Mark- Simply put, as I have said before, once you have lost trust you can NEVER get it back. There is no other way to say this and while it absolutely SUCKS it is reality. You mention that you don't want to become a recluse, yet you don't want to go out with this group any longer. You make it sound as though those are the only 2 options. There is a third: Look in a mirror, tell yourself until you believe it (because it won't happen the first time) the following line- "I deserve better and there is someone out there who will treat me as such." The time inbetween will be tough, but it is also needed to find the person you really are again. He sounds like he is kind of lost in there. When I left my ex, I had to look in the mirror and realized one thing... I was scared to death of what I would find out there, but I KNEW I was unhappy where I was. I said, verbally out loud to others on more than one occasion: "I know the relationship is bad, but I know it" which is why I stayed. It really didn't take long once I made the decision that knowing a bad relationship was not what I wanted, and I was ready to take a leap of faith to find something that could be good. It wasn't the first friends I made after that split, but actually many friends later that I found the group I have now which are truely friends who have become family and love me for me and push me to be better every day while never putting me down for my own shortcommings. Hope this helps some!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This article helped so much.
I have a friend of 32 years. We worked together and had children at the same time. We gave each other baby showers. 15 years ago her husband ended up in a nursing home and I supported her the entire time (10 years) until he passed. After that, she won a lawsuit and inherited millions. Since that time she has gotten some new "rich" friends and has pushed me aside. I have continued to be her friend but have been uncomfortable with her new friends. I do not meet them, she won't introduce me, and I have asked several times, why can't I meet them. She has no answer. (we live 10 miles apart). I have allowed her in the past to treat me "beneath her" and part of this is my fault. However I no longer want to tolerate that. In July of this year, I called her and invited her to go with myhusband and myself for dinner for her bday. She said yes. We met at the restaurant parking lot and I had a new car...which I was going to surprise her of. When she saw the new car, smoke started coming out of her ears. She was livid and speechless. I expected her to be jealous b/c she never gives compliments but she kept it up and kept it up and said "we are extravagant". It took a lot for me to continue into the restaurant. Inside the restaurant, my husband excused himself to go to the bathroom and as soon as he left the table she continued about the car, how Her rich friend hated her and got rid of it, how I will not be able to drive it in the winter and a list of other things negative. Not one word of happiness for me. (She could buy and sell me 10 times over). (I work 2 jobs and she does not have to work). I tried to overlook her comments and we had dinner. We toasted to her bday, I gave her a gift and we bought her a bday dessert. My husband and I have lost quite a bit of weight since we had last seen her. My husband started talking about his diet (she is over weight) and she looked at me and said "I THOUGHT YOU WEREN"T GOING TO LOSE ANY WEIGHT". I said I never said that (my daughter's wedding is in November) ..I said I would NEVER PAY someone to tell me how to lose weight. Once again, nothing positive coming out of her mouth towards me. At the end of the evening I said goodbye to her and wished her a happy birthday. I have not heard from her since. I am appalled. I am ready to end this friendship...someone who I used to enjoy her company...but she is so jealous and nasty...anyway that is how I see it. I asked my husband what should I do and he said that her comments were unnecessary and that she won't change. He told me to drive to her house and go talk to her. Part of me tells me not to do that and just let it go forever. I do not have a lot of friends, but the friends that I have are OLD friends and long friends and my friendships are deep. As for my daughters wedding........I sent her a save the date but am thinking of not inviting her to that...just ending the whole thing. If anyone can help me I would appreciate it. I know this is my decision but it's very very hard. Thank you.
Awesome hub.
I really feel this hub,very enligthening,true and real!
Respect
AR- Glad to help
Susan- Quite simply though it will sound harsh, why bother? I mean that in the nicest way possible... Why in the world would you want to continue to be friends? And if you don't want to be friends why subject yourself to anyone anymore? Just my two cents for what they are worth :)
Rasta- Thank you for the kind comments :)
Not sure I understand your last sentence. "And if you don't want to be friends why subject myself to anyone anymore".....could be interpreted several ways.
Thanks.
Susan- Quite simply you took a lot of time to write A LOT of negative things about this person. In reading there was not ONE thing positive that she provides to you in your life. This is a toxic relationship, though from your response you are not ready to let go of it for which I am truely sorry. There is only one interpretation for what I wrote if you saw the relationship for what you claim it to be. "If you don't want to be friends why subject yourself to anyone anymore" is quite literally why "talk it out" or "discuss it further" with this person? You have NOTHING to gain, except to continue on the path you are one which doesn't seem like it is too happy for you.
Recently I had a brain tumor removed and learned a VERY important lesson. Time is precious. I refuse to waste even a moment with someone who is toxic, as that is a moment I could spend with family or friends who love me. I will no longer mince this and I owe the toxic person nothing, nor do you.
Thank you for your insight. I will reach deep in my heart to resolve this myself and I appreciate your time and comments. Yes time is precious. I shall keep you in my prayers and wish you good health. thank you......
I really like the article and it's helped me realize how a friend of 13 years has turned into a nasty parasite. She would tell me I was being mean to her, should pay for her lunch (literally), should buy her tickets to the movies and after a road trip from hell I've drawn the line. If she contacts me again she'll have to answer my questions and the joke of a friendship that only benefited her is over!
Glad I could help, though sorry you have to go through it...
I really appreciate this thread. As someone who ended a very long term toxic friendship out right- it is good to hear you so clear on the subject. Sometimes I feel guilty and wonder if I did the right thing- but you are right- once trust is lost you can not get it back. It is what it is. I did not want the negativity in my life. There was an incident that was so obviously toxic (it had to be for me to get it!) that I could no longer pretend this friendship was anything but poison. Thank you so much. It just helps to know I am not alone.
I have fairly recently ended a friendship. Things had been getting me down for so long with this relationship and eventually the right moment came along and it just ended. I had felt used by this person and controlled but for some reason I always thought they would change and I also really cared a lot about him. I never asked for anything from him and really only wanted a little care and respect back. He is much younger than me and also lives in a strange family set up which heavily affected our relationship. I hardly ever said no to him but the last time he texted me to go somewhere with him I just felt I had to say No Thankyou. Just that was enough and we have had no contact since. I guess I could not take it any longer, the way he used to make me feel bad.
We were in hindsight an unequal match. Age and culturally
so different but we had a strong bond in some ways so it felt. I have read recently about codependecy and I think I became this within this friendship and that is where it went wrong. 5 month later I am sad about him and think of him often but I am altogether much happier and it is best for both of us to grow and find other people who make us feel better.
Glad I could write this here I think I needed to.
Thanks
Time will take care a lot of the feelings. Just keep on the right path and you know what that is. Someone who makes you feel "not good about yourself" is not a good person to be around.
Some people are takers, some are givers.
Hi, thanks so much for this blog, it is really a relief to know that I'm not alone. I have been friends with "Annie" for twenty years since we were 9 years old. I have been a real doormat and a people pleaser since this young age and Annie really took advantage and often put me down to make herself look better.
When we were 16 most of her friends abandoned her because she really is a narcissist. I was the only one left and I allowed guilt to hold me there and she held onto me extra hard and I know in her own way she tried to be more supportive but still asked me to do an awful lot for her and was just never someone I felt I could trust completely.
Over the years I feel that she has become jealous of me because I have never had children and have a degree of freedom that she doesn't and also because she gained alot of weight and I lost alot of weight.
So often I see her and I feel misunderstood and subtly judged about not having a job and not being rooted. I have done so so much for her over the years and I have tried to just stop answering her calls but then she just comes to my house.
I don't want to confront her because I don't think she will change, I am scared of her anger because she is a big overbearing person and I just don't know what to say. She truly believes she is above reproach. Thanks to anyone that read this whole thing, I appreciate any guidance or support you can offer.
It is clear to me that when a friend or someone who you think is your friend, can never be happy for you, it's time to analyze that so called friendship. It's unhealthy. Friends should be people who are there to help you, love you, accept you for who you are and not have a "contest" with you; whether it's weight, $$, appearance, etc.
Alot of the comments are about friendships, what about a toxic relationship, i know he will never change but he knows i have a good heart, ive did the restrabing order it didnt work, ive told him i dont love him or want to be with him but in his mind were still together, he is very abusive, and obsessive, what can i do.
i had a friend i knew from school days we got on really well but over the last two years he has controled me a lot if i dont reply to a text he gets angary i was looking for work and he called me lazy even though he was not even trying to get a job i told him my worries when we where close but now he is useing them against me i said i wanted to end the friendship but he is being horrible because he does not want me to end it what shall i do
SweetiePie Level 6 Commenter 3 years ago
Thanks for answering my request. I have not experienced this scenario exactly, but I read an article about this topic the other days, so I was just curious how different people with handle this issue. Good job on the write up!