i know what you mean i try and think you can choose your friends but not your family, so i try to work out how good is this friendship and should i put up with the way they act. a friend so so is fed up with another who before their drama and husband sleeping with another mate that now she is all over her and before hardly bothered. also now i am getting things rolling for my son to get the help he needs she is in a huff and moans that her son dint get the same, i have had to fight for his 2 years of life and he is only 2 half now so im not going to appolagise for getting where i am. god what a rant and rave put friends can be odd

I have a friend, except friend really isn't the right word. She doesn't seem to care about my daily issues because I'm not in crisis and everything is drama for her. Shes constantly asking me to do things for her (and I go out of my way often to help her) but is never there for me. It sounds incredibly juvenile but the only reason I'm her friend is I have so many people who've known me for any length of time, and I don't want to be lonelier. Someone in the loneliness forum mentioned it was like they had a sign on their head attracting people who take advantage. For once I'd like someone else to be the giver in the relationship. Sorry for the rant, but the article made sense to me.

Interesting article. I need help with this subject at the moment. Its hard to know when to draw the line when there are fond memories also. But sometimes I think you need to make a conscious decision to do what is right for yourself and make that break. I have done this in the past and it has worked, but once again I am struggling with the same issue. listening to your unconscious mind to work out what it is that i am afraid of is a good point that I will try to do. thanks

As I am reading this ( and I can only read the top one, i cant read ALL the comments too, i am unableto retain everything and still remember what i wanted to write!) it reminds me of my friend Pam who is Bipolar/Manic Depressive. at first the way she treated me hurt me really badly then I studied the illnesses and i learned to look at our relationship differantly and she is a differant type of friend. She will never, because of her illness, be able to have any realy friends, which is sad. oh it is crazy, because of her illness you never know what "Pam" you are going to see when you walk in the door, so i just be a friend. I cannot let myself be abused like that all the time, so there are alot of times when I dont go over there. but she deserves friends too, doesnt she?

An interesting read. Friendships evolve because ppl take different paths(emotionally &/or geographically. I have several friends who dont live nearby that I talk with/send Christmas cards. Others, important during school days, i have little in common with anymore But 'friends' who feel that they have a duty to help you 'improve' by giving unasked for advice, are vexations to the spirit (yup Desiderata) & shoul;d be phased out asap because that one is not the same personality you befriended, or vice versa. & sometimes you can clear up differences with a quiock phrase ( If you think i need to improve so much you should find someone else up to ur exacting standards) & just walk away!!
Peacefully
God Bless
chip

I think we recognize a boundary when it gets crossed, so some damage can be done before we realize it's happened.

I feel like I look the other way repeatedly then get to a point where I am beyond done. If I were more sensitive to my feelings then I would not have to be so extreme in either direction. I usually go the way of not trying to involve the other person to initiate change, unless it is an intimate relationship, then I go overboard with this. With friends I just tend to withdraw. Thanks for the suggested approach.

I wrote a post about my feelings about this blog on the depression/crisis page, and I gave some people the impression that this article was "mean" I just want everyone to know that I don't feel it is mean at all. It's just the way it is. Just because I am not "good" for other people to be around doesn't mean that I don't understand why, or respect the fact that they need to do what is best for them. My problems are my own, and to bring others down doesn't help me or anyone else. I am really sorry if what I said seemed like an attack. I love Julies Blogs, They are right on as far as I am concerned.

i have a friend like this but weve been friends 4so long and have been fru so much 2let go. she is like my sister n has always been here 4me but she has changed. i cant talk to her anymore cuz she has her own things 2deal with n i dont like puting my problems on her, well anyone really. we have a real up and down friendship. one day we can be the best of friends then petty little things come between us and we split up mates for a while(usually a few days, mayb a week) dont get me wrong shes a great mate and we both make an effort with eachother but it has changed!

Hi again,
You know, I just could not help myself from commenting again after reading persephone's post. just some questions/comments. I could not help relate to people who simply cannot apologize for hurting you, if you express that something hurt you in a way that makes them non-defensive. I think of myself, and if a good friend expresses hurt or even anger stemming from something I might have done or said that hurt them, the very first thing I do is apologize whether she's wrong or right. I don't want to hurt anyone, especially a close friend. It's not that hard to say, I apologize, I did not mean to hurt or offend you. It's me coming from a negative place. I'm sorry. Or even take a little time if necessary.

I used to have sooo many friends when I was younger. I don't know what happened. I have to wonder if I've changed or my values have. I know one thing - if I feel abused by a friend, verbally or emotionally, I refuse to have them in my life no matter how much I like them, when this becomes a pattern. A friend (actually an E-mail friend) said to me, either I can accept the good things about the friendship as is, and tolerate their faults as noone is perfect or at times it becomes necessary to cut the cord even if it makes you sad and mourn.

I really have no local friends that I can laugh with, go have a cup of coffee with, call when I have a problem and that causes me a lot of depression and sadness. But, one of my friends or ex-friends as I sort have accepted her for who she is after cutting her off for awhile. I suppose our love of animals seems to bring us together...she's not local. But she tought me long ago how to try and make a new friend. I admired her assertiveness when I met her in a tap dancing class long ago, and after talking, she asked me if maybe we could have coffee or even dinner sometimes. I said great and thus began years of friendship, many good, many terrible, many a deal-breaker. But just yesterday, I met a woman who I felt we had a lot in common & we immediately took a liking to each other during a sale transaction. Me, usually friendly but not assertive did what my friend Sue did. Would you like to have a cup of coffee sometime? She said yes, I'm so glad you asked. I'm hoping that maybe it might evolve into a friendship. If not, at least I've tried.

And lastly, I believe it's better to be alone than to have friends that don't treat you as a true friend should. Forgiving once, twice OK but after awhile a choice must be made. Sometimes I actually feel good that all the toxic friends that I knew are not in my life anymore. Yes, it hurts not to be valued, but it's more important to value yourself and be as nice as possible to all those around you.

What to do when the friend is also a sister and you have a major block to communicate? She is not willing to see a third party.

Yup, I have had quite a few friends over the years who I had all sorts of problems with and eventually had to let go after taking them back into my life time and time again. I probably took them back most of the time out of fear of being alone or feeling like maybe I am just being petty and whatever the issue isn't bad enough to throw away a friendship over. The final straw with one was when she started picking fights with me, when she decided to scream at me over an issue that didn't have anything to do with her. Enough was enough.

At current, I am wrestling with putting an end to another friendship in my life, as hard as that would be for me. I am faced with the age old question of which is worse: no friends or bad friends? This particular friend and I have had many disagreements over the course of our friendship and the majority of them were forgivable. But that's just it, I feel like every three months or so I am forgiving her for something else. She's never said "I'm sorry" to me in our friendship, ever. Whenever she hurts my feelings and I call her on it she instead of saying "It wasn't my intention to upset you, I'm sorry, my intention was this ____" It gets met with anger and defensiveness. So I am forgiving her without even an apology. I'm forever letting things go. For quite a while I've been wanting to cut her loose but I have a friend who is friends with both of us who is always getting in the middle and talking me into giving her another chance. And, seriously, I've let the majority of our issues go. But, over the past few months, things are getting steadily worse and not better. And I was just talking to an old friend about this earlier tonight and she told me when I told her about the things I can't forgive this friend over that they were fucked up and that I shouldn't forgive her over them, particularly if I have never gotten an apology. I have become aware that I never will. She can't apologize, she's never wrong. It's sad but, I am so close to cutting her loose and not letting my other friend tell me I am in the wrong for doing so. I'm tired of her not thoughtlessness, my calling her on it, getting yelled at, being hurt, wanting to sever the ties, being talked into giving her another chance, and then having it all repeat itself. I'll miss the good times with her, I will, but some things are unforgivable. She didn't come and see me when I was raped, she didn't call when my grandfather died. The latter I am attempting to just let go but the first I never will. Yeah, I would have come running, I had a friend of four months trying to make his life so that he could drive an hour and a half to be with me and my friend of 8 years couldn't stop for a few minutes when the hospital was on her way home. BLECH! OK, this is turning into a rant.

Bottom line, I think, at least for me, I am so afraid of being alone and I am afraid that I'll be missing out on good times ahead if I cut a friend out of my life, even if things aren't working out. But I've done it before, and she needs to go, or at the very least, we need a break... and a long one. It just is sad.

OK, enough. Sorry.

in the bible, Jesus talks about the cost of being a disciple. this really fits here. when we are friends with someone, and the relationship enters murky waters, we need to consider the cost of the friendship. what is it going to demand of us? are we willing or able to pay that price? i ended one friendship because the cost became more than i was able to endure. while i have relatively few friends, the ones i do have are there for me as much as i am for them.

I just want to say that I am a TOXIC person. I don't mean to be, And I have always said that if I ever burn in hell, it will be because of what I have put my family and others thru. Trust me, KEEP TOXIC PEOPLE AS FAR AWAY FROM YOU AS POSSIBLE!!. Life is hard enough. Surround yourself with the happiest, most possitive people you can. If you are happy, hang on to that as if your life depended on it. Don't let anyone bring you down if your not. My pain is too much for me to handle, But I would NEVER want to bring anyone down with me. It's just hard to keep up the act of being okay for too long. That's why my world is very small and the only place I express my "shit" is here on DS. I guess I just figure that here people can make the choice to read or not read. And if I bring you down in the smallest way. DON'T READ ANY OF IT. My goal here is not to bring anyone down, but to maybe make you understand that being a TOXIC person is not neccessaraly an intentional thing, so never make it personal okay. People have to do what ever it is to help themselves. I know that, and I understand that being around people like me who run so hot and cold can be more than stressful -It's stressful on me- In my family we pretty much have to stay away from each other, because tempers fly, and everyone takes everything so personal that it just gets rediculous. None of us can help each other or support each other because we are all in "crisis" at the same time. It's like we are all on fire, and each of us has our own can of gas ready to throw on the other. Anyway.... I am rambling. I just want to say that although you absolutely have to keep Toxic people away from you. Just try not to hate them. They probably hate themselves bad enough. End the relationship, but just try to be as nicely and as firmly as you can and if the onther person can't handle it, That's NOT your problem. It might be hard, but they will just have to live with it. And I know that for me, even if I don't like it, I totally understand.

I can so relate to this article. I tell myself all the time that I'm done but yet it's also so hard to just end the friendship. I always find myself backing down after telling myself that I just want out of the friendship. It's so hard finding someone that you can truly trust and tell everything to, so I tell myself its easier to just keep them in my life, regardless of the disrespect. But, I'm definitely realizing that I need to end it, everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Hi,
Oh my god, could I ever relate to what I just wrote about letting go of a friend because they are "toxic" or they don't treat you as you feel you should be treated to the point of your feeling abused. And then not making any rifts by any confrontation, because you know that might be the beginning of the end. Especially if you're pretty alone in the first place and have few good friends locally.

Especially women friendships. I have this friend or I should say ex-friend, that I enjoyed speaking with every day. We told each other everything. I also knew that this friend had a pattern in her life of if she felt she was wronged, she would just cross people, often people she loved off her list of those to associate with. For instance, when I was friendlier with her, she had a friend she had not spoken to for 10 years because of a petty fight this friend threw her for her 50th Birthday Party. And yet, this was her best friend. I encouraged her to call, as I could tell she missed this woman, but after 10 years it took the other person to call over a mutual friend. The other woman said...do you know who this is? and she replied, my most favorite person in the whole wide world. Thus, they reuinited and I had the pleasure of spending time with both of them.

Not that long after, at a time I needed a lot of support from a friend, I received a letter that she didn't want to have to take care of me or worry that I was going to kill myself (we both have alluded to suicide when we commiserated about the trials & tribulations of life). The letter had a series of ultimatums of what I should do, like stop taking prozac which my doc prescribed and other things, and after I did all those things, to call her.

I refused to have any friendship based on ultimatums that she felt I should do. At first, I really tried to apologize if I hurt her in any way, or she felt burdened by my sadness reminding her that 3 months prior I got her through a difficult time, and that I valued her friendship way to much to be crossed off her list as I knew she could do as I've known her for so long. I tried, but then I got angry after no response and I wrote something a bit more hurtful. She has always berated herself, calling herself a loser, a failure in life, and had a horrible self image which I always tried to change by telling her all the great things she had going for herself, intelligence, being a beautiful woman, reminding her that it's not what you do job wise that defines who you are. A lot of times I think it helped. When I wrote this letter, I asked, now why should I respect all of these things that you decide I should change. If it had come from a person who was relatively happy with their lives and did not constantly call themselves a failure, then perhaps I might have some respect for what she was asking me to do.

So many details, but I'll stop here. I ended on a nice note but still I knew I closed the door when I wrote those words. Maybe I knew I would because I was so afraid of being alone. And I am. I have no family and no close friends where I live. BUT, I would rather be alone than be abused. I really would. We have not spoken for over a year now and I know we never will UNLESS I call her, but this time, I'm tired of being the one to patch things up.

Another friend...and this is short, we have cats & I called her up with a question about my cat. She was more of a casual friend, but I did not know she was in the middle of reading "The Secret" which is something about changing your life for the better - I have not read it. She thought it was appalling that I would call with a question as trivial as a cat problem when she was into some mind-altering state. Then she said, I don't know if we can be friends. I said, fine, just like that because it was more casual anyway...BUT it made me think...why??? I'm a good, supportive friend. If there's one thing I know about myself, it's that. But after awhile, you begin to think something is wrong with you if it happens 2 or 3 times. I've analyzed myself, but I can't see any valid reason and I can't say it does not hurt losing a friend regardless of the reason.

Thanks for listening.

I agree. It is sometimes difficult to define what is going on, but I say that if you respect yourself then you will not allow yourself to be downtrodden by bad remarks or abuse. However, it is hard to break the circle sometimes, particularly when people know your background or you work within a certain career where this type of behaviour occurs frequently. Generally I find walking away and giving the person time out works, particularly in my case as my partner has a brain injury.

I agree but it has taken me many years to set such boundaries !
I use to be the super macho guy,who could take anything from a woman,including both verbal & physical assaults.
I think as I have aged I don not have to put up with anything just to have sex.One should keep it all natural but not degrade one self.

Thank you! I'm in the middle...feel like 'Stretch Armstrong'....between 2 friends. The first had hurt me, many times. When I finally had enough, she's been working overtime to change her life and behavior to keep me as a friend, and to be a better person. The other friend refuses to forgive the first one, no matter what, and is very angry all the time...and quite negative about almost everything. Frankly, I find the 2nd one's behavior more exhausting then the first one's being hurtful. Any suggestions?
sincerely, Maggie S

I agree with timgal-

What would constitute Inappropriate friendships?