Break Free From Toxic Friendships

Healthy friendships make life richer. Not only do they increase joy, but research shows they boost your immune system and may even help you live longer. For most, however, the actual value comes not from adding extra years to your life, but from the deep satisfaction and support these relationships provide.

Unfortunately, not every friendship is healthy. Some are toxic. These friends create constant drama, sap your energy, diminish your confidence, and frequently leave you in a state of anxiety. With few exceptions, these relationships are not good for you.

It's best to push these harmful relationships out of your life.

But drawing the line between a healthy and toxic friendship can be difficult. Most of our friendships have rough edges. Knowing the difference between normal friction in a friendship and true toxicity is essential.

To help, here are five qualities typically found in healthy friendships.

What Healthy Friendships Contain

While every friendship is unique, the healthiest ones share key qualities.

• Enjoyment: Real friends enjoy each other's company. If being together rarely brings a smile, this likely isn't a friendship at all—just a distraction.
• Mutual Respect: Friends respect one another, shown in both words and actions. Friendly teasing is fine only when it doesn't cross into humiliation or mean-spiritedness.
• Interest: True friends value and invite each other's insights, even when they disagree.
• Goodwill: You sincerely wish the best for your friends, and they for you.
• Sacrifice: Healthy friendships involve give-and-take. Sometimes you go out of your way for your friend—and you trust they'd do the same.

Healthy friendships improve psychological and physical health. They provide a sense of connection, meaning, and community. Within this type of friendship, there is a sense of engagement and belonging. These sorts of companions you look forward to spending time with: their company makes you feel more settled, their insights are helpful, and when they do sometimes confront you, it's done out of concern and respect.

Signs of a Toxic Friendship

The worst of toxic friendships contains an element of healthy friendships. These are the worst because this makes the friendship even more confusing. But you can cut through the confusion by recognizing the following traits that signal something is terribly wrong.

• Imbalance in Focus: One person always dominates the conversation, showing little interest in your life. If you feel more like an audience than a participant, something's wrong.
• Reliably Unreliable: When you can't count on your friend—frequently canceled plans, no follow-through on simple favors—yet they expect your constant support, the friendship is unbalanced.
• Dismissiveness: Your achievements, goals, or opinions are routinely ignored or belittled. Rather than championing your efforts, the toxic friend minimizes your successes and highlights your shortcomings, sapping your confidence.
• Drama: A friend who constantly has drama in their life will pull you into that emotional hurricane. You'll be recruited to be a counselor, comforter, protector, and ally against whatever imaginary insults and assaults are currently on their mind. This will be exhausting, and you'll find that no matter how hard you try, your efforts are insufficient to bring about lasting comfort or change.

Three Ways to End a Toxic Friendship

Ending a toxic friendship is straightforward. The key is not to overthink it… Don't make it complicated. It's not.

One: The very best way to end these friendships is to tell the other person directly that you have given the matter some thought and that you don't like X, Y, Z (some aspect of their interaction or behavior).

Mention that you've spoken with them about this before, but nothing has changed. You wish them well but will not be spending any more time together.

This is the best way because the clarity with which you have framed the issue leaves no doubt that the friendship is over. If they are bitter, that's on them, not you. Having dealt with the matter confidently and decisively, you leave feeling better about yourself (a much-needed antidote to the feelings generated by a toxic relationship).

This does not need to turn into an argument. If your toxic friend tries to turn the conversation into a heated conflict, acknowledge that you see things differently. Then wish them well and walk away.

Two: Discuss with your friend the reasons you find the relationship to be toxic. Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are unaware of their toxic behavior. Remind them of the qualities that first drew you to them, and state clearly that you would like to see the friendship grow. Still, you find it difficult to imagine that happening unless these issues are worked out.

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The benefit of this approach is that when someone responds favorably and genuinely attempts (and succeeds) in making changes, you will have found a very rare friend indeed. The other advantage is that upon hearing that you consider them toxic, most people will run for the exit – mission accomplished, friendship severed.

Three: No longer reach out to the toxic friend. I know what you're thinking: "Just ghost my friend?" No, not ghosting. More like putting them in "time out"... permanently. You can answer their calls and respond to their text messages, but your conversations become brief.

Your text responses are even briefer.

When they call, treat them with civility, but do not treat them as though they were part of your inner circle. They are not. When they ask you to join them in doing something, politely decline.

They will eventually get the point. It avoids the unpleasantness of directly telling the person that you don't wish to continue the friendship.

The direct approach is preferred, but in reality, some folks don't want to risk a confrontation. If that's the case, option three is your friend.

Conclusion

Healthy, close friendships enrich your life. They bring a sense of joy, deep satisfaction, and steadiness.

Toxic friendships, on the other hand, create confusion, doubt, uncertainty, and fatigue.

Both healthy and toxic friendships require time and energy, but only one is a wise investment. Don't wait. Amputate unhealthy relationships from your life and focus your energies on deepening healthy friendships. You will be surprised how much better you feel.