Recognise the signs
It dawned on Auckland mum Jennifer, as she was telling her 10-year-old daughter to stop hanging out with a friend who was being mean to her, that she needed to take her own advice.
“I heard myself saying to my daughter, ‘Do you really want to be friends with this girl? She doesn’t sound very nice,’ and it clicked that I was in the exact same situation with a friend of my own,” recalls Jennifer.
“It made me think about how critical she was of me all the time and I thought, ‘I don’t want to be friends with this person.’”
Jennifer tried to have a conversation with the pal about how she felt belittled by her.
“Her response was, ‘A true friend is someone who tells you the truth.’ But she was always negative and eventually, I’d had enough. “I phoned her and said I would be spending my time with my friends who were supportive and kind, and that wasn’t her. We haven’t spoken since.”
Like any relationship, a friendship can sour. Sometimes, all it takes to fix things is an honest conversation about what the problems are. And a mutual agreement to work on improving the situation. But how do you recognise when it has turned bad and you should pull the plug?
Therapist Steven Dromgool, the clinical director of Relate Counselling in Auckland, says alarm bells should start ringing in any relationship. Including friendships, when the other person looks down on you.
“To me, that is inherently unsafe – it is the opposite of love,” he says. “People can disagree with you, they can get mad at you, but when they treat you as not worthy of respect and honour and value, that is the ultimate red flag.”
Steven explains how things can go wrong, what can be done to improve the relationship and how to call it quits.
How can a good friendship turn bad?
People and circumstances change, especially over long periods of time, and you may not have much in common any more.
“What connected you in the first place may no longer be part of your life, such as a sport or a religious organisation,” says Steven.
“Or you might have children and they don’t, which leads you on different paths.”
You can end up with differing views on life. Such as opposing ideas on politics or child-rearing, which can strain the relationship. Or one person may be less invested in the friendship than the other, leading to an imbalance.
“It’s important for both people to give and receive – relationships where one person is always giving and the other is always receiving are not healthy.”
How do you know a friendship is in trouble?
Friendships don’t usually turn toxic overnight, says Steven. Often, there are signs of a few issues, such as one person seeming to give more to the relationship than the other.
“You might have noticed that it seems very unequal and that can feel draining. Add in a few inflaming incidents, where one person feels unfairly treated, and it can escalate to feeling toxic.”
If interactions with your friend leave you unsettled, irritable and experiencing a drop in energy, the friendship is not in a good place. In some cases, you can have physical symptoms of stress, such as an upset stomach, headache and a tight chest.
“This is common, especially if you are a loyal person, and you have a long history with that friend.”
How can you try to fix things?
An imbalance in a relationship may be temporary, for example, if one of you is dealing with significant life events.
“If someone’s going through a crisis like a divorce or losing a parent or big stuff at work, there may be a period when it is hard for them to give,” says Steven.
“But if they can say, ‘I might not be there for you emotionally at the moment, but thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me,’ that helps. Even doing something like baking muffins to say thank you can help – that’s a way of giving back to the relationship.”
But if their lack of giving is an ongoing problem, it’s time to set boundaries.
“You need to have a conversation where you say things like, ‘Whenever we talk, it’s all about you. You never check on me.’ Or, ‘What you did was really hurtful, I need you to apologise.’”
If they acknowledge that they’ve treated you badly and say sorry, that friendship may be able to be saved, says Steven.
“But if they can’t, then maybe you have to decide, ‘Do I want to be friends with someone who treats me like this?’”
How do you end a friendship?
If attempts to fix an unhealthy and stressful relationship haven’t worked, it may be time to step back. It’s better to let your friend know why you’re doing this rather than ghosting them, says Steven.
“Avoiding someone gets difficult because you could run into them anywhere and what do you do then?” he says.
“It can be awkward. But if you’ve had a conversation and said to them, ‘You’ve really hurt me and I don’t want you to be part of my life,’ then they know where they stand.
“It can be hard if you are part of a wider group of friends, which is why in your exit conversation you could include something like, ‘I know we hang out in the same social circles and if I see you, I will be polite, but if I hear you saying bad things about me, I will call you out.’”
Before having that exit conversation, write down what you want to say. And work out strategies to deal with whatever they might say to you in return.
“If you have responses ready to go, that can make it easier. And you never know, if you say, ‘I don’t want to hang out with someone who’s mean to me,’ they could say, ‘What? I’m sorry.’ They may be genuinely apologetic – there was no malicious intent. That’s the difference between a toxic relationship and one where somebody’s just screwed up.
“You may be able to fix it, but if you don’t set boundaries and have the conversation, you might never find out.”
‘I pulled the plug’
Rachel and Fiona were in their mid-20s when they met through work. Where they bonded over the huge workload they were left with when many of their colleagues were made redundant.
“I don’t think we’d have coped without one another to moan to,” recalls Rachel.
The friendship continued when they left the company and had children. Rachel was there for Fiona when she found motherhood a struggle and then when her marriage ended.
“I often looked after her kids so she could have me time. I was happy to do it at first, but after a while, it felt like I was being taken advantage of.”
A couple of years later, Rachel went through tough times of her own. When her husband’s business failed and they suffered financial hardship. Fiona, who was in a new relationship, was not very supportive.
Shares Rachel, “She didn’t want to hear about what I was going through – she just wanted to talk about how fabulous her life was. I realised she was very entitled and judgmental. She used people. I could see that our friendship had always been lop-sided – I gave and she took.”
Rachel gradually reduced contact with Fiona and after she moved to another town, she stopped communicating with her altogether.
“To start with, I don’t think she noticed that I wasn’t in touch. Months later, she phoned to tell me some gossip and finally asked how I was. I was short with her and we didn’t talk for a very long. We’ve had no contact since.”
Rachel’s mother thinks she should have tried to fix the friendship or at least explained to Fiona why she no longer wanted to be friends, rather than ghosting her.
“But what was I supposed to say – ‘I don’t like you any more?’”
Rachel has no idea what Fiona thinks about the demise of their friendship or if she’s even noticed.
“I don’t really care, to be honest. My life is less stressful without her.”
Is your friendship unhealthy?
A friendship may be in trouble if there is:
- Constant negativity and criticism
- No respect for boundaries
- A lack of support
- Very little empathy
- Unequal effort put into the relationship
- Manipulative behaviours
- Frequent conflict
- Unreliability and betrayal
- A lack of trust
A test of true friendship
A good friend is supportive. But one who tells you something because they think it’s what you want to hear isn’t doing you any favours, says Steven. “It’s called foolish validation – if you’re talking about doing something stupid and they’re saying, ‘Yes, go for it,’ that’s not a good sign. A friend who tells you if you’re being stupid is a real friend.”
‘We fixed our friendship’
Aucklander Natalie feared she’d lost a friend for good after having a “massive” falling out with her pal Sarah. Who she’d been close to since they met at university 20 years earlier. The tension between them had built up over a while, with Natalie feeling like she was the one who had to do all the running in the friendship.
“I was always the one who initiated getting together – she never did.”
Natalie also felt shut out of parts of Sarah’s life. “She hardly ever talked about her new partner and it felt like she was trying to keep her relationship separate from her friendships, which I found hard.
”Things came to a head after Sarah agreed to help Natalie at an event, then didn’t show up. “We had a huge row, which was awful,” recalls Natalie.
“I yelled at her for letting me down. She yelled about being expected to drop everything for me, which wasn’t the case at all.”
After the argument, they didn’t speak for several weeks and Natalie thought their bond had run its course.
“I was still mad at her, but I also missed her so much.”
They eventually met up to talk. Natalie told Sarah how she felt she was being taken for granted and Sarah revealed she felt overwhelmed by the way Natalie always took charge of situations.
Sarah also explained that there were issues involving her partner that she’d been asked not to talk to anyone about –including Natalie.
“Talking about everything cleared the air, and being aware how each other felt meant we could be more understanding and do things a bit differently,” says Natalie.
“We’re good mates again and I’m so pleased about that because I would have hated to have lost her friendship.”
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