To ask if you’ve ever had a toxic friendship?

[PumpkinSpicedLatte21]

-As an adult not a child/teenager.
What were the signs and how did you cope with it?

I’m a long term poster but have name changed *

Yes.
15 years of friendship, took me 13 years to realise even with warnings from other people.
I cut her out. Best decision.

@OinkPinkPonk how did you end the friendship and how did it make you feel?

Do we sometimes mistake stalkers for "best friends"?

Someone who is always there, always doing things for you, fetching you gifts of any odd thing you mention, offering to take you everywhere you go.

My Nextdoor neighbour-but-2 had kids the same age as mine, and one of them was always round at my house. In fact, if we were out for the day, by the time we'd parked the car outside our house, we'd have 'visitors'. She would ask for help with the youngest while she went to school assemblies, or appointments, or whatever, which would always take much much longer than she said. And I'd see her staggering up the road to her house with armfuls of bulging shopping bags...
It came to a head when we walked to school one day with a new neighbour on the street (whose DH was a computer whizz would could be useful ) and I was completely ignored. Except for being snapped at if I tried to enter the conversation.
It lasted a few years, by the time the kids were at senior school, I never saw her again.

Yes I had a toxic friendship. People in RL and on here told me so but I ignored everyone.

In the end she twisted something to her advantage and dumped me.

I’m having therapy for what she’s done to me and how she ended the friendship.

Do we sometimes mistake stalkers for "best friends"?

Definitely!
I was love bombed by a new friend at the start of our friendship, it was very weird but in the end I went along with it...Friendship eventually went the way you'd guess!

[quote PumpkinSpicedLatte21]@OinkPinkPonk how did you end the friendship and how did it make you feel?[/quote]
Confronted her.
Blocked her number, blocked on social media.
I was sad at first, 15 years is a long time. As times went on I have felt better and at peace with my decision.
And tbh a lot happier in myself and mental health.

Yes, I met her at NCT classes, she totally turned the rest of the group against one mum (at the time we all thought the one mum was the unreasonable one) There were signs that she was toxic, and using me, but I was quite good at saying no to her. She did some weird things like throw a tantrum because one of the group was asked to go with their in-laws to their house in Tenerife for half term. Even though we'd all arranged to go bowling this woman stilI went to Tenerife. How dare she?!?
Toxic friend also didn't speak to her in laws and refused to go to her DBs wedding because she hated his fiancé. But she seemed to like me, phoned me every day for a chat...then one day she treated me like she treated everybody else. And that was the end of that, I couldn't be friends with someone who treated me like that. She did back peddle and try to worm her way out of it, saying I'd misunderstood, but I couldn't be bothered with her any more. DH and I always felt sorry for her lovely husband. We went on holiday with them a couple of times, and saw how she treated him.

Yes! The joy of being an adult is that you don’t have to put up with it. We were friends for almost 20 years and I finally woke up and cut contact…so freeing!

Yes, she was a nightmare. Took me a while, but came to a head when we went on holiday together. Got home, cut her off all SM and blocked her number. Told her a few home truths to her face and I hear she's still pretty much the same as she was 10 years ago. Some people will never learn

I noticed she always got a bit excited when something was going wrong in my life, and when something good happened (or I had plans), she would be a bit dismissive or put out. On a visit to her home country, she started putting me down in front of people, as if we were finally on her turf and she was the boss now. I'm sorry to say that I was going through a hard time then, and somewhat faded her out after we got back.

Someone extremely self-centred. Everything was always about her. I'm not sure why I stayed friends so long - about 5 years - maybe because we worked together for the first 3 years so it have been awkward to cool things. And she was amusing in a way. But never offered any support, it was all the other way.

I decided I'd had enough when I'd been through a bit of a low phase and hadn't been in touch for a while. I came back from a holiday to a pretty aggressive and angry phone message. No asking how I was or expressing concern in any way. So I wrote her a letter explaining how I felt. And never heard from her again. Huge relief.

Yeah I got rid of a toxic friendship. She was always slagging people off, bigging herself up, couldn’t go out for a night or down the pub without doing a bit of coke, felt like she didn’t respect me. Got rid of her and felt much better!

Yes she was only happy when something bad was happening to me. She used me for money and freebies. Had a go at me when I didn't invite her to a social event with my other friends... people she didn't even know!
Would expect me to watch her kids when she brought them around and sat on my sofa gossiping.
She decided to fall out with me and have a go at me on the anniversary of my sons death and never supported me making the day about herself.
That was the final straw for me.
She still asks me to do favours for her yet ignores me when she sees me in person.

Yes. Bestie at uni, used to run me down to make herself feel good. Once we left, the friendship lasted less than two years.

Yes.
We got quite close due to shared interests.
Over the year we close she

• 'forgot' her purse several times and would give me things ( unwanted clothes) or do my hair ( hairdresser) in lieu of paying me back despite my protests that I didn't want the stuff/service.
• Talk down to me in front of other people.
• Ask me to pick up bits of shopping in town when she knew I was already there so I would look awful refusing- then making excuses that she had no cash in the house when I dropped off the items.
• took delight in the fact I was having relationship problems.

Signs:

• incredibly charming and friendly
• lots of offers to “help”
• very understanding and supportive

But then

• seemed to always have a “new” best friend
• bitchy about other people/but nice to their faces
• would make comments about not doing things as it wouldn’t benefit her

she Basically was a professional user. Would be really good friends till she got what she wanted and then slag you off. I found I would go to events and I always seem to be the butt of jokes. I would feel miserable.

I’ve just distanced myself.

'friend' of around 15 years - I listened and offered support on dozens of family dramas and crisis. Always glass half full - I can only remember one single restaurant across all that time where she said she'd enjoyed it and didn't complain about food/service/costs. Generally very draining, although she could be kind on occasions.

She'd never drive anywhere, but often expected me to, then criticised my driving constantly, complained if I used satnav, because she could direct me (but was quite confusing with directions, or forgot part way through the journey).

About 5 years ago she started shouting instructions on a busy roundabout. I pulled into the nearest car park and asked her to get out, haven't seen her since.
I've been driving for about 30 years, have neve had an accident, so I don't think I'm a bad driver aside from when I don't know where the fuck I'm going because passenger won't let me use satnav

@LockdownsNo1Hater

Yes I had a toxic friendship. People in RL and on here told me so but I ignored everyone.

In the end she twisted something to her advantage and dumped me.

I’m having therapy for what she’s done to me and how she ended the friendship.

Are you me? It’s shocking how many people this happens to!!

Yes.

Also took me 15 years to realise and 2 years after that to block.
Still sends me birthday cards even though it's 6 years since I've seen her.
I think it's probably to ruin my birthday

Not sure if she was toxic, but got very good friends with a woman I worked with. She was funny and great, and then after a while, I realised she was a spoilt brat, she was bitchy to me one evening in front of a load of work colleagues so after that I kept away. Saw her in a pub maybe six months later, she tried to wave at me but I blanked her.

She was a nob.

Yes. I seem to have attracted a few people over the years who have wanted to compete with me or who have been very jealous of me, and it has not been pleasant.

I’m not sure why because I’m not a very competitive person and I am far from wildly successful or anything, but there’s a certain type of person who seems to come into my life every now and again. They will strike up a ‘friendship’ with me but I’ll quickly realise that all our conversations go down a kind of ‘anything you can do I can do better’ route which I just do not respond well to. I start to feel like I exist only as a foil for their own insecurities. Any success I have or good thing that happens to me, they get funny with me because it’s not fair and my life is too good. Any bad thing that happens to me, they’ve always got it worse somehow. I end up feeling really shit about myself either way.

I’ve recently taken a massive step back from such a ‘friendship’ where I realised I was constantly expected to big up this person and their every success, or commiserate over every setback, but every time I shared something from my own life it was completely dismissed or even totally ignored. I suddenly had this light bulb moment where I realised I felt completely and utterly worthless in every interaction with this person and I don’t know why I would ever be friends with someone who makes me feel like that.

Still sends me birthday cards even though it's 6 years since I've seen her.
I think it's probably to ruin my birthday

That’s funny, I think mine deliberately did the opposite. Flat out refusing to acknowledge my birthday (and other big occasions) in what I can only assume was some kind of power-play designed to mess with my head. I mean literally saying absolutely nothing when I say something as blatant as ‘it’s my birthday today so I’m about to go out for dinner’, and they just reply with ‘oh cool’ or whatever. So weird!

Yes. My best friend in first / part of second year of university. She was great fun for the first couple of semesters. By the third she had seriously started to turn but we had already signed a lease for a house for second year with a few other girls by then.

Second year she was truly awful. She used to smirk at every single thing I said as if it was intolerably stupid or embarrassing. She wheedled her way into all of my other friendships and then bitched about me to my friends under the guise of being 'concerned' about me. She used to take other flatmates aside for private conversations about how I was stealing their food or change (literally never did anything of the sort), which made them hate me. She made the atmosphere in the house so toxic that my other flatmates kept getting angry at me and saying I had to sort out her behaviour. Any time I hung out with another friend she would find some massive character flaw in them and then present it to me. She belittled me and humiliated me in front of others constantly.

I eventually left the flat and moved home for the last semester of second year. She caught me sneaking out of the flat when I left and followed me out so that she could yell at me on the street until I could flag down a taxi.

I had nothing more to do with her after that. She asked me to meet up with her in third year when she apologised and said she was on medication for her skin that made her behave that way. No idea if it was true or not but it gave me some closure.

I don't think she's had a great life since - I heard she had big fall outs with subsequent flatmates and friends. I think she was fundamentally incapable of relating to people in a normal, pleasant way tbh.