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?

Yes, someone I was friends with for years and it gradually dawned on me she wasn’t who people thought she was. She was a hugely generous gift giver, always had a willing shoulder to cry on, was witty and very funny and had a huge number of friends who were all lovely. Then I started to see that if the gifts weren’t reciprocated she would become very hostile, that the shoulder to cry on would last less than 5 minutes followed by an hour of her talking about herself, and that her lovely friends were all basically horribly manipulated and scared of her.

As more things dawned on me I tried to slowly distance myself from her and it was then I found out exactly what she was like. Once the attention was gone, she was relentless. She spread the most awful lies about me, which pretty much all of our mutual friends believed because she was so convincing, she connived ways to make sure I was left out of social situations, she basically had absolutely no qualms about destroying my life because I wasn’t feeding her narcissist supply anymore.

Eventually she did the same to everyone else too and a few years later none of my friends are friends with her now. It’ll always hurt that they all believed her at the time though. On the plus side I now know how to spot a narcissist. I won’t get stung again.

Yes two.

One was supposed to be a great friend. Dcs same age etc. Then one day, we'd arranged a play date and she just didn't turn up. Didn't respond to texts or anything. Didn't hear from her again for months and then at school gate there'd be the occasional chat. I think her oh had something to say about our friendship as we weren't wealthy enough for them. I avoid her now.

Another who claims to "adore me" but is actually a true narcissist. Everything is totally about her, how I (and others) could be of use to her and yet she would exclude me from various social events. She's the type of person who would tell you to dress casually for an event and then turn up dressed to the nines whilst you look shabby in jeans and a top. I really avoid her too. She wouldn't notice though to be honest.

Yes.
Met at school aged about 14.
Looking back she is narcissistic, she now has a dx of bipolar, boarder line personality disorder as well as a plethora of other medical conditions.

Used me & others totally to her own advantage always.
Twisted things almost professionally.
No feelings for or interest anyone, completely cold and indifferent.
Only interacted with people who could do something for her.

Couldn’t keep a job, soon got bored, sick record horrendous because if she didn’t feel like going in just didn’t, had absolutely no interest in how that affected her employers or colleagues.
Totally self centred & self serving.

Always centre of attention, calling ambulances, always at her GP, walk in centres, A&E. Prescribed loads of medications but never bothered taking them.
Got every possible benefit that she could lay her hands on.
Professional complainer, trying to sue her GP, local hospital for any minor issue with only endgame being financial compensation, not interest in the distress caused to those she involved.

It dawned on me that she never ever asked how I was, what I was doing, how my family were.
Never did anything for me & showed zero interest I’m my life.

She used me for money but managed somehow to convince me that she didn’t, would regularly con me out of money.

Didn’t drive so used to get me to take her all over the place with no offer of petrol money.

She now bleeds her own children dry, her grown up daughter regularly dashing across the country frantic with worry when she calls ambulances and ends up in hospital for no particular reason.

Her entire family have nothing to do with her, only one of her kids speaks to her.

She moved away, she moved frequently around our town when she didn’t think she needed to pay rent when she wanted to go on holiday abroad with it instead. She went on holidays abroad every year while on benefits seemingly too unwell to even go to the shops at the end of the road.

Led her partner a dogs life until he finally left her. She then bled him dry for child maintenance and made it impossible to see his kids, was as awkward as she could be, changing plans at very last minute just because she could. He was almost suicidal, very very damaged by her.

Numerous partners since but don’t last long. Surfice to say she never leaves any relationship empty handed. She gets as much out of them as she can from luxury holidays abroad to cars to rent paid, new clothes and jewellery.

She moved across the country to escape it all and start the same games again.

We occasionally message but she drains the life out of me with her extensive health issues and constantly calling ambulances and being a victim as no one speaks to her.

I too was very very damaged by her.

Yes and it was a great relief to get rid of her. Life will be much better for you.

I'm on the verge of doing this but not fully made my mind up. My friend hasn't done anything to me but she slags off her other friends and tells me their personal problems. I wouldn't tell her anything for this reason, then I think what's the point in even being friends when they are untrustworthy.

Yes. I had a close? friend who had had a dreadful car accident and was very disfigured. Because of this, I put up with her caustic - and sometimes - witty remarks. However, I didn't realise that she talked about everybody to everybody in the same way and she started rumours about me that were very hurtful and total imagination.

@PatchworkElmer

I know, it really is and I never thought it would ever happen to me. I just wish I’d listened to everyone who told me! Then I wouldn’t be in such a mental mess!

I’ll never forgive her so it’s a good thing she’s not in my life now.

Yes! My best friend for most of my life & I’m wondering if you all know her because the traits described by other posters are her to a tee. The real difficulty in going NC is that she’s my sister , so it’s upset my parents and made family gatherings impossible. She’s older than me, and I tolerated what others referred to as her spikiness, bitchiness and her opinions on everything I did. Then it dawned on me how controlling she is, how toxic about other family members. She turned on me because I had the temerity to enjoy some time with our SIL who she’s very jealous of. Huge row & we’ve been NC since. I feel 50st lighter!

Yep and I still sometimes want to get in touch and make amends but I know it’s for the best that we are no longer friends. She used me as a sounding board for every thing going on in her life and all she did was slag people off to me including her other friends.
I sometimes wonder whether I have been harsh by blocking and cutting her out my life and I do still think about her often as it has only been about 4 months but I will never forget the way she spoke to me after we had a row and I know for a fact she would never dream of speaking to her other pals in the same way so I remind myself of that whenever I feel myself wanting to reach out. I considered her my best best friend since we were 11 and now we are nearly 30 and I think she felt the same but she was just full of drama in the end and I had had enough. My sister always told me she was drama and attention seeking but I felt I had to overlook a lot of her behaviours as we had been friends for so long.

Yes my younger sister.

Constant below the belt belittling and humiliating public sniper remarks but nuanced enough that you would look like an absolute loon if you called her on it. I was really destabilised by her and became silenced / frozen by her words - just totally unable to respond or defend myself.

I am now never in her company - took myself out of punching distance - haven’t seen her for over 2 years. No row. Just gently backed out. A polite “Sorry we are busy. No thanks” to any invite.

I am not interested in rattling her cage as I have seen her annihilate people in public before. She is now trying to slither back via my teenage DCs - but they just ignore her texts.

Really don’t know why I didn’t remove myself from her life years ago - it’s such a relief not having to be in high alert 24/7 - as every word / action is a manipulative precursor to some self serving manoeuvre.

She needs to put me down to keep herself afloat.

Yes, I was in a friendship with someone who was an ex-flatmate from years ago. It became increasingly one-sided... me lending him money, retrieving his belongings from pawnbrokers... him never even offering to pay me back. Me listening to him for hours on end about his problems without him ever asking how I was. Took him to family funerals with not so much of an offer of petrol money (200 mile round trips). He was incredibly rude to me on FB one evening about something that had nothing to do with him (even had mutual friends asking me what the hell was that all about?)

I just cut him off after that. Can't say I've missed him either.

Really don't know why I put up with it for so long...

I had a toxic friend that I sort of cut off via email. She suffered from untreated depression/anxiety and would use me as free therapy and an emotional dumping ground for hours every day without any concern for my life. When I told her my mother had cancer and only had 2 months left, she still made it about her and how she'll miss her mother when she (mother) goes back to their home country. She would be rude when I suggested she get help.

She kept implying my husband is cheating on me. For example, he went out for food and it took him about 15 minutes longer than he expected. I was on the phone with her (free therapy as usual) and she kept asking me if I'm sure he's really getting food and maybe he stopped by another woman's house. I know for a fact he's not cheating and my friend was jealous. Her jealousy stemmed from her dating a married man (which also made me look at her different).

She would make "jokes" at my beliefs/values even after I told her to knock it off. She went out to dinner with my husband and I then was taking food off my kids' plates. She then shorted us with her portion of the bill despite the fact we already agreed she was to pay her own share.

She wouldn't control her daughter. Her child would enter adult conversations, run around, mess with things in my home and mouth off to me. I had to actually parent her child because she would just sit over my house on her phone. She wouldn't give her child lunch before coming over here then criticize what I made because her precious 8 year old daughter didn't like MY food.

All these reasons made me send her an email. I told her I love her and will always care about her, but I need to take a step back until she gets some professional help. She never got the help and lost all her friends. I put up with it for about 4 years because I didn't have a backbone and I felt bad for her. But at some point, you have to think of yourself and cut toxic "friends" out.

Yep. She was an absolute user.

Used me for support with her self induced drama. Treated me like shit. Told a pack of lies to our mutual friends - who clearly weren’t my friends as they blocked me without even speaking to me about it.

Better off without her and her lies.

“Really don’t know why I didn’t remove myself from her life years ago - it’s such a relief not having to be in high alert 24/7 - as every word / action is a manipulative precursor to some self serving manoeuvre.

She needs to put me down to keep herself afloat.”

Yes @ESGdance this is exactly my experience with my sister. It’s an immense relief to not be second-guessing and treading on eggshells all the while.

@MrsFoxyplease this is almost identical to my current issue. It’s eating me up as I love her so much as a friend, like I do all my friends, but we are best friends and she’s had a lot of involvement in my life but my eyes have suddenly opened to a lot of issues and it’s absolute destroyed me. It’s eating me up as I don’t want to lose her because I know it’ll be me who looks like the bad guy. I’m a single mum and can’t afford the lifestyle that she expects from me but I just can’t say no

Yes. We are no longer friends but I have her on my social media and she's the same with new friends.

She was obsessive. Wanted to be with me all the time. She'd ring me constantly. She'd warn off other friends by telling them she was my best friend and only her. I went out for food with someone else and she sat in her car waiting for me to come home (not prearranged - she was just there when I returned).

She then completely ghosted me. All the obsessive contact just stopped suddenly.

Then she found out that I was still friendly with a mutual friend - who by then had been her new flavour of the month and was experiencing the same treatment - she literally followed us in her car on the motorway. We refused to talk to her and luckily that was the end of it. It was like being in an abusive relationship. It was horrible.

Yes I’ve been there, with a friend I met at university. We were close for many years, but I ignored warning signs, like it was all about me supporting her and never the other way around. She once asked me to change the subject because she was finding it too upsetting.

I always made excuses for her because of her MH issues and thought I should stand by her.

It came to a head finally when I made the mistake of loaning her a substantial sum of money. (She’d always been a big spender.) Her flat was about to be repossessed so she asked for help paying off her mortgage arrears. She said that she was going to sell the flat and would pay me back once the sale had gone through. (She owned 2 properties so this seemed to make sense.)

She was having an MH crisis so I really felt that I should help her out. I put her up for 2 weeks, as her marriage had also broken up, which was a nightmare, as she ended up playing my DH and me against each other. She’d also claimed that her husband had been abusive, but it soon became clear that this wasn’t true; I overheard calls where she was screaming abuse at him. She did the same in calls to her mum.

It turned out that her debts exceeded the value of her 2 properties and she never did pay us back. Instead, she rubbed salt into the wounds by sending us Christmas cards with newsletters detailing her overseas holidays.

It made it impossible to stay friends with her, especially since I’d convinced my DH into agreeing to the loan.

In the end, I didn’t even miss the friendship, as I’d come to see that it was totally one-sided. Yes, she was unwell mentally, diagnosed bi-polar, so I still felt some sympathy, but I knew that staying friends with her was no longer possible for me.

If said friend owed you money, how did you ask for it back? Mine owes me for a few things (and I’m not talking a little coffee and cake). Every time it comes up in convo she says she’ll pay after payday. This has been going on for a few months now. I’m a single parent and can’t afford to be without substantial amounts.

It was a substantial sum, £6,000. We paid it out of inheritances we’d received. It was lent on the basis that this friend was about to sell her flat and would be able to pay us back afterwards. She assured us that it wouldn’t be a problem.

The reality was that she’d run up debts that exceeded the value of her 2 properties and she went bankrupt.

It was embarrassing, because I hate bringing up the subject of money. She just didn’t pay us back. I didn’t chase her for it, but the friendship was over.

It was simply awful, because it was my DH’s money as well as my own. Thankfully, he didn’t hold it against me.

She was in a bad way mentally, which was why we couldn’t bring up the subject of the money when she was staying with us. But when she recovered, she simply broke off contact with us.

We found out the reality of her financial position when she started asking other friends of ours to lend her money. And we also had contact with her family because of her deteriorating mental health,

It was a nightmare all round really. I was relieved when we lost contact because of my own mental health.

I had a friend through my teens until my early 20s who was quite volatile. If she was in a bad mood you could almost feel the energy getting sucked out of the room. She was quite spoilt by her parents so was used to getting her own way and would get aggressive if she didn’t. Once I lent her £50 when she’d forgotten her bank card and really had to hassle her to pay it back which annoyed her, she didn’t understand £50 was a lot of money to 18 year old student me as she was given so much by her parents.

She’d often use the silent treatment on you for something you’d done that you weren’t aware of (asking made it worse because ‘you should know how you’ve upset me’). If you did things with other friends but not her she’d become very annoyed even if it was something she wasn’t interested in doing. I used to just invite her to everything to keep her happy even if it wasn’t her thing.

When she was on good form she was great fun and you’d have a great time but you never knew when it might flip again. She also remembered every argument we’d ever had and would bring up things from years earlier I’d said/done to show what an awful friend I was.

Eventually she became worse at replying to texts/phone calls so I started spending more time with our mutual friend who did respond and actively made plans etc. That obviously enraged her and we were accused of leaving her out. As I was in my 20s at this point I put my foot down and explained she never replied to texts or made plans so of course I’d spend with with people who did. And then we grew apart.

A few years ago she sent me a long message on fb apologising and acknowledging she wasn’t always a great friend and treated me poorly. Looking back I wonder if she had issues controlling her emotions and maybe addressed it which prompted the message. She’s married with a baby now and seemingly a lot more calm and chilled out. I wish her well but it was a nightmare at the time. I think because I met her when I was young I didn’t realise you didn’t have to put up with things like that, I just assumed it was par for the course. It was only when I started thinking about how much easier and drama-free it was with my other friends, and how much relief I felt not to be stepping on eggshells and worrying about when they’d kick off.

Yes just after I left uni. I'm still unsure if it was malicious because she wasn't very well mentally. I was running myself into the ground trying to be there for her but she needed more than I could give. I ended up texting her to 'end things' and I felt like shit about it for a long time.
I asked for my money back when I texted her to say I'd drop off her stuff on x day. It appeared through my letterbox a few days later.

I called time on all my female ''friends'', even people from university, when my husband suddenly became ill aged 40. It was so hard to do, but I am so glad I did it and so relieved. I felt these ''friendships'' were a weight on me and a pull from a time that has gone. I got no birthday cards this year except from my husband and mother, and I felt glad.

Sadly, I've had more than one toxic friendship. I suffered with depression, anxiety and low self esteem when I was younger. Now I'm older and have confidence in my self worth, I don't suffer fools so gladly.

It was only when I started thinking about how much easier and drama-free it was with my other friends, and how much relief I felt not to be stepping on eggshells and worrying...

This resonates with me. It becomes eye opening when you realise that all your other friendships seem so easy in comparison.