I Broke Up With My Last Toxic Friend

I have a pattern of being lured into toxic friendships. They often start off supportive — until their charm turns into control and self-centered demands.

Like many women, I had a complicated relationship with my mother. Due to poverty, she was raised in an orphanage until her teens, a trauma from which she never fully recovered. She was angry and self-centered, critical and punitive. And I kept being drawn to friends with those traits. She once confessed, "I never had a mother. I didn't know how to be one."

It took me almost a lifetime to come to understand and forgive my mother and, most importantly, realize that she loved me in her own way. And it suddenly began to make sense why I was attracted to female friendships that mirrored my mother's negative traits.

Laura and I met in the playground when our kids were preschoolers, pushing our kids on the swings. We immediately bonded over common interests beyond parenting. She was a smart, charming woman who was fun to be with — until she wasn't. "I'm quite opinionated," she told me the first time we met for coffee. An understatement. She always decided what movie to see, which restaurant to dine in, what music to listen to.

She boasted about how brilliant her daughter was, bound for the Ivy League, but she suggested that my daughter should set her sights low; she didn't think she was smart enough for a rigorous school. (My daughter later graduated from a rigorous college with honors.)

Six months into being empty nesters, I took Laura out to lunch for her birthday. She picked the restaurant, announcing in advance, "We'll share the burger and the salmon." I wasn't a passive weakling. Yet, Laura made me feel like one. I had been a shy child, bullied by mean girls. As an adult, I kept gravitating toward friends with domineering personalities.

Soon after that lunch, every time I emailed Laura to get together for a movie or a walk, she'd reply, "I'm busy." After half a dozen attempts, I stopped trying, just to see what would happen. That was The End, and I never found out why.

"You began challenging her decisions and opinions," my husband observed, "and she couldn't stand that."

Was it a crime that I began to voice my views?

My daughter added, "Mom, she was never really nice to you."

I passed Laura several times in the ten years since she'd essentially dumped me, and she'd quickly turn her head, refusing to let our eyes meet. I regret that I didn't ask her why she'd dumped me. I doubted she'd ever truly explain her disappearance.

My most painful break-up was with Susan, and I hope it's the last. We met in a book club and bonded when our older mothers were in ill health. Susan had been managing her mom's care longer than I had. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, she'd comfort me with kind words. She could even make me laugh when I was crying about my mother's worsening Lewy Body Dementia.

"You're doing the best you can," Susan reassured me.

She gave me permission to accept the fact that my mom was ready to go after her full life as a mother, wife of 49 years, champion golfer and sculptor. She died when she was 96.

I ignored how both Susan and Laura had both alienated my good friends. Then Susan moved to another state, but we still spoke to each other almost daily on the phone. Yet, I became impatient with our hour-long phone calls when they began to focus so much more around her problems.

I began distancing myself more. If I went a few days without calling her, she'd text: Are you dead? Her dark sense of humor. If I told her I was upset about something, she'd command, "Just stop being so anxious."

She acted jealous when I mentioned spending time with "other" friends. I felt frustrated about how much I was giving — and how little I was getting from our friendship.

"If it's not close to 50/50, it's not worth it," my husband advised me.

Yet, I couldn't let go — until the time she chastised me for not calling to check in on her before I went away for a weekend. Her anger exploded into a series of fiery emails, calling me a bad friend. I'd panic about opening another one of her attacking diatribes.

She refused to apologize for harsh remarks that deeply hurt me. "Haven't you ever had an argument before?" she yelled. "Are you going to throw out our friendship?"

I tried to explain that our friendship was no longer working. Finally, I blocked her from social media. "You're unfriending me?" she texted, enraged, and called me a coward when I wouldn't answer the phone.

That's when I blocked her out of my life permanently.

I never heard from her again. None of my other friends inflicted such guilt in me. It made me feel even more grateful to have them. Yes, Susan and I had a shared history, but we were no longer able to give each other what we needed. I mourned the loss, yet felt surprisingly relieved to be free from her self-centered demands.

Finally, I vowed to break my pattern of toxic friendships. Instead, I focused my energy on the positive friends I already had in my life, cherishing them even more.

Last week, one of those friends had a bad fall after losing her balance. She broke her right arm and had a hairline fracture in her left knee, mostly immobilizing her for six weeks. I spent a recent Saturday cooking a hearty potato leek soup, making a robust salad, and cutting up fruit for dessert. I brought it over to her house and we chowed down together, while I distracted her from her broken bones. She was so thankful.

I felt rewarded for solely being a good friend — not expecting anything in return. And knowing she'd be there for me anytime. That's what friends are for.

Candy Schulman’s award-winning essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Salon and elsewhere, including anthologies. She is working on a memoir about mothers and daughters. She teaches writing at the New School in New York City. Read More