True Versus Toxic Friendships

Friendship is a gift, one that you can receive from others, and one that you can pass on. One of the reasons why friendship is such a gift is that it’s rare to find true friends, and being a good friend to someone isn’t an easy endeavor. When you find a good friend, hold onto them. In a similar vein, when you’re a good friend to someone, relish the relationship and enjoy it for the gift that it is to you both.

Just as there are good friends and good friendships, there are also bad and unhealthy friendships. You might be in a relationship with a toxic individual, and it’s also possible that you might be the toxic one in your friendship. Knowing the signs of toxic friendships can help you identify where your relationship is at, and if there are significant changes that you need to implement.

Why Good Friendships Are Hard to Find

As people grow older, it can become harder to find or to make new friendships. There are many reasons for this. Experts have said that America is in the grip of a loneliness epidemic, with an astounding number of American adults reporting that they feel lonely. It’s not always easy to maintain old friendships, and making new friends isn’t easy, either.

The older you get, the harder friendships are to come by, for many reasons. For many people, making friends when they were kids was as easy as going out on the playground. When you’re older, there are several obstacles to keeping old friends and making new friends, and that includes:

New seasons in life

As you get older, you can drift from your old friends because you may move for college or work to a different city or state, and it’s harder to stay in touch. It also gets harder to stay connected when you enter new seasons in life such as marriage and parenthood, especially if you and your friends are in different seasons.

Lack of trust

Relationships can be difficult, which can include losing friends and being betrayed by loved ones. If you have experienced these things, the harder it can be to trust someone new and let them into your life. It’s easier to simply keep old friends with whom you have rapport than to make new acquaintances and overcome the fear of being judged or hurt.

Lack of time

The way to build a friendship is by spending time with each other. That’s how you rack up shared experiences that make meaningful bonds. These moments create space for a relationship to bloom. When you’re older, your time is claimed by many responsibilities, which means you don’t have as much time to connect socially with others and make new friends.

It takes hours of these spontaneous and vulnerable interactions to forge a friendship, let alone a close friendship. Americans spend much of their time at work, and the workspace isn’t always conducive for fraternizing and having meaningful face-to-face contact.

Signs of Toxic Friendships

Whether it took a short time or a while to make a friend, the people that you count as friends occupy that place for a reason. You have shared experiences that allowed you to bond. Good friends admire one another, and your relationship is an important part of your growth as a person. Not every friendship is a healthy one, and it’s helpful to know when the relationship is toxic.

The word “toxic” refers to how unhealthy certain relationships are, or the way those relationships undermine the well-being of the people in them. Every relationship will have moments of toxic behavior because we are imperfect people who don’t get things right. Some relationships are marked by unhealthy behaviors as the general pattern of the relationship.

Some of the signs of toxic friendships include the following:

They are out for themselves

We all have a little bit of self-centeredness in us, and our friendships can help us grow out of that. A toxic friend is a person who is out for themselves. They use the relationship for what they can get out of it, rather than what they can both give and receive. If the relationship is a one-way street and the other person has a mercenary outlook, it’s likely toxic.

The relationship is abusive

In addition to the above, toxic friendships are ones where abuse is present. This could be physical, verbal, or emotional abuse. If you don’t feel safe in your friendship, or you are constantly criticized or berated by your friend, that relationship is likely toxic. The difference between healthy and unhealthy criticism is that the latter leaves you feeling beaten down and is often unaccompanied by empathy and support.

It encourages unhealthy choices

We all have things that we’re trying to overcome, and our friends can offer words and acts of encouragement and support to that end. Toxic friendships will often encourage choices that are not good for you, especially when you’re trying to overcome certain habits. A friend that tries to draw you into substance abuse or unhealthy relationships may be toxic.

It’s competitive… in a bad way

Friends can be competitive, and they can draw out the best in each other. Usually, such healthy competition is aimed at doing one’s best and challenging one another to be excellent. That’s different from toxic competitiveness, which is laced with jealousy and doesn’t support the success of the other.

It’s draining

When you spend time with people you love, you should look forward to time with them, and leave time spent with them feeling energized, all things being equal. If you constantly feel drained after interactions with a friend, that’s not a good sign. It could point to an unhealthy and codependent relationship.

There are no or poor boundaries

Speaking of codependency, toxic relationships will often have no or poor boundaries. These are needed so that each person can meet their own needs, have their own opinions, and feel their own emotions, without the need to reflect what the other is feeling or to feel guilty for needing to say “no” to certain things. Every healthy relationship needs good boundaries.

Some friendships don’t start as toxic. Along the way, something happens, and you begin to relate to one another in an unhealthy way. It might be that one of you goes through a rough patch, and the dynamic of support and dependence gets distorted, leading to a more codependent relationship, for instance.

In other cases, the relationship may have been toxic from the start because of the personal and other circumstances one or both of you may have been in at the time. That way of relating to each other became cemented. Either way, the result is that your relationship is an unhealthy one with one or more of the traits named above.

How to Handle Toxic Friendships

Making new friends when you are older can be difficult, for the reasons suggested above. In some ways, it can feel much easier to simply remain with the friends you have than to lose those friends and venture out to find new ones. This is one of several reasons why people sometimes persist in toxic friendships. It can feel scary to break out of the known and venture into the great wide unknown, even if what you have now isn’t ideal.

It’s important to name the toxic elements in your relationship. These can be overcome if you’re both willing to engage honestly over what’s happening and commit to making changes. You may be faced with a situation where, as scary as it is, you need to part ways for your own sake. An unhealthy friendship can undermine your well-being in tangible and intangible ways alike and walking away might be the best choice.

Together, toxic friendships can be changed. Through individual counseling, for instance, you can better understand the dynamics in your relationship and the ways you may be causing harm to each other.

It takes both parties working at it to move the needle and change the relationship. Whether you both end up going for counseling, go for your own sake, to better understand yourself and overcome any issues that resulted in or were caused by the relationship.

Make the First Step

Call us today at Los Angeles Christian Counseling to set up an appointment with one of the clinicians in our directory. They will be delighted to help you recognize unhelpful behaviors and work together toward your flourishing.