Letting Go Of Friendships
 

I just read an article by Martha Beck about why holding some grudges is a good thing. Here are a few excerpts from that.

"My favorite therapist taught me something I call the "three strike" rule: If you not only have a bad experience with a person but also hear worrisome reports about that person from three totally unrelated sources, you need to carry a protective grudge that says, "I don't quite trust you." "

"According to Martha Stout, PhD, an expert on sociopathy who taught at Harvard Medical School for more than two decades, the key to recognizing sociopaths is that they consistently mess up other people's lives while actively soliciting pity. Most people don't want to be pitied, but sociopaths adore it. If you consistently feel pity for someone who causes you many problems, develop and bear a protective grudge. Now."

You can read the whole thing here,.

She also linked another post about friends and how to let one go if they aren't good for you here.

So what do you think? Have you ever held a grudge? Ever had to let a friend go because they were toxic? Ever had to tap dance around someone because they were in your circle of friends somehow?

How do you do it gracefully? How do you do it without turning it into a community/family/friends free-for-all?

I'm here to tell you that I've let people go for their toxic-to-me behavior but I've also been the one let go.

That's right. My emotional craziness was too much for more than one person and they walked away from me. I felt like they were the worst people in the world. They didn't understand the pain I was in. They didn't understand how badly someone had treated me. The list goes on and none of it includes me taking ANY responsibility for my words and actions.

It took me a long time to figure that out. I slapped on a few band-aids. I decided they must all be wrong. It took me doing some long and very hard soul-searching to realize that **I** was the problem, not them.

Luckily for me, I have renewed friendships with most of them after proving to them that I have changed. That I am not longer doing everything I could to create drama that centered around me so that they would rush to my side.

It's hard. It's hard to realize my own behavior created my isolation. That my own actions were driving people away. That I was not loveable in that crazy, drama-filled world where it was only about me.

So anyone else here ever been the releasee as well as the releaser?

For me, because I've been the one to hit emotional rock bottom and lose some very dear people in my life, cutting someone else out is difficult to say the least. I know how it feels. I honestly don't want to do that to another human being.

But that three strikes rule mentioned above? That hit home for me. I've been known to give people ten strikes including several opportunities to really hurt me. I'm trying to unlearn that one.

Oh I can hold a grudge
 

I held a grudge for 20 years. It was a half sister that had made my mother cry. Once my mother passed the only thing my half sister and I had in common was gone I stopped talking to her. We eventually did get back together for a brief time when my half brother passed and I went to the wake but eventually lost touch again.

So I have no issues or qualms holding grudges ;) can do it standing on my head. You hurt me or someone I love and you are in my grudge books for a very long time.

Family grudges are often hard to let go of. My adoptive mom was dating who she is now married to. 20 years ago he hurt her in some way and I can't remember exactly what he did but I remember her tears. From that moment on I have never cared for Steve thought he was useless and unkind. He hurt my feelings a few times by his mean comments. I just went and saw them this past summer he welcomed me with a smile and a hug and asked how I have been. Holy smokes just about knocked me over. I told my mom about it while we were alone and she asked if I could ever forgive him? I said I think I just did.

Forgiveness is hard especially when it is family those who we are supposed to trust and love through anything. I have forgiven Steve and wish I had taken the time to get to know him better.

My biological family... that forgivness will never come.

I used to have a thing for pitiful folks. Really, I wanted to save them, make them happy and be this wonderful shining, light in their life so they would never ever want to let me go. That was before I gained a decent sense of self-worth and self esteem, mind you.

I loved tough luck cases. I made friends with them and, many times, became their lover. They were the only friends and lovers I'd accept, beyond my long term friendships (I have two close friends that I've loved for almost sixteen years). I was determined to save someone, you see. It never worked, of course, and while I'm not really the sort to seek pity, I usually just couldn't understand how the heck everything would keep going wrong. I would be baffled as one calamity after another occurred. Friends would disappear and I'd feel confused, but I'd keep sticking by my partner or the friends who's lives were troubled.

Eventually, about five years ago, I started to change my life... and I do mean my whole being. Everything about me is different - mentally, emotionally, physically I'm a new girl. I'm finally 'me.' I don't need to save someone to be worthy of love anymore; I'm good enough as is. I ended a toxic relationship, stepped away from a couple toxic situations, battled a decent amount of guilt, rekindled one of my long term friendships that got messed up, apologized to anyone I could find that had been hurt by my actions or inaction, and sought for peacefulness within myself and my life.

I still have acquaintances and people I care about that really only seek me out when they have issues, but today I've learned to distance myself a little bit. The only thing I really have to offer them is a kind ear. Sometimes, that's all people really need, however: someone to listen to them (I really think the world would be different if we stopped arguing and really started listening). I like people in general, I don't have any issues or problems with anyone and there have not been any calamities in my life for several years. I can accept everyone, regardless of who they are or where they are in life, but I do not need to keep them close to me nor do I need to rescue them anymore. I don't hold grudges, I don't have anger, I don't even have regret anymore.

Arwen, I'm happy you were able to put your friendships back together. There are still a couple people that I've never been able to apologize to and sometimes miss. I hope for their happiness.

I have dumped lots of people.

I've dumped the woman who would get drunk and almost get hit by a car / puke all over the place / pass out in public / wander off and worry me every time we hung out.
I've dumped the woman who would pretend to be a confidante and then the second my back was turned tell everybody who would listen her own exaggerated version of how I was feeling and why.
I've dumped the woman who only liked me when I was talking about how cool she was, but who would turn into a crazed 7 headed monster at the lightest criticism.
I've dumped the man who would call nightly to whine about his life - and never once asked me how my day was.
I've dumped the woman who was so obsessed with her own weight that she became obsessed with everybody else's bodies as well and would lecture me about every thing I ate.

When I was 20-ish and I broke up with Jesus (raised religious, changed my mind) I ended up having to break up with nearly every one of my friends, because they were SO intent on winning my soul back that it became the only thing we could ever talk about. I decided if the most important thing about me was whether or not I was going to get into heaven that those weren't friendships that I needed, either.

Hell, I've even had a recent mutual-dumping. (Wherein the person did something shitty to me and when I found out about it they didn't like my reaction - so we simply stopped talking.)

After ever person I've dumped I absolutely have gone through a stage of sorrow/mourning. But that passes. And the temporary feeling of loss was exactly that - temporary. All of the exasperation, anxiety, and hurt feelings I experienced every time I interacted with these people would have been permanent if I hadn't turned them loose. So sure, in the short-term it sucks - but in the long term it's just aces.

I was once dumped by the man I considered my best friend. There was this complicated (and bad idea situation) where we were dating another set of bestfriends. The girl he was dating (who was also the bestie of the boy I was dating) and I didn't get along. She used to say things like "oh that is such a pretty dress! I would want to borrow it but it would be way too big for me!" (Nevermind that she was wearing a 14 at the time and I was wearing a 16 - so WAY TOO BIG FOR ME my ass). She would just in general make tiny sideways jabs at me all day long and it got to the point where I was so paranoid and so perpetually insulted that I would bend over backward and behave like a kicked puppy trying to get her to like me.

One day that became too much and I snapped. I wrote a long and very public tirade on Livejournal (of all places) about what assholes the three of them were and how I was going to break up with my boyfriend immediately and I would also avoid my friend until he and that girl he was dating broke up. I created a "filter" on LJ so that I could post that without the three of them seeing it - then forgot to post the entry with the filter attached. So they all saw it. Me and the boy (who I was crazy about, but I was also only 25 and back then it was easy for me to become crazy about people) broke up - which was for the best.

My friend also never spoke to me again. Even though he and that girl broke up a month later, we never made amends. I deserved that. It was crappy of me to gossip about him on LJ. It was crappy of me to never once try to talk to him about what was going on, instead opting to just hold onto it until I blew up all over the internets. And chances are I had been acting like a nutbag for months before that happened, because I was so tense and worked up over the situation. I probably wasn't all that great to be around at that juncture either.

i have not stayed in touch with a few people because it felt like work. i have fallen out of touch with people i still consider friends too. That seems to be my guilty thing. i wish i didn't do it. If i took better care of myself and had fewer distractions from my health, i imagine i would stay in closer touch. Definitely something i feel very bad about.

In terms of dropping sick or crazy people, i rarely go through the sense of loss once i realize that they were harmful to be around. Usually i have to process the stuff they did to me. i resent the hell out of the time that takes and find that hard to forgive. Time is precious. As is one's sense of safety. People who compromise that are hard to forgive. i often wonder how they live with themselves -- not in terms of just me. They do what they do to others. It's hard to understand people who justify and feel OK about harming others.

i also feel really stupid and duped and i resent that too. It's a terrible feeling. All of it makes one less trusting.

My big lesson has been if someone will do something to others, it's just a matter of time till they do it to you too. What narcissism on my part to think that i would be an exception.

i am embarrassed and ashamed to admit this stuff too.

i am grateful for the fabulous friends i have and that, whatever ups and downs i have had in my romantic and D/s life, there has been respect. i can't imagine what hell it would be like to be in an intimate relationship with some of these folk.

No question - well said.

I always have to let go of energy vampires. I am not very graceful about it though. I usually just stop talking to them.

I have an ex friend that is using the system to get disability and charging people to live at her house. She goes from one person to the next and someone is "always screwing her over". She is nice but every story that she tells about her interaction with someone that she has helped ends with "they had tears in their eyes".

I keep my distance from my family because they are always asking me for money. I mean it's even at the point where my sister makes up stories about why she needs the money. This is the only time I hear from her. We never have a conversation unless she needs money. She won't help herself so I won't help her.

I had a good friend that was doing heavy drugs and it was affecting is life and job. He would be fine for awhile then would start back up again. One night we went out and he invited some guy over to do drugs with him. His choice I don't care. Then he started asking me to go to the ATM to get him money so that he could by more of his drugs. That's when I left and never spoke to him again.

I had a friend that always had a problem with something and was very opportunistic. For example he's in the drive thru at Taco Bell and they don't give him enough napkins then he wants his food for free. Or if he didn't like the guys tone that took his order he wants his food for free. I had to let him go.

I'm sure there have been times when people have dumped me. I know at one point I was at a stage where all I did was talk about this girl that I liked very much and it had to be annoying. I also used to need validation all the time when I was younger now it annoys me if someone does it. lol I grew up and see the world and people a bit more clearly so now I don't put up with as much crap as I used to.

Also anyone overly religious that thinks that they need to "save me" have no place in my world.

Thanks to everyone who has shared here. I'm at work so can't post long response. Just kudos, y'all.

I have been known to hold really big grudges, I am learning to let it go.

On the other hand, I have let friends go because they seemed toxic and years later we meet back up and it is like nothing ever happened...we grew back into each other.

I have been toxic at soem points and when I know I am way toxic, I try to stay away from people as much as possible.

Oh god, I hate that! It's SO embarrassing for the people that are with them, and they don't even realise it.

One thing that is really hard for me is walking away when a friend's drug or alcohol intake is making them not them, and knowing that in walking away I may never see them again.

and often, years later we meet back up and its like they were always there.