I felt ambushed. After weeks of her telling me she wanted to hear all about my boyfriend and I finally getting together (we had been friends for years). After weeks of hearing how excited she was about the relationship, and she couldn’t wait to talk about it. After begging me to come see her (we lived in different cities), I felt ambushed, bushwhacked. I told her everything I thought she wanted to hear. Suddenly she was chewing me out for being selfish and only wanting to talk about my relationship. She wanted to know why I wasn’t concerned about her problems. Why did I come visit her if all I was going to do was talk about myself? If all I was going to do was talk about my boyfriend, then I should go see him. “Tell him to come get you.” (He lived in another city.) Stunned I called the airline and made arrangements to fly out on the next plane home. I hadn’t been there 24 hours.
I shouldn’t have been as stunned as I was. There were plenty of red flags in the previous six months that she was someone who always had to be the center of attention (I lost track of how many people she thought was stalking her). Her problems always had to be bigger and better than anyone else. She was a master of melodrama. I watched her toss two other friends to the side. It was all their fault (they were selfish too, stole her work, and one of them was stalking her). On the flight home it hit me: this was her. She wasn’t going to change. Unless I admitted everything was my fault, she was right and that was that. She would have an excuse for anything I held her accountable for as she did with the previous friends. I waited too long to even think of salvaging the friendship. At this point, the only choice I could make for my own sanity was to walk away. I stopped all communication: phone calls, email, IM, and blog comments.
There is plethora of advice on romantic relationships from beginning to end. There is a lot of advice on breaking up and how to get out of an abusive relationship. But we rarely see articles on breaking off friendships, especially friendships that become manipulative and abusive. Most friendships putter out over time and distance; it’s not that big of a deal. But every now and then friendships get messy and abusive. Here are the signs of a manipulative and abusive friendship:
- Like my former friend they expect you listen to all of their problems, accept all of their dramas, and be sympathetic. They brush off any advice on making the situation better. When you expect the favor returned, they aren’t available or think you’re selfish.
- They expect you to be on-call 24/7 for them, but they never have the time or energy to return the favor.
- They thrive on melodrama and always need to be the center of attention. When they tell stories, everything revolves around them, and everyone oohs and ahhs over them. As with my ex-friend they may also think they are being stalked with no evidence to back it up, i.e. you hear about emails but never see them.
- They become very quiet when your life is going well. They may have been calling or texting you several times of day and suddenly it stops. They are never available when life is going well for you. They want to talk about problems because they can always come out on top in that area.
- They are manipulative. A lot of “always” and “only” phrases pop up here. You are the “only one” who listens to them. “No one” sees their true worth or what they have to offer. They “always” get overlooked for the job promotion. It’s “never” their fault when a relationship or friendship comes to an end. They manipulate your emotions. They are adept at making you feel guilty.
