Toxic Friends: CAN’T live with them, CAN live without them!

Friendships are important. We all need people to share the ups and downs of what life may bring. But what happens when your friend just doesn’t quite cut it anymore? When all they do is constantly leave you drained and negative? Your friendship may be toxic.

Toxic friendships will always undermine your true potential for happiness. Toxic friends become unsupportive, unreliable, overly demanding or are just in there to use you. Breaking up this type of friendship can be hard considering you once saw good qualities in the person. However the bottom line remains- if they are bringing unhappiness to your life, you have to let them go!

Before you take the decision to break up the friendship however, you need to be sure that they are truly hurting you, and that his or her actions are not a temporary set back in your friendship.

These are some types of toxic friends you may come across:

The User: This is one who only has you as a friend so she can use you for some purpose or goal for him or herself.

The Betrayer: He or she smiles with you and then stabs you behind the back in any given situation.

The Control Freak: This person usually wants to be in control of the whole friendship and forcibly makes decisions for you.

The Judge: This is the critical friend that aims at lessening your self esteem. He or she will always find faults in you. You can hardly ever do anything right in their eyes.

The Promise Breaker: This friend promises you the stars and then disappoints or stands you up. You definitely can not depend on this friend.

The Gossip: He or she will usually betray your trust by gossiping about you or sharing your deepest dark secrets with others.

The Self-centered: this one is usually too busy thinking about themselves to even care about you and the friendship.

The Wet-blanket victim: This friend has appointed you her personal therapist.  He or she only calls you when something is wrong in their life. When things are good, she’s never in contact.

The Competitor: This one is always looking to be “one up”. It’s okay to compete with your friend, but this one usually does it too much.

The greatest friends build lasting memories, share hopes and dreams and are always there when you need them most. They have your best interest at heart. Remember that the truest friendships are those that leave you inspired and happy.