296: Are You In an Emotionally Toxic Friendship?
Friendships are a beautiful gift from God, but have you ever experienced a toxic friendship that crossed emotional boundaries? In today’s episode, I share key signs of a toxic friendship and how to set boundaries around them – especially if you struggle with people-pleasing.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [02:04] What is an Emotionally Toxic Friendship?
- [05:11] “A Healthy Friendship is Based on Mutual Truth and Care”
- [08:37] How Do Friendships Vary in Purpose and Support?
- [11:54] Are You in an Over-Dependent Relationship?
- [18:37] Tools We Can Use to Set Boundaries in Toxic Friendships
- [22:53] Do You Want The Fear of Offending Someone to Stop You From Making Healthy Choices in Friendships?
- [25:00] Should We Always Bring Up Boundaries in Toxic Relationships?
- [27:20] Friendships Do Not Replace Our Relationship With God
[02:04] What is an Emotionally Toxic Friendship?
An emotionally toxic friendship can often look supportive on the surface but it can be draining or harmful over time. Some of the signs are:
– Feeling emotionally exhausted after interacting with this person
– Being the sole giver or the receiver in the relationship
– Manipulation, guilt-tripping, or it is impossible to set boundaries
Certain relationships may be very obviously toxic – for example, those junior high friendships. In junior high, there was a girl who would say, “Oh my gosh, that girl looked terrible today.” I would say, “Why would you say that?” and she would always say that she was just kidding. As a 12-year-old, I was very confused by this because I was a straightforward person. Looking back now, I can see that it was a toxic friendship.
This gets trickier as we get older. There was a friend of mine at church, let’s call her Anna, who reached out to me to ask about one of her friendships. This friend was new to our church and Anna was trying to be kind by reaching out to her. This woman was going through a messy marriage and she quickly started to cross some lines by coming over to Anna’s house unannounced and had other toxic patterns. It took a lot of courage, strength, and love to work through this situation.
As Christians, we often think we are supposed to be loving but the reality is, while yes we need to love people through the difficult things, we also need to set boundaries. We can still love in a healthy way that protects our emotions and still honors the other person in a better way. We need to learn how to pay attention to these things and have some ground rules.
[05:11] “A Healthy Friendship is Based on Mutual Truth and Care”
A healthy friendship is built on mutual truth and care. It is not based on control or dependency. There is a mutual back and forth that is a blessing for both. This does not mean that we should not be friends with something because we are thinking “There is nothing in this for me”. What I am saying is that there is not a dependency on each other in an unhealthy way but instead a healthy attachment for both people.
Speaking of unhealthy attachments, a lot of us find ourselves in these situations because we have these deep emotional needs as humans. This is completely normal and is how God designed us. While yes, only God can fully meet our emotional needs, He does bring people into our lives as ways to get the connections and encouragement we need. Our needs are met in God first, as we read in Psalm 73:26 which says, “My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever.”
God also uses relationships to allow us to be Jesus with “skin on”, so to speak. God recognizes that fellowship with Him and even if the world could be perfectly outlined between just us and Jesus, we would still need connection with other people. This is why in Genesis 2:18, God says “It is not good for man to be alone.”
God gave Adam a companion in Eve, Jonathan was an incredible emotional support to David when he was fleeing Saul, and we hear about how Timothy was not just a helpful assistant for Paul and his ministry work, but he gave Paul great encouragement when he needed it. There are all kinds of stories about that in Philippians and other parts of the New Testament.
There are also verses like Proverbs 27:17 that say, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Some people will have certain strengths that make us better, and they can also point out our blind spots.
[08:37] How Do Friendships Vary in Purpose and Support?
Friendships can be such a blessing and I also think that friends can serve different roles in our lives at different points in time to help meet the needs that we have in that season. I can think of two people right now just off the top of my head – one person I can think of is my friend Sandy.
Sandy was a neighbor who lived two doors down and one day I received this little package that said “I saw that you had a new baby, congratulations!” This was such a thoughtful gift from someone I had not met before and after this, we started a friendship. She was from South Africa and her family were all overseas. I was a young mom who did not have my mother or mother-in-law close to me so I learned so much from her in that season of my life. I needed to learn that it was okay to not have it all figured out. I needed to be able to stop and have a spot of tea with Sandy in her backyard and let my oldest son run around and chase the butterflies. God knew I needed that and Sandy was there for me.
Another friend of mine was Cathy. She came into our lives unexpectedly through a church connection 5-10 years ago, and she was so helpful to me as I transitioned out of my medical crisis in 2017. She was there when everything was getting back to “normal.” She was the “fun aunt” who wanted to take my kids on an adventure, and it was such a gift to my family. God knew I needed that friendship, too.
Both of these friends were pouring into me, and most importantly, they were pointing me back to God. This is an example of a healthy friendship. A healthy friendship does not require that each person gives equally in terms of time or effort, it means that both people feel like they are equally fulfilled by the relationship. If I were to ask both Sandy and Cathy they would say that they received so much just from being able to be in those relationships with me and with our family in that time, even though clearly they were ministering deeply to me as older, wiser women. Looking back, I realize they were giving so much and I am grateful for that.
[11:54] Are You in an OverDependent Relationship?
The truth is that friends can support us emotionally, but when overdependence on a friend shifts the focus away from God, then it is not healthy. We want to have this ability to lean on a friend but we do not want a friendship where we do not trust God the entire time. In those examples, both Sandy and Cathy were always allowing me to depend on Christ.
So how do we know when a friendship has crossed over to overdependence? First, if we are relying on this person to meet all of our emotional needs and we are putting them on a pedestal, this is a sign of overdependence. We have to be careful about looking up to mentors and other people in our lives. Yes, we need leaders in our lives and we also need to step into roles of mentoring others – but there is a difference between this and letting a person be your everything. This looks like overgiving and support without that reciprocation.
Validation is also a big part of this. We might be asking someone, “What do you think of this?” before even asking God because we want that approval from someone else. If we do not first center and ground ourselves in God then that can be an issue.
Another sign of overdependence is that we are not taking our issues to God in prayer before we seek human help. Many people may push back on this and quote verses like Galatians 6:2 which says, “Carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Or like Mark 10:45, which says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” While yes we need to carry one another's burdens and focus our lives on how we can serve, we have to recognize that the work we are doing is for the Lord.
2 Corinthians 1 talks about the purpose of our suffering is to help others point to God and to help others look at God as they are walking through suffering. We have to recognize that we are helping to carry the burdens of other people as an overflow of the Spirit working in us and to point people back to God.
Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” We first serve for Jesus and then in our service, we are pointing others to get our fulfillment from Jesus. This is how we walk the line of carrying others' burdens and helping them.
Dependency on others over God can lead to emotional imbalance and spiritual stagnation. So not only will overdependence make us unhealthily attached to someone but it can also stop and stagnate our spiritual growth. This stagnation is not going to happen if we point others back to Christ.
[18:37] Tools We Can Use to Set Boundaries in Toxic Friendships
Something else that is important is boundaries. Boundaries are not necessarily easy and we cannot just gloss over them. They can be very challenging especially when it comes to family or extended family. There may not be this egregious horrific sin that is causing us to put a final separation boundary up but there is some toxicity happening. This means we are not going to fully separate and never speak to them again but we have to set up some lines so that it does not cause an emotional issue.
One tool that you can use is the ADD method which is Acknowledge, Discern, and Decide. I share about this in my book Emotional Confidence but I wanted to give you an example of how you could use this in this situation.
First, you have to acknowledge what you are feeling about the relationship. Saying to yourself “It makes sense that I am feeling a little smothered, uncomfortable, or awkward around this situation because XYZ is happening. It is normal to feel this way.”
Then we need to discern what is true and not true about healthy relationships and toxic relationships. For example, asking yourself questions like “Is it true that God wants me to give in a relationship, maybe in a way that I am not equally getting back?” This can be true for certain situations. Then you can ask “Is this friend respecting my time? Are they respecting my emotions? Are they respecting my boundaries?” Or on the other spectrum of this we can ask “Am I turning to these other people more than I am turning to God?” If so, that is a toxic situation.
Seeing the reality of what is happening is helpful because our in-the-moment emotions can make it tricky. We may want to hide and never address them, instantly combat them, or get stuck in overthinking – but using a tool like ADD helps us see the emotion, acknowledge that it is there (but not let that be the guide), and then moving into the discern step to to see what is really happening so we can make an informed decision going into the decide step.
Once you have recognized the emotions and you have seen the reality of what is and isn’t a toxic friendship, you then ask God what you should do. Maybe the situation is not toxic but it is taxing on you because you have been giving a lot. ADD gives you the ability to access different situations and see what is toxic and what is not – we have to ask God how He wants us to handle it.
[22:53] Do You Want The Fear of Offending Someone to Stop You From Making Healthy Choices in Friendships?
We also have to remember that while we must always respond in love, we cannot let the fear of offending or upsetting a friend keep us from making these healthy emotional choices in relationships. I know that is easier said than done for some of us, especially if we have struggled with people-pleasing. If this is difficult for you, I am going to challenge you to address the deeper issues around people-pleasing. God wants you to find freedom in this area so this could be the moment where you get to decide if you are going to ignore this deeper issue or start looking into it.
If you want to start getting into this deeper work, the Christian Mindset Makeover is a great choice. It not only addresses things from here in the moment, situation, and emotion, but it helps us understand the deeper dialogs and soundtracks that have been put into our subconscious mind. We also use a technique called brain priming to allow our subconscious soundtracks about our identity align with what God says.
Sometimes we get stuck in these patterns of just trying to keep the peace and of people-pleasing because we would rather do that than upset someone else's feelings (I have been there too!). But if a relationship is truly unhealthy, it needs to be addressed by the Lord.
As someone who has struggled with people-pleasing in her past, it is such a beautiful place to be on the other side of it. That it is worth the challenge and the effort. It can feel very scary to even address some of that, but if you notice this as a pattern in your life, I lovingly encourage you to begin to address it.
[25:00] Should We Always Bring Up Boundaries in Toxic Relationships?
It is also important to recognize that you may not need to talk to this other person to make these boundary changes. You might find that making things right with the Lord helps you to learn how to respond differently to this relationship. It is important to ask God what He wants you to do when it comes to setting these boundaries. It may be a talk with them or it may be a change of heart for you that allows you to either get with the program more and be willing to help in this way for this short season.
If you feel like God wants you to address a toxic friendship by actually speaking to that other person (this could be an entire episode in itself!) I just want to say be clear in your communication about what is going on, be kind in how you say it, and be able to say it without needing their approval for it to move forward.
For example, my friend Anna needed to set that line with this other woman and the other woman did not like this. It ended up being a pattern this woman had so it was really hard for her to hear because she had not been confronted before. Things did not end well but we have to take a risk even if things do not go as expected. We can be clear and kind in how we communicate. If we feel like the Lord has called us to this specific action, then we can move forward with confidence and we can stand our ground.
[27:20] Friendships Do Not Replace Our Relationship With God
Friendships are a beautiful gift from God but they are not meant to replace him as our ultimate source of emotional support. All of those friendships in the Bible that we mentioned also had a relationship with God. We are building each other up because of our love for God. When we are both able to be centered on God in a relationship, whether that is marriage, friendship, or with a family member, then we can come into that relationship, not as 50/50, but as 100/100. This makes a difference because when you are asking for help, you are not looking for them to fill you up. You can also give from a more selfless place because you are not looking for approval, you are giving because the Lord is working through you.
Those are some of my thoughts on toxic relationships and managing the emotions behind them. I would love to hear the struggles or questions you may have about this topic. You can comment on one of the posts on my Instagram feed or send me a direct message!
RESOURCES:
Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to get my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”.
Want to see what Emotional Confidence is about? Download the first chapter for FREE!
Ready for a step-by-step plan based on the Bible + brain science to identify + rewire subconscious thoughts so they line up with your true identity in Christ? Join us in the Christian Mindset Makeover!
Ready to know how to manage emotions for more calm, stronger relationships, and a closer walk with God? Want to implement the concepts discussed in my book “Emotional Confidence”? Then join the Emotional Confidence Club!
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