How To Get Rid Of Toxic Friends (9 Steps)

Friendships; just like every other relationship, can and should end if it compromises your overall well-being. Just because you’ve been friends with someone for an X amount of years, doesn’t mean you have to be in a toxic friendship.

People change, and so do friends. If you are looking for ways on how to get rid of toxic friends, you’ve come to the right place.

Here are 9 steps on how to get rid of toxic friends in your life

1. Identify Those People.

First things first, you need to sit down and really think which friends of yours are toxic. You should search for the common signs of a toxic friend. Identifying them is the first big step.

If you want help on identifying a potential toxic friend, check this article out: 12 Signs Of A Toxic Friend That You Absolutely Ignore

2. Talk To Them.

After identifying the toxic people in your life, you need to talk to them about the things they do that you don’t like. This is your best bet if you want to keep them as a friend, but can’t stand their toxicity.

You might like: How to Insult a Toxic Person (15 Toxic Comebacks!)

3. Evaluate.

After your interaction with them, there are three possible endings:

• Either they understand you and they indeed change or try to change their behavior towards you,
• They say that they understand you but they don’t try and change their behavior,
• They don’t understand you, don’t listen to you and they may even blame you instead of fixing their behavior.

If the first ending happens, congrats! You just saved a friendship.

But that’s rare, most of the time the endings are either the second or the third. In this case, you have to cut them off. Friendships should give you happiness and a place where you can feel secure, not a place of constant judgment and toxicity.

4. You Have To Make It Clear To Them.

Be crystal clear with yourself and your friend. Ghosting someone because you can’t end the friendship face to face absolutely sucks, and you become toxic as well. Make your intentions of ending the friendship clear to them. That way they won’t be hurt if you were just ignoring them all of a sudden.

5. Slowly Disconnect From Them.

Disconnect from every Social Media platform you’re connected with. Delete their phone number, hide their posts and stories on Instagram and Facebook. Viewing their Social Media profile works as a temptation to stalk them, and that will make you feel bad.

Think of why you searched on Google the “how to get rid of toxic friends” and you landed on this specific article. To actually get rid of them!

6. Your #1 Priority Is YOU.

Don’t be afraid of losing people, be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone. Understand that your overall health is worth far more than these toxic people.

7. It’ll Be Hard.

At first sight, it’s going to be hard not having these friends in your every day life. But eventually, you’ll see that you will feel better when they are not around.

Tip: Make a pros/cons list

Make a list of how you feel around them. If the negative feelings are way more than the positive ones, then you made the right choice.

8. Try Making New Friends.

Find new friends, or make the bonds of the existing friendships stronger. Surround yourself with healthy relationships, ideally with people who don’t have the toxic traits that the previous had. This is a crucial part because, feeling alone will have you lingering these toxic people back in your life.

9. Me-Time

See it as a great opportunity to spend more time with yourself. You’ve wasted so much time by letting these people affect your mental health and emotions, it’s time to sit back and work on yourself.

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