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Old 07-07-2017, 09:39 PM
 
47 posts, read 42,633 times
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I will cut someone off from my life who is toxic.
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Old 07-07-2017, 09:41 PM
 
47 posts, read 42,633 times
Reputation: 65
Quote:
Originally Posted by matisse12 View Post
Or sometimes one cuts off a friend after a certain action or certain words/discussion take place. Not always without notice - but where both know the certain action or certain words/discussion caused the breech and rupture in the relationship.

Would be interested in stories where this happened.

Thanks for the stories above.....helpful and interesting.
Words can cut deep. If a person is cut off, then they should understand the person is telling them that they are dead to them forever.
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Old 07-07-2017, 10:11 PM
 
Location: A State of Mind
6,611 posts, read 3,655,447 times
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I have heard this said:

When a person stops speaking to you without telling you why they are no longer doing so, they are resorting to relational aggression, which is a passive-aggressive style of communication. It is an aggressive move by a passive methodology. It is manipulative behavior. After a certain age, if a person has a problem with something you have said or done, then the mature thing to do is to tell you.

If a person stops speaking to you without being upfront enough to tell you why, it says more about their level of emotional maturity and ability to handle conflict in an open and honest way, than it says about anything else.

So, there ya go.. not that a person doing this will necessarily find this out and change.
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Old 07-07-2017, 10:33 PM
 
3,279 posts, read 5,302,361 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by In2itive_1 View Post
I have heard this said:

When a person stops speaking to you without telling you why they are no longer doing so, they are resorting to relational aggression, which is a passive-aggressive style of communication. It is an aggressive move by a passive methodology. It is manipulative behavior. After a certain age, if a person has a problem with something you have said or done, then the mature thing to do is to tell you.

If a person stops speaking to you without being upfront enough to tell you why, it says more about their level of emotional maturity and ability to handle conflict in an open and honest way, than it says about anything else.


So, there ya go.. not that a person doing this will necessarily find this out and change.
The dark-red portions--EXACTLY.

The stories mentioned--OK, I'm not saying there isn't a reason to phase out friends who are not good to you, but if someone is reaching out to you and you have just decided to stop returning their calls, I'm sorry but that's azz-hat behavior almost always. Period. The MATURE THING is to TELL somebody what they did which upset you. If they're defensive and won't attempt to apologize for what they've done if they were in fact in the front, then of course one understands at that point one saying "sorry, but if that's the way you feel then I don't think we can be friends any longer" and if they keep on bugging you then yes at that point it's understandable for one to block numbers etc.

But for one to just out of nowhere stop returning calls etc, no explanation no anything--that's just rude period. That you can't deal with confrontation or such--oh well. Tough.
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Old 07-08-2017, 03:40 AM
 
Location: on the wind
23,062 posts, read 18,456,708 times
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I can only think of one so-called "close friend" who ever did any of the things described. She and I were inseparable in elementary and high school and we were honest with each other. This was back in the dark ages when even having a personal phone was unusual. It meant we faced each other directly. Neither of us would ever play the sorts of games described in this thread. Long story short, she began drifting away in our senior year and eventually disappeared. I knew she had been miserable at home as we talked about it a lot. I was puzzled but trusted that there was a good reason. There was. She finally told me that she was leaving the area without telling her parents (on her 18th birthday) and didn't want me sucked into the uproar her parents would create once she went missing. She also apologized for cutting all ties so abruptly saying it was for both our sakes. It hurt for a while as I missed her, but her honesty made the difference and I didn't begrudge anything after that.

Again, as this all happened in the olden days of face to face communication it was probably harder to get away with the disrespectful behavior this thread describes. Have I been unusually lucky that none of my close friends would ever treat me that way? Maybe, maybe not. I only considered a very few people intimate friends in the first place, so maybe part of it is because of my definition of friend. I would never play such games with anyone. If something seems wrong I'll sit down face to face, explain the problem and we work through it together; no winner, no loser, no competition, no victim. I still prefer not to use social media (other than email) to keep in touch with friends but can certainly see how inconsiderate, lazy, and cowardly it could make some people. Also how easily misunderstood. Just because someone can send many trivial tiny messages at a moment's notice and expect an immediate response does not mean they are communicating in a meaningful way. Just deciding to delete, block, ghost, or whatever is a coward's way out of a relationship.
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Old 07-08-2017, 10:48 AM
 
13,754 posts, read 13,255,040 times
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If the relationship is dead, I see no reason to "explain" as if I cared. Life's too short. Move along. Some people, the more you say to them, the more games they can play, the more ammunition they'll have to use. Toxic. yep, no.
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Old 07-08-2017, 12:19 PM
 
1,205 posts, read 1,182,066 times
Reputation: 2631
Quote:
Originally Posted by In2itive_1 View Post
I have heard this said:

When a person stops speaking to you without telling you why they are no longer doing so, they are resorting to relational aggression, which is a passive-aggressive style of communication. It is an aggressive move by a passive methodology. It is manipulative behavior. After a certain age, if a person has a problem with something you have said or done, then the mature thing to do is to tell you.

If a person stops speaking to you without being upfront enough to tell you why, it says more about their level of emotional maturity and ability to handle conflict in an open and honest way, than it says about anything else.

So, there ya go.. not that a person doing this will necessarily find this out and change.
I think this has valid points. It's unusual of me to just disappear, but in my current case I remind my self he doesn't care about my feelings at all, never does, so this one time I'm putting myself first without regard to his feelings.

As far as OP's mention of specific convo: when I last saw said friend in person - he said norhing, literally nothing about my scary current condition. Zero interest, questions or reaction. I was telling him I had a painful biopsy that day and why I needed it. SILENCE. I don't know how to react to that.

We were conversing otherwise, there's back story that's too long to explain, but I told him I was basically done. It was a rehash if his prior crappy behavior and how nothing was better - and that he refused for months to even chat about it. Weeks after he was acting normal to me but also no attempt to go further.

I'm a hard one to break and loyal...but he broke me.
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Old 07-08-2017, 01:33 PM
 
Location: SoCal
14,530 posts, read 20,051,654 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by matisse12 View Post
If you've experienced having a friend (or close friend) stop communicating with you without notice, have you repeatedly emailed them or texted them to try to make contact? (or have you called them?)
Interesting topic...

Yes, I've had that happen, and after a few attempts to re-establish communications I respect their wishes and give up. I may make a few attempts to contact them like after a few months, then after a few years, but there comes a point where I decide that further attempts are pointless.

I myself have cut people out of my life. Toxic people for sure.* In other cases I've realized that the only times I ever hear from a friend is when I contact them; they never contact me, it's always my initiative. I'll admit my feelings are hurt over this, and to be fair some people are just "that way." Sometimes I just give up on them and decide to make no further attempts to contact them, and see if they finally contact me. Most of the time I never hear from them again.

And then of course people die, and I've never heard of any communications from beyond the grave. A person may die unexpectedly, or perhaps they acquire a fatal condition and just don't feel like discussing their impending death. And then they die.


* I wanted to make special note about toxic people, and it's my opinion that you must cut toxic people out of your life. I highly recommend this book: The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker. After reading the book I realized the personal danger that toxic people represent, and I've followed the author's advice ever since.

For example, I consider users of illegal drugs to be toxic people and I will have nothing to do with them. I will have nothing to do with people engaged in serious criminal activities. (I'll leave the definition of serious for another time.) There are people with certain psychiatric conditions or personality problems who I also consider toxic. I just can't have these people in my life.
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Old 07-08-2017, 01:43 PM
 
4,178 posts, read 3,378,886 times
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Most of the people being discussed here do not seem like friends to me. Only users.
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Old 07-08-2017, 03:06 PM
 
8,238 posts, read 6,556,352 times
Reputation: 23135
Quote:
Originally Posted by magpiehere View Post
I think this has valid points. It's unusual of me to just disappear, but in my current case I remind my self he doesn't care about my feelings at all, never does, so this one time I'm putting myself first without regard to his feelings.

As far as OP's mention of specific convo: when I last saw said friend in person - he said norhing, literally nothing about my scary current condition. Zero interest, questions or reaction. I was telling him I had a painful biopsy that day and why I needed it. SILENCE. I don't know how to react to that.

We were conversing otherwise, there's back story that's too long to explain, but I told him I was basically done. It was a rehash if his prior crappy behavior and how nothing was better - and that he refused for months to even chat about it. Weeks after he was acting normal to me but also no attempt to go further.

I'm a hard one to break and loyal...but he broke me.
I know what you mean. Including "I'm a hard one to break and loyal...but he broke me." It's also a reminder that the person doing the cutting off is often more hurt than the person cut-off - if the person cut-off is even hurt much.

I also agree with the poster who said 'if the relationship is dead, a discussion of what is wrong is not needed.' I agree with this in the cases where so much has gone wrong that the reasons are apparent and no discussion is needed. Also, discussion can be too painful - going through what has gone wrong can just exacerbate and intensify painful emotions.

I saw a short video today that said: A person who hurts you will often turn it around and act hurt.

This is similar to projecting the unfortunate things you have done onto the other person, and believing and acting as if the other person has done the actions instead of you having done them.
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