In too deep? How to escape a bad relationship

October 20, 12:40 PMFemale Friendship ExaminerDebbie Puente

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Does this relationship make you feel as if you're sinking in quicksand?

This column is all about celebrating the joys of friendship. It’s about the ways in which friendship makes you healthier, and why we need our girlfriend time. As I said in my column on Toxic People, a true friendship is about mutual respect, caring, and sharing.

Life is too short to invite anyone into our lives except those who are caring, compassionate, loyal, positive people who bring out the best in us. Let go of those who only bring you stress, conflict, or pain. A person who is always negative or critical will affect your mood like a black cloud hanging over you. A person who asks way too much of you will cause you stress. It’s nearly impossible to be around someone who is negative, critical, and/or difficult, without it effecting your health. Unfortunately, along with mood disorders, often comes denial. This person just can’t see that she has a problem which is keeping others from wanting to love her. In her mind, it’s everyone else, not her.

If you are involved in a relationship that is damaging to you emotionally, you owe it to yourself to end it. It’s just a fact of life that some relationships have short life-spans. A failed friendship does not necessarily mean that you have failed as a friend.

In situations where ending the friendship would be terribly awkward and uncomfortable, as in the case of someone where chance meetings are undoubtedly going to happen or the two of you have many mutual friends, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, it could be almost nothing with very little drama. There is a strategy to it. So please stay tuned.

And if you like this series, please tell a friend.