Toxic Friendships

Knowing the Rules and Dealing with the Friends Who Break Them

By (author) Suzanne Degges-White, Judy Pochel Van Tieghem

Publication date:

11 June 2015

Length of book:

280 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442239975

Good friends and healthy friendships are crucial to women’s well-being at every stage of life. But what happens when a friendship turns toxic? When a friend becomes hurtful or mistreats another? When a friend abandons another in a time of need? Here, Suzanne Degges-White and Judy Pochel Van Tieghem explore such toxic friendships and how women navigate the ups and downs, as well as how broken friendships can be mended and bad friendships ended.

Explaining and illustrating the “rules of friendship” at various stages of life, the authors reveal what it takes to be a good friend, how to identify bad friends, and how to move forward when friendships turn sour. Vignettes of toxic friendship behaviors are shared, as well as tips on how best to respond to these rule-breaking friends in order to rebuild damaged relationships and repair a friendship’s foundation (when appropriate) and how to decide when it’s time to let go of a relationship that is bringing you down versus keeping you afloat. Information for parents is also provided, to aid them as they help their daughters navigate their friendships. We all need friends, but knowing when and how to let go can help us all be better friends—to ourselves, and also to others.

Acknowledgments
Preface

Part I: Understanding the Need for Social Connection
1: The Need for Community
2: Friendship Patterns from Girlhood through Older Adulthood

Part II:The Rules of Friendship and their Role in Relationships
3: It’s a Matter of Trust
4: Just the Way You Are
5: Any Friend of Hers is a Friend of Mine
6: Being There
7: A Friend in Need
8: Keep the Friendship Favor Balance in Check
9: Defending Your Honor
10: Bring Joy to Your Friends
11: Criticism is Not Okay
12: Jealousy is Not Okay
13: A Rule-by-Rule Guide for Moms

Part III:Toxic Environments outside the Home
14: Soccer Moms and Carpool Queens
15: Church Group and Civic Group Friends
16: Down the Street and On the Job

Part IV: Taking Stock and Cutting Back
17: Playing by the Rules
18: Writing Your Own Rules
19: Taking Stock and Letting Go

Bibliography

This book is intended as a kind of field guide to ‘toxic’ relationships of various kinds, but especially friendships among women. . . .Degges-White is a therapist as well as a professor of counseling. She has had many years of experience helping women who are trying to understand and/or extricate themselves from damaging relationships. Van Tieghem is a professional freelance writer. The authors first lay out why people need relationships and then propose ten ‘cross-cultural’ rules for maintaining healthy adult relationships and ten rules for parents who must help their children successfully navigate their own worlds of friendship. Basing their suggestions and conclusions on ‘shared stories of composite clients’ and other women contacted via a survey, the authors then take readers on a guided tour of familiar environments that are particularly prone to being toxic (e.g., the soccer field). In the last section of the book, the authors offer advice on how to gracefully bail out of a toxic relationship and how to use the rules of relationships to build healthy friendships while keeping one's integrity and sense of self intact. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.