Toxic friends

Dear Friend or Foe, My so-called best friend—“Leslie”—apparently didn’t agree with the way I was going about leaving my husband. So she thought it wise to e-mail me, and CC him, about all the things I was doing that she disapproved of. To say the e-mail was harsh is an understatement. She brought up stuff that was clearly meant to be private. Her defense: "You told me that you told him everything. It’s not my fault if you were lying." At the time, I considered her behavior to be nothing less than malicious ... Read More »

The colloquial term "frenemy" was coined to describe a complicated relationship wherein a person causes a friend such pain and anguish that there is a blur between this person being your "friend" or "enemy." Why is it so hard to tell the difference between the two opposite words that society had to create a fuzzy word to describe a shade of gray? For one, our parents didn’t raise us with built-in "bad friend sensors" because our girlfriends are different to us than they were to our mothers or grandmothers, explains Susan Shapiro Barash, a nationally regarded gender expert and author of Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships , an upcoming tome on dealing with female relationships.

On Monday, she's your best friend; by Tuesday, she won't return your calls.  She's your frenemy... you know, your friend-slash-enemy.  But do you really need her in your life?  Dana Loesch of Mamalogues asks our panelists, including guest Karen Walrond of chookooloonks.com, "How do you handle a toxic friend?"


Have you had a frenemy?  Do you currently?  Do you think people should cut toxic friends out of their lives or try to repair the relationships?  Join the Momversation by commenting in the forums below:

• How do you break up with a friend?
• Who would you like to see as a guest panelist?