# Does your wife have toxic friends



## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

During the worst part of our almost 50 year marriage, I blamed a major part of it on my wife's friendship with a women who had a cheating a$$ of a husband.....

They would have long phone conversations, each one trying to one-up the other about what a pric% they had married.....The wife would come away from these conversations with a huge chip on her shoulder....

My wife also had atrial fib that would act up when she was upset....Which these phone calls would do...The friend would always say...You should rush to the emergency room...I would tell her...Take a Xanax and an ambien and go to bed....When she was rushed to the hospital they gave her a Xanax and an ambien and put her to bed....SURPRISE!


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Worse - my wife has no friends. I'll take WMD grade toxic friends over no friends any time of the day


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

john117 said:


> Worse - my wife has no friends. I'll take WMD grade toxic friends over no friends any time of the day


Why, because they might convince her to leave you? 
Otherwise, I would say that no friends is a lot better than toxic friendss.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

john117 said:


> Worse - my wife has no friends. I'll take WMD grade toxic friends over no friends any time of the day


*My RSXW has one longtime married GF dating back from her college days that has always been very heavily involved in her life, even as one of her business partners and advisors! She lives over on the East Coast in Georgia and all while we were married, they always logged countless hours on the cell phone together, often staying up all night talking; then my skank would finally come dragging her tired old a&$ to bed just as I was getting up, asking me to go take care of her share of the ranch chores while she stayed home and bedded up until noon or longer!

And while to my face this "friend" was always friendly and affable toward me, I initially thought that all of this talk between them was simply "girl talk," later I found FB dialogues between them with this friend of hers actively encouraging her to split the sheets with me to find somebody more well-suited for her! This skank even had detailed knowledge of my RSXW's affairs and comings and goings with her other men, when I didn't even have a clue that "my loving W" was off on her business road trips cheating on my a$$!

All that I can really say is that with backstabbing "friends" like this, you damned well don't need enemies! *
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## NotEasy (Apr 19, 2015)

john117 said:


> Worse - my wife has no friends. I'll take WMD grade toxic friends over no friends any time of the day


Perhaps this is true with the "not normal" wife you describe. Leaving people with a personality disorder to stew in isolation probably makes things worse.

I think for "normal" people toxic friends are worse than no friends.

And, of course, every spouse should be a friend too. I assume you meant no outside friends. If you aren't your spouse's friend then the marriage itself becomes toxic.


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## NotEasy (Apr 19, 2015)

And no my wife has great friends. 

She has only ever had one friend who was getting a little unpleasant, but still far less than toxic. This was after some of my W's matchmaking failed. I suggested distancing herself from this friend which my W did. In that case one less friend was better than an unpleasant friend.


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## Idun (Jul 30, 2011)

I had a toxic friend, I gave her more than a few chances to shape up or our friendship was over. She couldn't stop her b1tching, so that was that. She also tried to sabotage mine and H's relationship in the beginning. My other friends weren't great either (jealousy) - but they wised up.

I actually 'broke up' with the toxic friend because of how she treated my H as well. If your wifes friends are poisoning your relationship you have the right to speak up.


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## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

My ex had a toxic friend. It just so happens that her toxic friend left her husband about a month before mine left me. It turns out they had it all planned well before pulling it off. Her 20 year buddy Tina bragged to her son how they were both going to leave and move to a nearby town, so they didn't have to drive so far to go dancing. In the months leading up to Tina leaving her husband I heard all about how horrible her husband was to her. After my wife walked out,he stopped by my place to fill me on the plan that had been spilled to his son. I questioned some of the stories I had been told and basically he said they were all lies. When I questioned my then STBXW, she said there was never any plan and then proceeded to do everything that I had already been told she was going to do. 
My ex had also made some friends with a few other women who had left their husbands as well. Amazingly enough she even had one of their attorneys all lined up to handle the dissolution. 
One of the stories I had been told about Tina was that her daughter had found out she had danced with a man at a girls weekend trip and called her a ****. But poor Tina was just so happy that a guy had actually shown her some attention after years in a sexless marriage. It turned out that Tina had accidently left her POF page open and her daughter saw it. Her title was "Wanna have some fun?". When I confronted my ex about it, she claimed poor Tina must not have known what that meant. Yeah right!
Well long story short. They moved out together and found an apartment. But about a month or two into her BFF blew her off for some Fred Flintstone look alike from POF and stuck her with an apartment she couldn't afford. Yep, she was a real judge of character, my ex was! LOL!


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## Maneo (Dec 4, 2012)

I don't think women or wives have the market cornered on toxic friends. Men and husbands have them too.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

technovelist said:


> Why, because they might convince her to leave you?
> 
> Otherwise, I would say that no friends is a lot better than toxic friendss.



It's by her choice:

- she does not befriend coworkers 
- she has no life outside work
- her few ethnic friends throw a party every year and so do we

That's why it's all so scary...


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

She use to but I got them all pregnant.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Ynot said:


> My ex had a toxic friend. It just so happens that her toxic friend left her husband about a month before mine left me. It turns out they had it all planned well before pulling it off. Her 20 year buddy Tina bragged to her son how they were both going to leave and move to a nearby town, so they didn't have to drive so far to go dancing. In the months leading up to Tina leaving her husband I heard all about how horrible her husband was to her. After my wife walked out,he stopped by my place to fill me on the plan that had been spilled to his son. I questioned some of the stories I had been told and basically he said they were all lies. When I questioned my then STBXW, she said there was never any plan and then proceeded to do everything that I had already been told she was going to do.
> My ex had also made some friends with a few other women who had left their husbands as well. Amazingly enough she even had one of their attorneys all lined up to handle the dissolution.
> One of the stories I had been told about Tina was that her daughter had found out she had danced with a man at a girls weekend trip and called her a ****. But poor Tina was just so happy that a guy had actually shown her some attention after years in a sexless marriage. It turned out that Tina had accidently left her POF page open and her daughter saw it. Her title was "Wanna have some fun?". When I confronted my ex about it, she claimed poor Tina must not have known what that meant. Yeah right!
> Well long story short. They moved out together and found an apartment. But about a month or two into her BFF blew her off for some Fred Flintstone look alike from POF and stuck her with an apartment she couldn't afford. Yep, she was a real judge of character, my ex was! LOL!


I went back, and read most if your threads re your wife....It was a really raw deal, and I could not help but wonder if you ever found another man lurking in the background?


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## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

Woodchuck said:


> I went back, and read most if your threads re your wife....It was a really raw deal, and I could not help but wonder if you ever found another man lurking in the background?


I never did. I really didn't bother to look much. Once she decided to leave, my world finished collapsing. I became nothing more than a reaction. I sold my house, closed my business, took a job in a city near my daughter and moved away. 
I had been unhappy for months prior to her leaving. I knew something wasn't right. I just couldn't put it into any context. I thought it was all just part of the normal ebb and flow of life.
Looking back there were plenty of forks in the road, where both of us took the wrong path, at least as far as our relationship was concerned. She could have been more supportive. I could have been more assertive, and vice versa. 
I really don't think there was some one person out there that lead her away from me, as much as I failed to keep her attracted to me and my life. And again, the same is true in reverse. 
The old cliche that "we just grew apart" is probably the truth of the situation. She had become someone who wasn't the woman I married. I had become someone who wasn't the man that she married. Had we stayed together, we may have grown to understand that new person enough to stay together. 
I was having a hard time coming to grips with my place in her world. I felt marginalized in the relationship. I felt unsupported emotionally. I felt unappreciated. I reacted by doubling down.
She had been moving up the ladder in the corporate world I want no part in. Her job career became paramount in her mind. Then her children. Then her friends, and finally me. It wasn't a life I was happy with. And I wasn't happy.
In the end she made her choices based on what she considered to be her best interests. Now it is up to me to make mine. It has taken me over a year to begin to come to grips with where I am and what has happened.
I lost nearly everything I had, and what I still have has been drastically altered. My choice now is to rebuild my life to be what I want and to get over the life I had tried to acomodate myself to for the prior five years or so.


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## McDean (Jun 13, 2015)

My wife has both toxic friends (technically she has gotten rid of them now - amen) and truly wonderful friends. When my wife was in a bad place her toxic friends convinced her I had a forked tail and cloven hooves and that all her problems were me. True enough I was not the perfect husband but as her non-toxic friends later pointed out I am least an 8 out of 10 in the husband category and she is lucky to have me. 

All of us are susceptible to influence and group think etc. The descriptions in the posts in this thread so far prove this to some extent. I won't say that women are more or less susceptible but for older generations where society taught men to 'walk alone, be independent, John Wayne types' and women to 'comfort, nurture, collaborate' it is easier to imagine many wives falling into the group think trap. Still, i have seen plenty of guys with toxic friends and it shows in the stupid decisions they execute on a regular basis to be honest....because so many women have heard that their relationships are more important than themselves (wrongly I might add) I believe given enough time, pressure and a not perfect marriage (which none of them are) they can be turned to thinking divorce, cheating, whatever is the 'right' move - of course this is if they are susceptible and such which is probably not as many as it would appear on the surface.

My own recent experience however showed me that my wife, who was at one point described as the grounded one in our relationship, given a rough time in life coupled with toxic friends could be swayed to walk away fully believing her thought process was spot on....just last night ironically she admitted to me that she now recognized how 'out of touch with reality' she had become...that I became the easy target because I was there in front of her the most....

Toxic friendships are no longer tolerated in my marriage - I straight up told her, you can and should have friends but if you ever fall into another group of stupid people like the ones you hung our with earlier in the year - I will tell you what they are and you will have to choose between them and me because I won't be sticking around otherwise....I have a low tolerance for stupid people and she should too if for no other reason that self-respect for herself!!!


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## MachoMcCoy (Oct 20, 2014)

Maneo said:


> I don't think women or wives have the market cornered on toxic friends. Men and husbands have them too.


Do you know what WAW stands for? How about WAH? No? That's because there is no such thing as a walk-away-husband. Are there husbands that get tired of their wives and check out? Damn right there are. And everyone agrees there are. But a WAW is different. To deny that is to deny women and men are substantially different.

Women have toxic friends. Men have dumn-a$$ d1ckhead friends that they probably shouldn't be spending time with. Toxic friend? Sorry. That's a chick thing, and they've got their own way of doing it.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

MachoMcCoy said:


> Do you know what WAW stands for? How about WAH? No? That's because there is no such thing as a walk-away-husband. Are there husbands that get tired of their wives and check out? Damn right there are. And everyone agrees there are. But a WAW is different. To deny that is to deny women and men are substantially different.
> 
> Women have toxic friends. Men have dumn-a$$ d1ckhead friends that they probably shouldn't be spending time with. Toxic friend? Sorry. That's a chick thing, and they've got their own way of doing it.


How true....I have listened at the door during these toxic conversations...There is not a guy equivalent...


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## committed_guy (Nov 22, 2011)

Yes. When we went through a tough time in our marriage my wife turned to a friend of hers who was also struggling with their marriage. 

My wife let her friend convince her that the same problems in her marriage were in our marriage. May my wife's friend ever so severely be judged for doing that. 

I'm glad now she doesn't talk much with her friend but at that critical moment of our marriage my wife let her influence her in the exact wrong way we needed to go. My wife choose her friends to reinforce the ideals and sympathy that made her feel in control. Rather than help my wife deal with her own issues she cherry picked the advice from her "amen sisters" that convinced her that I was completely to blame for our marriage problems. 

I wish I was wiser at the time to recognize what was going on. Live and learn I guess.


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## McDean (Jun 13, 2015)

committed_guy said:


> Yes. When we went through a tough time in our marriage my wife turned to a friend of hers who was also struggling with their marriage.
> 
> My wife let her friend convince her that the same problems in her marriage were in our marriage. May my wife's friend ever so severely be judged for doing that.
> 
> ...


It's a tough one for us men, if we tell them their 'frind(s)' are toxic or no good we are controlling and don't want them to have friends, yet if we don't say anything we potentially run the risk of losing them to toxic group think....

I have seen similar scenarios with men but to be frank my whole life, my observations of most female friendships are that they are shallow...not in every case of course. Also seems like it is more important to some people to have a cast of thousands surrounding them rather than a few due for you friends which I have understood.


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## Maneo (Dec 4, 2012)

MachoMcCoy said:


> Do you know what WAW stands for? How about WAH? No? That's because there is no such thing as a walk-away-husband. Are there husbands that get tired of their wives and check out? Damn right there are. And everyone agrees there are. But a WAW is different. To deny that is to deny women and men are substantially different.
> 
> Women have toxic friends. Men have dumn-a$$ d1ckhead friends that they probably shouldn't be spending time with. Toxic friend? Sorry. That's a chick thing, and they've got their own way of doing it.


Boy, do you guys love to generalize and lump everyone into broad gender buckets. The so-called Walk-Away-Wife term has been around for years and categorized as a syndrome. But men walk away too and others have begun to more correctly characterize it as a Walk-Away-Spouse syndrome. 

It could be that more women then men exhibit this behavior but that would be up to some valid study of broken relationships rather than assumptions and subjective conjecture. 

It is a facile but largely meaningless argument to attribute it all to a chick thing or a guy thing. Yes there are differences between the genders but not to such an extreme. What decade, nay, what century are you guys living in?


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## Holland (Aug 20, 2012)

Water finds it's own level, someone that allows and has toxic people in their lives has issues themselves.

As for men not being or having toxic friends what a laugh, being a toxic person is not a gender issue.


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## committed_guy (Nov 22, 2011)

McDean said:


> I have seen similar scenarios with men but to be frank my whole life, my observations of most female friendships are that they are shallow...not in every case of course. Also seems like it is more important to some people to have a cast of thousands surrounding them rather than a few due for you friends which I have understood.


Well said. I think that also gets into a discussion of what a real friend is. Is it someone you just want to agree and make you feel good? Or can that person be honest with me and even tell me my faults without getting mad at them?

I think this was my wife's problem. She has such low self esteem that she only wanted approval from her friends who also had similar issues. 

During this tumultuous time in our marriage I intercepted most of my wife's texts and emails to her friends. She had absolutely no problem sharing all of my sins with her friends but not once did she confess hers.


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## ChargingCharlie (Nov 14, 2012)

Her friends are all fine - the toxic one is her sister. Total drama queen who will call with fresh drama all the time. If I speak up about what a PITA she is, I get in trouble, so I just keep my mouth shut about her. Wife gets stressed out easily (especially with the kids), and her sister doesn't help with her constant drama.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

ChargingCharlie said:


> Her friends are all fine - the toxic one is her sister. Total drama queen who will call with fresh drama all the time. If I speak up about what a PITA she is, I get in trouble, so I just keep my mouth shut about her. Wife gets stressed out easily (especially with the kids), and her sister doesn't help with her constant drama.


Years ago I got a job that required our family moving 200 miles away from the wife's family....About a year later she said "You know I have gained about 10 pounds".....I told her it was from the lack of drama. and after thinking about it, agreed....


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Holland said:


> Water finds it's own level, someone that allows and has toxic people in their lives has issues themselves.
> 
> As for men not being or having toxic friends what a laugh, being a toxic person is not a gender issue.


I have eves dropped on my wife talking to her toxic friend....When two guys are talking it is about "women"...When it is two women talking it is "That pric& I married"....And even if only one husband is a cheating A$$HAT, both husbands wind up being mentioned specifically....


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## ChargingCharlie (Nov 14, 2012)

Woodchuck said:


> Years ago I got a job that required our family moving 200 miles away from the wife's family....About a year later she said "You know I have gained about 10 pounds".....I told her it was from the lack of drama. and after thinking about it, agreed....


Ha, I can see that. Thankfully, SIL lives over 100 miles away, but she's a total PITA. It was hard enough living with the wife when the kids were about 1-2 years old, and having her sister calling daily with constant drama didn't help. For some reason, wife is deathly afraid of upsetting the drama queen (their brother has no problem telling her what needs to be said, even if it upsets her). 

I actually dream of the day when SIL calls me and says something to really piss me off to the point where I let her have it. I hold back now mainly to not upset the wife, but one of these days I will let loose.


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