I value relationships very, very much. I am quick to trust and quick to love, and I am also slow to abandon people when they are not good for me. I have some toxic relationships in my life, and I have no real idea how to remove them.

There are some people whom I have cut out of my life that have been deeply hurtful, but the hurtful things they did made it easy to abandon the relationships. But there are too many people in my life that I have relationships with where I know associating with them isn’t good for me because it just makes me angry, irritable, anxious, or hurt. Sometimes these people are family members; sometimes they are friends. I say “too many” because I’m thinking just one toxic relationship is one too many, but I am fortunate that I can probably count all of these relationships on one hand.

Right now, my methods for managing toxic relationships that I can’t end include things like avoidance (I just try not to interact with those people), compartmentalization (separating out the toxic part of the relationship from the part that does work), and self-protection in the form of trying my hardest to never be alone with the toxic person.

Anybody have strategies for how to manage toxic relationships? I’m open to ideas!