Not everybody stays in your life forever, no matter how much you try. It becomes important to know when to remove someone from your life when it is necessary. It doesn’t mean you hate them but some people have to leave for you to find happiness.
When I was in school, I had a female friend and group member with whom I shared some level of attraction. I liked her personality and she reciprocated that attraction in some ways too. But our friendship was a very stressful one for both of us and at a point, I had to remove her from my life without hating her.
We started off as close friends. I cared so much about her. She was beautiful and had the kind of personality I liked in a girlfriend. I just wanted us to be good friends, at least.
But the harsh truth is, that not everyone stays in your life no matter how much you try. Some will leave by themselves. Others, you will need to learn how to remove them from your life for your own happiness and safety.
Categories of people you should completely remove from your life
- People who don’t value you.
- People who don’t want to be in your life.
- Toxic people.
- People who seek your downfall/failure.
- People who try to diminish you.
- People who don’t want you to succeed.
- People who are actively working to destroy you.
These categories of people do not deserve to be in your life. You need to learn to get rid of them from your life for your own peace and safety. However, you don’t necessarily have to hate them.
Hating someone who you are trying to get rid of places a huge burden on your mind. You don’t want to deliberately carry on something you are trying to avoid in the first place. Hence, the following tips will help you get rid of someone without hating on them.
How to get rid of someone without hating them
Today, I can still say the girl I talked about earlier in this post is still my friend. Even though we are not as close friends as I thought we would be, we are not enemies. But there is a great divide between us which I am very happy with.
Here are some ways I was able to get rid of her from my life.
1. Make an attempt to give them a chance
It is not compulsory to talk to someone you are trying to get rid of but it might be necessary for some reasons. Before you remove someone completely from your life, you want to give them some chance to make a change.
I remember how I tried to get close to my friend then, how I wanted to find out what the problem was so we could become better friends. All those attempts were futile.
While it is not necessary to try to talk things with a toxic person, this can help you stay firmer after you have resolved to get rid of them completely.
2. Reflect on why you want to remove them from your life
Holding on to your strongest reasons for removing them from your life will help you stay firm in your decision to do so. You want to perpetually give yourself a reason to not leave them in your life.
These reasons should include their actions directed against your life, productivity, improvement, and similarly. You want to have good reasons for removing them from your life. For example, someone who does not want you to grow is not someone you want to keep in your life longer than necessary.
It is easy to forget some of the wrongest things someone does to you. With time, you realize that you have completely forgotten what they did to you.
While it is important to forgive everyone and live peaceably with them, you don’t necessarily have to let them back into your life.
3. Think about their life-threatening or degrading actions toward you
Toxic people can drain your life completely if you don’t dissociate from them fast enough. You need to be ever conscious of their negative acts towards you at all times, otherwise, you might unconsciously begin to associate with them again.
Reflect always on how they could have killed you or rendered you stunted in your growth. Focus on the gravity of the consequences or potential consequences of their actions toward you.
By doing so, you will see why they don’t deserve to be in your life even when you do not clearly hate them.
4. Set clear boundaries
Naturally, some situations will make you cross paths with someone you are trying to avoid. Maybe you are colleagues at work and the manager made you both be in the same team.
In such instances, show them the required respect, and relate with them as a team, but set clear boundaries that will prevent them from displaying their toxicity to you or restoring them to a place where they can show their negativity to you freely.
Setting clear boundaries can involve you avoiding moving towards them to get physically close to them. Avoid conversations that will bring you closer than necessary.
5. Realise that you cannot change toxic people
While some negative people are naturally like that, some others might only act that way to you and not to other people. But whatever the case is, you should realize that you cannot, by yourself, change them from being toxic to you.
They might have their own reasons for being toxic to you. It could also be their natural disposition to everyone. If you cannot cope with being around such people, it is best to keep them away rather than try so hard to change them.
Maybe when you avoid them, they might re-evaluate their actions and decide to change by themselves but you have to protect your peace and sanity of mind first.
6. Avoid initiating too close conversations
Too intimate conversations can make someone gain access to your life in ways you cannot imagine. Avoid initiating or getting involved in too close conversations with them.
Don’t get involved in an argument with them, avoid personal discussions about them, you, or other people. And as much as possible, stay professional with them if you are bound to work together with them.
7. Spend more time with positive people
Removing toxic people from your life is not just for the fun of it. In fact, there is no fun doing so. You find yourself struggling with being genuine in your decision to get rid of them, and not hating them in the process.
Once you establish that the reason you are getting rid of someone from your life is to be happier and be a better version of yourself, you should spend more time with positive people.
Positive people are understanding, they are non-toxic, and they care about your improvement and personal development. These are the people you want to spend more time with.
8. Don’t explain your reasons to a third party
While it is important to know your reasons for cutting someone off your life, you don’t owe anyone any explanation. When you explain your reasons for removing someone from your life to someone else, they might not exactly understand what you are trying to say.
Explaining your reasons to other people will naturally make them try to reconcile you to the person you are trying to avoid. That can either make you more upset or bring you closer to the toxicity you are trying to avoid in the first place.
Thus, it is better to keep your reasons to yourself. Don’t try to justify them to anybody because they may not be valid enough reasons to them, and that can make the toxic person feel that you are not sincere in your decision.
Signs of a toxic person
The following signs should make you keep clear from someone no matter how close they are to you.
- Self-absorption or self-centeredness: not minding how others feel.
- Manipulation and other emotional abuse.
- Dishonesty and deceit
- Difficulty offering compassion to others
- A tendency to create drama or conflict because they want to maintain superiority.
- They always have to be right.
- They leave you feeling drained.
- They take more than they give.
How staying with a toxic person can affect you
Never contemplate staying with someone who demonstrates features of toxicity towards you. It can affect your life in ways you never imagined.
Here are some ways staying with a toxic person can affect you.
- It can affect mood, emotions, and mental health.
- It can increase the risk of adverse heart effects like cardiovascular diseases[1]Negative Aspects of Close Relationships and Heart Disease | Cardiology | JAMA Internal Medicine.
- It can put you under emotional stress.
- It can affect the quality of your sleep and by extension, your immune system.
There are a lot of other ways being close to a toxic person can affect your quality of life but these are supposedly bad enough for you to consider cutting them off your life.
Final words
There are still other things you need to know about a toxic person when you try to remove them from your life. Toxic people rarely respond to your efforts to cut them off from your life but when they do, they might get angry, hurt, or feel threatened by your decision.
If they have an underlying mental illness, they might get more obsessed with you. The thought of not having access to you will be intolerable and they might struggle to restore the relationship you once shared.
Long story short, there will always be toxic people around. You can reduce how much contact you have with toxic people but you cannot totally remove them from the world.
Sometimes, it is absolutely necessary to remove certain people from your life. The tips above can help you get rid of such people from your life completely.
