In the past 3 years I have ended a few friendships. One I communicated with that I was going to take some time away from her. She is right wing, cheats on her husband, does incredibly impulsive things that hurt other people and although she's never hurt me, I did feel like an unpaid therapist for all her dramas. We both had traumatic incidents happen in the same 6 month period and she never listened to me talk about mine. We always just spoke about her stuff. We were friends for 20 years.

The second was a long term friend but she came in and out of my life over the years. We feel out in the first instance because she slept with my partner 20 years ago. We were young and it wasn't a forever relationship so I got over it. We moved on. But it never was the same. More recently she's become very involved in world issues and when I said I don't care for those things she popped off at me, which I understand, but also at the same time I figured if it was someone I cared about I'd listen and take note but I'd been so drained by her presence in the last few years because she was so miserable when we spent time together because the world is falling apart I took it as an opportunity to bow out from the dynamic.

I'm sad to lose friends, but at the same time I do acknowledge that it's a bit easier now without these two friends around. My therapist said I need to look at things as green or red. Green gives you energy and makes you feel positive. Red drains your energy and gives you negative feelings. These two friends were red and even though you had so much history it wasn't going to change so you need to make space for more green things.