I want to share with you my experience with a business partner who was very, very toxic and one of the most difficult people to talk to. This person was able to turn a small argument into a 3rd World War in a matter of seconds.
He had a way of making everything more difficult than it really was. Whenever I was around him I was feeling out of the place and extremely negative and annoyed even without any particular reason.
So, I made a rule: I would only call this person if it is a life-or-death situation, and I would never call him if I had something to do afterward that required my full presence and attention.
In this way, I protected myself from potential harm that talking to him would have inflicted on my interpersonal relationships with other business partners or my loved ones. Because no one wants to be caught in a situation when after talking to such a toxic downer needs to focus on something important.
I also know other people who have friends or even family members that are toxic. And they also have a rule to not visit their family member and to slowly cut off their toxic friends from their life.
If they really need to make a visit to them, they make sure they bring a friend with them, because they figure they will deal with the toxic person better if there is someone else there to support them.
If your partner is toxic, there is also a way to deal with them effectively. It is called the NO CONTACT. There is no other way. Cutting them off entirely from your life will save you from future pain and wasting your energy on someone who at some point will break your heart.
Finally, these rules are more for you than they are for toxic people. If your rule is to not pay attention to them and not talk to them, then you must follow it. Let them talk all they want, but you stick to your rule and don’t listen to them.
This is why setting boundaries is the number one rule for successfully dealing with toxic people that works like charm every time.
Image:Izabela Sekuła
