Have you ever cut someone out of your life? | Page 4 | INFJ Forum

Have you ever cut someone out of your life?

I have cut out several people in my life, some of which I see on a regular basis. I like to think of myself as a pretty forgiving person considering my own defects and my knowlege of human frailties. I try to look at all sides of an issue and put myself into other people's shoes. I then wait to what I think would be the proper response with someone deducing things the way I do. The fact is that is that not everyone processes or thinks the way I do. I guess when people continue and perpetually hurt me with no end in sight and it is continued without resolution, I give up. It forces my hand to cut things off entirely. I base things more on action than projected thought and if the facts state one way then I operate accordingly. I do realize my lack of assertion or addressing the issues hamper the other person in knowing my stance and views. I guess my ego wants me to believe someon can read my mind and know my thoughts....which is a fail. Communication is the key which is hard for me do to at times when I am more worried with how I look, but then again there are others who unable to see beyond themselves and how their actions harm me because they are only concerned with themselves. People exist like that so I am left with do I respect myself to surround myself with those who take my feelings into consideration or do I continue to put myself in harm's way. I give many chances and hang into the hope that things change until it situations and actions prove differ.
 
Yes, once.

I cut off my best friend (who is probably an ENFP) from high school about 2 (almost 3) years ago. We had a very close and emotionally intense relationship. I loved spending time with her. It was the kind of friendship where you could just lay in bed with each other and talk for hours easily and simultaneously have moments where speaking isn't required at all because of mutual understanding. I felt like I knew her well, better than most people. We ended up dating very briefly but during that time I started to feel like she was keeping things from me. You know that feeling you get when people lie to you? Turns out I didn't know her very well at all. I couldn't stand the feeling or thought of someone lying to me, especially someone as close to me as she was.

So we broke up but we tried to remain friends. I still had feelings for her and hoped for a long time that we would get back together. She got over our break up extremely quickly and started hanging out more with a mutual friend. All three of us use to hang out together but after I broke up with my friend, I felt like a third-wheel. I chalked this feeling up to jealously and told myself I shouldn't be jealous of my two friends spending time with each other. To put it simply, I felt like I had been replaced. I spent a lot of my time convincing myself that my feelings were unwarranted and that I needed to keep my jealously in check. Hanging out with them became increasingly difficult.

After I graduated from high school, I attempted to stay in touch with her. But it didn't seem like she was putting the same amount of effort into maintaining the friendship, you know? The friendship scales were unbalanced. I was the one who always called, who wanted to talk, who wanted to hang out. Her friendship was important to me and I really liked her. But I still felt like she was keeping things from me. I don't know what but something. I think I just wanted her to own up to the times she had been deceitful in the past. In a moment of confrontation, she admitted to romantically liking our mutual friend who liked her as well. Suddenly, everything made sense. That feeling of being replaced wasn't so farfetched after all. I was angry and heartbroken. I stopped speaking to her that day and the scales became balanced again.

She has tried to contact me since then but I've never answered.

Looking back at it now, I realize that I wasn't the most fun person to talk to. I was deeply hurt by her deceit and it showed in our interactions and conversations. My pain manifested itself as unparalleled levels of snarkiness and sarcasm. Also, at that time my friendship moral standards were way too high. Maybe I was too harsh? I probably came off to her as an annoying, whiny ex. Who'd wanna be friends with that? I didn't like who I was around her so it was better that we never spoke again.

Recently, I've been thinking about contacting her. Writing this post has made me think twice though. Is it possible to be friends again? I decided that it didn't matter. Meeting with her would be more akin to facing a ghost or your worst fear and finally putting it to rest/punching it in the face. Its more about the action of meeting with her again than the result. Does that make sense? (It did in my head)
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tl;dr: Yes but after years of contemplation I'm thinking about contacting that person again for reasons I'm still not completely sure of. :m083:
 
[MENTION=3876]mochi[/MENTION], You are kind! What ever happens, happens for good... (regardless of how it seems sometimes) We have people in our lives for a particular reason and leave for another... Any time we are each doing the best we can based on our circumstances... For now forgive yourself and let it be... (eventually if it happens, forgive your friend and let her be)
 
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Yes. I often do this whenever my priorities change. I look around at what is and is not working in my life and often some relationships get cut.

Some people are leeches. They take up too much of my time or tax me emotionally without any benefit to me. Whenever I identify that this is taking place I begin to put distance between myself and them.

I have cut out people who are really unsupportive of my art and other things that I do, who are consistently critical without being constructive, or who can't respect the time and space that I need to create. I became conscious a while ago of the degree to which being around negative people has an effect on my motivation and confidence so I try to surround myself with supportive people instead.

And sometimes I come to the realization that my relationship with someone is over. People change. Their priorities and interests change. Sometimes what used to hold you together no longer does. This is true of lots of people that I knew from school. We've gone down different paths and they no longer interest me. This is also true of an ex. We hit a point where there was nothing new to talk about and it wasn't going anywhere. I got bored. I ended it with the knowledge that we would both be free to seek out new things that would better suit our needs.

I don't feel bad about this and I hope others don't feel bad about me ceasing contact. I try to make it as painless as possible.
 
I have tried. I have even cut off an entire city. And for some reason they usually come crawling back in just as my life is taking off with a new group of people. And especially as I'm entering into a cherished relationship or something along those lines. They usually stress me out to a point where my relationship becomes demolished or I lose my new friends because of the stress they cause me behind closed doors. I think most people from the outside looking in wouldn't understand. But you know when you decide who you want to be friends with and how you want to live your life, this added burden causes a bit of anxiety for me. I usually have to tread lightly or I'm pushed into a corner where I'll usually pull my disappearing act just to keep myself healthy and keep others who don't have boundaries at a distance. Most people take offense to this process, but this is just how I process things. When I'm not given this time to restore my resources, the consequences are really bad. Which means I'll permanently cut you out of my life. I used to let someone push me around for maybe a decade or so, but these days I'll decide within minutes if I want someone to be a part of my life or not.

Gator. I agree with a lot of what you said. Relationships have to be severed. Emotional leeches usually break me and at some point financially as well. I've been in a really unhealthy friendship with an insecure girl a while back. She broke me so bad that I literally turned my back on entire population of people and I had to ask for money to get myself out of the financial mess she put me in. From that point on I've made it a point to only try to surround myself with people who are somewhat on an equal footing with me. Needless to say I found others who have been "emotionally" taxed and we get along smoothly. There doesn't need to be much conversation to get things done and have fun as well.

I see younger women going down this path, but to be honest, I can't allow it to be a part of my life anymore. I can try to be a better role model, but I cannot allow it to disrupt my life again.
 
*bump*

Yes, because he was just plainly creepy.
Said the wrong things, gave the wrong impression, didn't stop when I told him to.
(Btw, as an "INFJ", I just used my instinct and gave up on him 8 months ago)

How did I cut the person out?
As "nicely" as possible (with no more comment at the first attack, of course, lol)


...I find as I grow older, I am getting better at dealing with bs, and fine-tuning my ability lose those who turn out to be unworthy of friendship... they just waste your energy :)

Does nothing to stop him though, still contacts me to apologize (!)
 
*bump*

Yes, because he was just plainly creepy.
Said the wrong things, gave the wrong impression, didn't stop when I told him to.
(Btw, as an "INFJ", I just used my instinct and gave up on him 8 months ago)

How did I cut the person out?
As "nicely" as possible (with no more comment at the first attack, of course, lol)


...I find as I grow older, I am getting better at dealing with bs, and fine-tuning my ability lose those who turn out to be unworthy of friendship... they just waste your energy :)

Does nothing to stop him though, still contacts me to apologize (!)

That's great =] I wish I had a good bs detector too lolol.

Whatever you do, don't write him back - if he's really sorry, he will respect your space.
 
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I thought I was that kind of guy, yet I cannot recall a person I have decisively and purposefully cut out of my life at this point.

But I like to entertain the thought of the option. Why haven't I taken it?

I guess if it isn't mutual, perhaps I haven't found a good reason to yet...
 
almost everyone sooner or later, including family members when their BS gets to be too much and sooner or later everyone stabs you in the back. there's that "T" thing
 
Yes. Complete doorslam. She had been my friend for over 15 years, but I observed that she was emotionally unstable, explosively angry, vengeful, manipulative, overly dramatic, hurtful, destructive, and self-absorbed.She was (and still is) unwilling to admit that she is the architect of her own misery. I suspect HPD and NPD. It was all about her- to hell with the needs of others.
She has been engaged in a series of destructive, even violent relationships. She has even perpetrated the violence in her most recent relationship. She cheats on her partner and has no scruples about sleeping with someone she doesn't even love. I am monogamous and committed.
She wouldn't even discipline her kids- not even when her daughter socked my son (they were born 5 days apart) in the stomach. When her daughter broke the wireless internet router I'd purchased for my teen daughter's birthday gift, she refused to pay for it. Another friend informed me that she shoplifts, and her daughter fishes through people's drawers and personal effects when they visit people's houses. She takes stuff.
She let her daughter have a cell phone and a Facebook page when she was only 9 years old. \0/
Her adult son, now 23, is a complete mess- uses drugs, violent to women, takes no responsibility for his actions. Several years ago, they (mother and son) visited my house at my previous address. He was making fun of my nonverbal, autistic son (I have two boys- this is the older one. The one I mentioned before is younger and talks up a storm). My oldest daughter was ready to take him outside and mop the floor with him. She is tiny but strong. ESTJ. You don't mess with her baby brother.
She conceived her daughter on purpose with a man 214 years younger (she won't date men her own age) who was not even in the country legally and married him shortly afterward. Many people, myself included, warned her to wait and get to know the fellow's character first. She disregarded our counsel. When they had problems early in the marriage, she was ready to abort the child. I went over to her house and told her plainly that the baby was an innocent and did not deserve to be eliminated just because she was peeved with the father. She had chosen to have sex with the conscious intention of creating life. I told her I was done with her if she dared to have the abortion. I even foretold that she was having a daughter. Time proved me right.
Unsurprisingly, that marriage ended in divorce.
When I was struggling to finish my spring 2012 college semester (full course load, no car, no PC at home, limited income), she gave me no emotional support. She just got angry when I wasn't available to chat. When I was at the campus library typing up assignments and prepping for finals, she was ringing my cell phone six, seven times or more. If I didn't answer, she'd call my daughter and harangue her. What reasonable person does that? Leave my kid out of it. This woman even had the nerve to complain to someone else that I was being a bad friend and ignoring her.
Oh, well, I thought. I'm not like you, sitting on my rear end doing absolutely nothing with my life. I take my responsibilities seriously. I can't drop everything to entertain you. I have a schedule. I want a better future.
She once brought my teenager to a mutual friend's house. The other lady had a male friend and his son visiting. The fellow was showing my child, who was then 13, how to play a video game. This nutcase accused my child of flirting with a grown man (yeah, right) and threatened to make her walk the two miles home all by herself in the dark. Inhuman creature!
She has no compunction about doing unsolicited favors for others, then throwing it in their faces later when she wants something. Always "you owe me." She constantly pestered the lady I mentioned above to give her gas money for rides to the supermarket, yet constantly compelled her to babysit her daughter for several hours at a time without any payment. Often she would delay picking up her daughter for several hours with no empathy for the chronically ill woman who also had to care for her own two daughters (last pregnancy could have killed her). She didn't care if this lady had to take her kid to the doctor or go food shopping- she came back when she felt like it.
Once when she visited my house with other friends (she often brought people over without asking me ahead of time, which I hated because I didn't know them), several decorating books from the library went missing. She pointed the finger at a young Hispanic boy, yet several months later, I found the books at her house. My library account had been shut down because of the excessive fines I owed. Thank God I was able to return the books and clear up the fees! It would have cost me over $100 to reimburse the library. That is a hardship on a fixed income.
She would take my friend's daughter and her own daughter out to a restaurant and buy her kid a full meal while the guest child received only a small item on the dollar menu. I would never have treated both girls so unequally. If I could not afford to take both out to a restaurant and fill their bellies, I would have made a meal for them at home.
Oh, I forgot. She doesn't believe in cooking.
Her daughter is sullen, spoiled and selfish, with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
I refuse to subject my kids to her this toxic individual. I chose to disconnect from her: no visits, phone calls, texts- nothing. Complete detachment. I am much better off without her drama.
 
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Please read that as she had a baby with a guy who was 14 years younger.
 
Yeah, lot's. I've never regretted it, either.

If I'm just getting to know a person and they start to act all flaky and finnicky, I drop them immediately and cut off all contact. When it comes to romantic relationships with no real substance, same thing. If I see you again, I never knew you (and this is true on all but the physical level). To the women i've cut out of my life: I left you without a trace probably because I couldn't stand your constant subtle testing. I'm not into power struggles. True love isn't supposed to be a battlefield, that's toxic and I will leave fast.

When it comes to so-called friendships, it's a lot harder to cut any ties and I hate doing it, but I end up thanking myself in the end. Some people are only going to drag me down.

Dear person: If you won't take the advice which you have asked for and which I have given to you many times, then you are dragging me down with you. If you just want to use me as an emotional doormat, you're no longer my friend. Respect me, and above all, respect yourself. If you can't respect yourself after I've told you again and again what to do and why, the only thing I can do is move on or else I'll end up despising you anyway. I am mortal and my time here is finite.

It's kind of like when a druggie feels in his heart that he must leave his druggie "friends." It's hard and it feels shitty, but it's necessary. Some people - many in fact - are deluded to the point that they don't want to be saved. As much as it hurts, he has to let them go and cut them out like a malignant tumor.

I tell this to myself and to people. I don't only want to better myself, for in order to do so I NEED to help better other people. I love my friends, the true friends. I only have two really, tried and tested, and I have been tried and tested to them. They've been my friends for well over a decade. I cherish them greatly and if I had to cut ties (no matter how much I need to, God forbid), I know that I would be quite distressed. This stuff I've written doesn't come naturally to me, because I just feel connected to people so easily. I remember my INFP (Fi-Ne) friend named Jesus. I say: what would Jesus do? And I do my best to take his advice.

The point - have faith; there is one - is to respect yourself, my dear.
 
Honestly, I tend to be the one who gets cut. Any attempt I have made at cutting people out up until about Jan 2014 have failed. The person always seems to get a hold of me later on and I cave and respond.

I made the official cut for a few people in January and I haven't looked back, it is liberating. I have put major limits on my relationship with my mother also, which seems to be working. I fear I have to make another cut, but this one will be devastatingly the worst.
 
People have cut me off two or three times, aye, I dont like it.
 
Yep my ex. We dated for two years.. he took all my money cuz I have problems with saying no.. around 2000 on him because he made me feel bad for him so I went out of my way to support him. He also was abusive. I baught him a playstation 2 or 3.. one time he kinda picked me up and dropped me on my back.. as I was walking away from his crap to just go home I tripped over the ps3. He freaked out at that saying I broke it when I only unplugged it.. even though I baught it for him along with some games! He moved to VA for a job and we called it quits. We stayed in touch for 6 years after. When I read more into antisocial personality disorder I figured that he fit well into that category. So I just deleted him off fb and removed his number. Ill never bother with ASPD or narcissists when I learn how to spot them. Nothing good comes from it anyway unless its for them.
 
I never felt the need to deliberately cut anyone out. People seem to naturally disappear from my life anyway.
 
Yes. My mother. She is an infp borderline personality and it took me years to understand that she is unable to have a healthy relationship. I asked her, when she was at her worst, to see a psychiatrist because she was not in touch with reality. Actually, she cut me off, so I am not sure if this counts but I felt awful about it for two years. It took me a long time to forgive myself for daring to offend her so badly but I had to.

She told my father and other family members that she would cut them off as well if they spoke to me. They obeyed. It has been 8 years and I have been serenely happy without the constant drama of her being in my life but I do miss my father on an almost daily basis.

I would never cut someone off without trying everything to mend the relationship because once I let you in, you are special to me.
 
Resurrecting an old thread, but oh well. This is my first post on this forum. I'm in an effort to understand myself and my husband better, so here I am!

Get ready for a massive tl;dr! lol

Anyways, as to the topic in question: the person I was forced to cut out of my life is my own mother (like the poster above me, but for different reasons). She abandoned me when I was five and my sister was four, leaving my father hurt and bewildered after she cheated on him because he was 'too busy working to spend time with him'. She shortly thereafter got knocked up by the guy she cheated on him with and had my half-sister, who she also abandoned...this time at the ripe old age of nine whole months. Fortunately at this point, the woman had her tubes tied, so she wouldn't be able to ruin the lives of any more children afterward.

Years passed, and of course myself, being a child, always wanted to have a relationship with my mother. We were told very little about what happened, but I still remember very vividly the day she left us. My father did the best he could, but it's obvious to me as an adult now, that he didn't really know what he was doing. He was physically abusive and emotionally cold, but for me as the INFJ child, the latter was the worst. I needed loving on and cuddles and hugging, and I didn't really get that from him. At sometime in my fifteenth year of life, I got tired of my father and his exhaustive rules and told him I was moving out and going to live with my mother. He told me "Fine, if you think your life's going to be soooo much better, then go!" So I went. Within months, my mother's drug abuse and alcoholism became readily apparent. I came home from a surprise 16th birthday party super excited because it was my first REAL birthday in my memory...and found my mother, her good for nothing husband, and a bunch of their friends doing lines of coke in the living room. Shortly after that, my mother's mother (my memere) came and took me away to live with her.

More years passed. By 17 I got stuck in an abusive relationship. It took me seven long years to finally get the courage to get out. I was five months pregnant at the time and had nowhere to go. I moved in with my mother, hoping that she'd changed. It seemed so at first, but I remember distinctly when my son was only a couple months old when my step-father's drug dealer came pounding on our door screaming for his f*ing money. I gave him the last of the money *I* had, just to make him go away. After a while I ended up getting back together with an old HS boyfriend, and before long we were married and miserable. I was desperate for security and he offered me that. But he was completely disinterested in anything else but having a housekeeper and free sex whenever HE thought he wanted it. This didn't work out, obviously. I was incredibly used by him, and sadly he is simply too stupid to understand how much wrong he did to me (up to and even including marital rape). Throughout all of this, I kept on trying to have a relationship with my mother. Eventually, I couldn't hack the marriage and asked for a divorce. It was gut-wrenching for me because I don't like to hurt people, and I knew I was going to hurt my ex.

A few weeks after I asked for the divorce, I moved with my mother and step-father halfway across the country to a state I've never even seen before, never mind lived in. I needed a fresh start and an entirely new place. Whatever fit in the car is what went: clothes, some dishes and things, my five year old, and the cat. I loved the change immediately. The area agreed with me far more than "home" ever had. But of course, the same pattern with my mother and step-father continued. Emotional abuse. Drunkenness. Drug abuse. Fighting. Carrying on. Endless drama. Through all that, I through whatever twist of fate found the love of my life (an entirely different story, and a lot happier one!). At first, my mother seemed like she was happy for my own happiness, but that changed. FAST. Before long, instead of seeming pleased, she began to lash out against my happiness, saying I didn't really know this guy, and how did I know he was really the one? What if he was a lunatic, or a serial killer, or whatever stupid excuse she thought up? I realized quickly that she was JEALOUS. Jealous of my happiness and angry that her own marriage was a joke. Jealous that her own husband was a piece of shit, a drug user, an alcoholic, a cheater.

One day, my boyfriend (now my husband) was at my house, showing me a video on youtube of a poetry reading. My POS step-father, drunk, came out and started screaming at the top of his lungs about "what is this shit? Are you in a f*ing cult?" and all kinds of other utterly absurd nonsense. Now, I could think of a lot of retorts, like "What, J? I know you never made it past THIRD GRADE, but I'm sure they did poetry at one point or another!" ...but I was too upset at the time. I got my son and we walked away. I ended up living with my boyfriend in his car for a little while, with my son, because it was a better choice than dealing with...just all of this. I was tired of it and endlessly sick to my stomach with anxiety. After a couple weeks, the situation changed and we were able to move in. I still saw my mother on the rare occasion, but within the month, once she realized her food stamps card wouldn't work, both her and my step-father bailed and went home. It was the most relief I've felt in a loooong time!

Unfortunately, I also had my mother on facebook, so even from home she had no problems trying to make my life hell. One day I sat down and just let it all out in a private message to her...all this stuff I wrote here, and more. And I told her I wasn't interested in talking to her anymore until she showed some remorse. And in a fit of rage, this bitch called the Sherriff's office on me, pulling a baldfaced lie out of her ass and telling them she was "worried about her daughter and grandson because she hadn't heard from them in MONTHS! QQ" So when the deputy showed up at the door, I was in for a surprise, but righted the impression immediately and told her that I'd fought with my mother over FB just that morning, that my mother was a liar, and I also apologized that her time had been wasted coming out to see us. The deputy, of course, said we wouldn't be bothered any more and made sure to say that she'd note my mother made a false report, and left.

I was FURIOUS. How dare she? I don't know what she expected to happen, but she sure as hell didn't get it. And she didn't get the other result she wanted, either, because after ALL this, I have not talked to her since but for the barest comment or "like" of something over FB.

Cutting her out of my life was the best thing I could do for both myself and my child, and I don't regret it for a moment.