When Friendship Hurts: How to Deal With Friends Who Betray, Abandon, or Wound You (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Although there may be as many definitions of friendship as there are friends, it's a relationship that has four basic elements: It is between at..." (more)
Key Phrases: cyberspace friendships, negative friendships, sibling sexual abuse, Jan Yager, Promise Breaker, Can This Friendship Be Saved (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Does anything hurt worse than betrayal by a close friend? Sociologist and friendship expert Jan Yager (Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives) explores failed, hurtful, and destructive friendships in When Friendship Hurts.

The book describes 21 types of potentially negative friends. The "Rival," for example, is envious to the point of malice. The "Blood-sucker" expects you to be there every moment. The "Controller" must be in charge of everything, from where you meet for lunch to whom you date. Yager lays out strategies for dealing with the problems when you want to keep the friendship, while also warning about extreme behavior and discussing triggers that lead to friendship conflicts, such as jealousy, anger, and change (of marital status or job, for example). Yager also guides you to examine your own destructive or harmful traits and recognize patterns in your family background that affect your friendships.

Overall, this book will help you learn how to deal with destructive friendships--when and how to save them, when and how to end them, and how to cope when a business friendship goes wrong. Yager, who has appeared on Oprah and other TV programs, also encourages you to celebrate the joys of positive friendships. --Joan Price

From Publishers Weekly

Sociologist Yager (Friendshifts) has been studying and writing about friendship since the 1980s. Drawing on the results of 180 questionnaires, as well as earlier studies she conducted, Yager focuses here on what to do when friendships go bad. Successful friendships, according to Yager, are marked by trust, honesty, empathy and commonality characteristics that may be compromised when a once-supportive relationship turns sour. When this happens as it inevitably does in the course of one's life friends may become self-absorbed, overly dependent, highly critical or even betray one another. Underlying childhood issues, such as low self-esteem, intense sibling rivalry and abusive parenting often prevent adults from forming satisfactory friendships. The author outlines a variety of coping techniques that committed friends can follow as they work through negative patterns that are eroding their relationship. She also explains how to recognize a friendship that is so destructive it must be ended (e.g., if a friend isn't there for you when your parent dies, it's a sign the friendship's over), how to actually end the friendship (try saying "I'm busy" when the friend asks to get together), how to detect "harmful" people before you become friends with them (examples are the "taker" and the "one-upper") and how to deal with friendships at work (Yager is convinced these friendships should remain casual). This valuable book will be a rescuer to all readers struggling to deal with an ailing friendship.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Fireside (June 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743211456
• ISBN-13: 978-0743211451
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,549 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed, July 26, 2006

By	JD (VA United States) - See all my reviews

I was disappointed with this book --it was much more simplistic than what I was looking for. It seemed to carry a theme throughout: if your friend has problems, such as depression, unresolved childhood issues, etc., and they affect the friendship, it's best to end the friendship unless they go for therapy. The author advocates making and keeping friendships that are described as fairly ideal. That sounds great to me, but it just didn't seem very realistic, but rather black and white.
I found one story in the book particularly unsettling. The author tells of one of her own college friendships. Ms. Yager says that her friend, "Cindy," told her that she had tried to kill herself. Ms. Yager speculates on her friends' upbringing and then says that at the time, she felt betrayed by Cindy's suicide attempt, "as if it were a slap in the face of our friendship." Ms. Yager says, "Looking back, my thinking, however selfish and confused at the time, may not be all that atypical. My first response was to wonder how much she cared about me as a friend if she was willing to cause me to suffer, as I would have if she had succeeded." The author goes on to say that the friendship fell apart over the next year or two, and that she knew it wasn't due to the fact that they lived in different cities, as she had other friendships like that that worked. She said the main reason was that Cindy's mental illness scared her. The author says that she has thought from time to time of trying to find Cindy to see if she got help and her life turned out okay -- but that she never has, and that the reason she never has is because she has so many positive, healthy friendships now, and therefore she takes "the coward's way out" and does nothing.
What I thought was helpful about this story was that there are readers who might relate to how scary it is to learn that a friend is suicidal, and how problematic it can be. But mostly I found some things about the story, as told, a little disturbing. The author is a PhD Sociologist now -- not a layman about mental health issues. I'm wondering why a professional is still a "coward" about this incident. I also noticed that the author calls the many other friendship incidents in the book "betrayals," but when she relates her own story, she describes her behavior toward her friend as merely "insensitive" and says that she did what was probably typical. In a great many of the other stories, the author analyzes what childhood problems may have led to the betraying actions in the friendships, but in her own story, she just leaves it at "I wonder what happened to Cindy?" I'm not suggesting that the author must analyze her own reaction in this example from her life, but it strikes me as odd given the fact that she does so in so many of the other stories. I also wonder why the author doesn't end her story about her suicidal friend by suggesting to readers how serious it is when a friend talks of suicide, and what basic things to do when that happens, without becoming enmeshed yourself - the author is a PhD Sociologist.
I found the book to be encouraging and validating in it's message of not letting destructive friendships go on and on and bring undue unhappiness and problems into your life, but it was too black and white for me, with too little insight into navigating through the problems. To me, the author seems to be justifying her own unintentional betrayal of her friend, and that really gives me pause.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not all friends are friends for life!, April 1, 2003

By	Simona Nielsen (Denmark) - See all my reviews

We've all been there. Our faithful and beloved friend has in some way betrayed us. It's hurtful and painful and we react in different ways in different situations. "When Friendship Hurts" is the second and latest book in Dr. Jan Yagers friendship series and a follow up book on Friendshifts®.

We make many friends in a lifetime, but only a few are friends for life. "When Friendship Hurts" gives you insight in selecting friends that are good for you - to select the wolves from sheeps. I especially like chapter 2: `Detecting harmful people before they are friends'. In this chapter you'll find 21 different types of potentially negative friends. By reading through each type I can easily recognize which types my bad friends from the past are. It can also help you to predict whether a friendship will turn out good or not before bonding.

More insights are such as: why are friends hurting friends? Are there different rules at work? Can we break the pattern and find good friends.

In these days, Jan Yager is finalizing her third book on friendships. The area she studies here is friendship at work. I'm looking very much forward to her coming books.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Is it time to move on or renew a friendship, November 6, 2006

By	Stephanie Manley (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Yager writes a wonderful book on friendships that have gone bad. While not all friendships are meant to last a lifetime, many do, and when friendships start to go sour what do you do? Jan Yager has a clear understanding of what healthy relationships should be, and how they should make you feel, and that you have a responsibility in them. She also has clear guidelines of when friendships start to go badly what can be done.

My favorite part of the book is her short quiz on is the relationship harmful she asks:
1. Is your friend trustworthy
2. Does your friend return your phone calls?
3. Does your friend always keep appointments or meetings and promises?
4. Do other friends praise this friend?
5. Do you enjoy listening to your friend?
6. If you have an opposite-sex friend, and you're both romantically involved with others or married, does your friend's romantic partner know about your friendship?
7. Is your friend someone you're proud of?
8. Is your friendship based on who you both are now, rather than on what you were when you first became friends?
9. After you see your friend, do you fiend yourself thinking, "Wow, I'm glad we're friends?"
10. Does your friend respect your boundaries and your privacy?

She also describes different types of bad friendships and gives suggestions on what you can do to stay in them, or leave the relationship. She does have you ask yourself is the friendship healthy? Was it healthy? Are you up to investing enough into the friendship to make it work again? Most importantly, is the friendship worth saving?

I found her book helpful, and a good guideline on having healthy friendships with others. While this is not a complete book on friendships, it is a good starting point. This book will have you evaluate relationships that may have past their prime, and those relationships that should be salvaged. I would definately recommend this book to anyone that may have nagging questions about friendships that they may have.