Don’t Let That Toxic Friendship Go—Yet

Attempting a repair could make your relationship stronger than ever.

Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points

• Relationship ruptures can leave us feeling hurt, disconnected, and ready to leave.
• Society encourages giving up on difficult friends.
• Repairs can lead to deeper and more resilient connections.

After Lucy and Ella stopped speaking, Lucy felt both grief and relief. Friends since elementary school, their relationship fell apart after a series of unresolved conflicts grew into a rift worthy of prizefighters. In our sessions, Lucy alternately lamented the loss of their friendship and reported that she was glad to be rid of “toxic” Ella, who, at times, left her feeling insecure and unlovable. Ella came up a lot during our sessions, so I knew there was more to understand about the importance of their lost connection.

We’ve all been there—an argument with a partner, a misunderstanding with a friend, a tense moment at work, or, worse, an affair or betrayal. Relationships, no matter how strong, inevitably experience ups and downs. These moments of conflict, known as “ruptures,” can leave us feeling hurt, disconnected, and uncertain about the relationship's future.

In a recent study, Kinneret Lahad at Tel Aviv University and Jenny van Hooff at Manchester Metropolitan University analyzed more than 150 online articles on toxic friendship and found that very few recommended salvaging a friendship. “While much of the advice situates friendship as an important personal tie, there is very little encouragement to ‘work’ on these relationships. As such, these discourses offer a reductive, disposable approach to friendship ties that overlooks the complexities and lived experiences of friendship relations,” they write.

So much of our culture pushes us to dump a difficult friend rather than try to understand why it became toxic in the first place, and many people are abandoning what could ultimately be fulfilling and deep connections.

Of course, when a relationship is inherently unhealthy, it’s important to evaluate it. Still, the good news is that making the effort to “repair” after a rupture can lead to deeper, more resilient connections.

How “Repairs” Define Our Relationships

The concept of “rupture and repair” comes from psychoanalytic theory and can be seen in the work of object relations theorist D.W. Winnicott, who posited that healthy relationships aren’t defined by the absence of conflict but by how well we repair and recover from it.

Winnicott introduced the idea of the “good-enough mother,” suggesting that minor ruptures between a parent and child, when followed by repair, teach the child that relationships can endure conflict and remain secure. This idea carries into adulthood—when we repair after a rupture, we show that the relationship can withstand challenges.

Rebuilding After a Rupture

“I don’t know exactly where things went awry,” Lucy said during one session. She recalled Ella taking too long to respond to an important text, getting a bit drunk on her birthday and embarrassing her, and possibly flirting with her boyfriend when they were on the outs. Lucy owned that she had a tendency to show up to dinner in a bad mood, and she could be impatient with Ella when she got distracted. Lucy also confessed that, as an only child whose parents divorced, she was, at times, envious of Ella’s close family.

Unfortunately, neither Ella nor Lucy tried to understand better how these more minor conflicts occurred. Instead, they allowed the anger and resentment to grow, resulting in years of ghosting each other.

The real strength of a relationship is revealed in how we approach the repair—that is, how we acknowledge the conflict, address the emotional fallout, and restore trust and connection. Successful repair builds resilience in relationships, allowing us to bounce back even stronger than before.

I persuaded Lucy to reach out to Ella and ask if they could reconnect. Ella said yes, and the two women agreed that they were both available to consider repairing the relationship, albeit warily. Because the rupture was so deep, both women were afraid to be hurt and/or fail at the repair, so they decided to do “couples” therapy with me to work things out.

Although it took a while, they were able to be vulnerable enough to recognize their contributions to the breakup. For example, they realized they both had narcissistic mothers who created different forms of shame and guilt in their unconscious, which presented in the small ways that they hurt each other.

They were also able to work through many of the previously unrecognized slights and assumptions that had mushroomed over the years because they’d never discussed them. As they learned more about each other, they were able to forgive and be forgiven. Today, they have a better, stronger, and mutually supportive relationship.

Can Your Friendship Be Saved?

Of course, engaging in therapy with your friend is not often possible. If you’re wondering how to repair after a rupture, here are a few steps to guide you:

1. Recognize the rupture. Acknowledge when a rupture has occurred, whether it’s a slight misunderstanding or a more significant conflict. Sharing your feelings or points of view can stop minor issues from snowballing.
2. Take responsibility. Accept your role in the conflict, even if your intentions weren’t to hurt the other person. Even if you didn’t intend to ignore your friend's body-image issues, that doesn’t mean you didn’t play a role in furthering her insecurity when you were bathing suit shopping.
3. Apologize sincerely. A genuine apology focuses on the impact of your actions rather than just an explanation of your intentions. For example, Ella had made Lucy feel judged. It was important for Ella to explain to Lucy that her own mother was very critical (and her family was far from perfect as Lucy had imagined). But the actual repair came when Ella recognized how she had, in turn, caused Lucy to experience the same feelings of shame that Ella received from her mother and when Ella acknowledged how bad that must have made Lucy feel.
4. Rebuild trust. Trust isn’t rebuilt overnight, but consistent, caring behavior helps to restore emotional closeness. Lucy and Ella’s path was not linear, but they both put in the effort to invest in repairing the relationship—even if it was tough-going sometimes.

In the end, the strength of a relationship isn’t determined by the absence of conflict but by the ability to heal and grow from it. Understanding the difference between a relationship that can be repaired and one that’s consistently toxic is crucial for your emotional health and happiness. Embrace repair in relationships that nourish you—and don’t be afraid to let go of those that harm you.