Anonymous advice seeker: “I feel like I currently have a lot of unhealthy relationships in my life and I’m not sure what to do. I want to make things better, but I also don’t want to lose the majority of my friends. I am a pretty shy person, and I don’t really like to confront people. What should I do?”

This is a very common problem that a lot of people deal with. It can be hard when you have friends whom you have grown to care about but begin feeling like your relationship is no longer healthy. I think the first step is figuring out what exactly is unhealthy about the relationship. Until you do this it is almost impossible to make anything better. Once you figure out what is going wrong, you can decide whether you want to confront your friend or continue to let things continue on as they are. It is important to acknowledge that just because you confront them does not mean you will not be friends anymore. In fact, confronting them could make things better.  They may be unaware of what they are doing that makes the relationship unhealthy. By telling them, they can now make positive changes to improve the relationship.

Even if you choose not to confront your friends, it is still important to be aware of your unhealthy relationships so you can try to prevent the same unhealthy cycle from reoccurring. Just remember that you can only control your actions and not the actions of others. Until you make your friends aware of what is bothering you they may never be able to make any positive changes within your friendship.

If you confront them and the same unhealthy tendencies still keep occurring, you might want to consider distancing yourself from them. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to remove yourself from the situation.

And there you have it,
Advice from Alexandra