eliminate toxic people from my life

My mom stopped by my house while I was gone. She then phoned to tell me how she started my house for me. Then she told me that on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. she’s going to come down to help me clean my house. I told her to leave things alone and she kept saying, “You have to start cleaning this every week…” and I kindly told her (again) that my husband and I are planning to get rid of some things and do a deep cleaning in August. Still, she repeated herself, “No, you need to work on this now and you need to work on it everyday because that’s how I keep my house clean.”

That’s when I interrupted her to say, “Well, you can do that in YOUR house and I’m going to do what I want in MY house.”

Later I called my friend who was too busy at a baseball game to talk so she said she’s call me back. She never did.

I’m learning to set boundaries with my friends and family. Still, I can’t stand my family or my husband’s family. They don’t understand my need to make my own decisions about my participation in events. Don’t tell me to come up for a BBQ. Ask if I’m available and be prepared for me to suggest another date.

There are a handful of toxic people in my life, most of them family. But the person who gets under my skin on a regular basis is my best friend. My husband said it best with this: “Yeah, it seems like she is trying so hard to be a hip east coast/DC vegetarian girl that she has stopped trying to be your friend.”