Why do so many of my female friendships turn toxic?
Rebecca was ditched by three bridesmaids on her wedding day, had a close friend steal her man — and was bullied by university mates. Worst of all, she now wonders if the problem is...HER
RESPLENDENT in my white gown, my face glowing with happiness as the camera flashed, you’d think my wedding day was the most wonderful of my life. Yet if you’d seen me just hours after the ceremony, weeping in my new husband’s embrace, you’d have realised that away from the camera it was a very different story.
The reason for my anguish? That day was the very last time I saw three of my bridesmaids, women who should have been my best friends in all the world.
After more than a decade of cruel jokes, perceived slights, frosty silences and hurtful comments on both sides — something familiar to all women — the friends I’d first met aged 11 were gone from my life, never to return, despite my heartfelt attempts to reconnect.
We’re always being told about the power of female friendships. And I agree, a good girlfriend is invaluable — essential to happiness, according to a recent Harvard study.
Yet the reality is so often the opposite. That gut-wrenching feeling when you discover a betrayal, ‘frenemies’ who pull you down as much as they build you up, the lack of support from someone whose emotions you’re constantly bolstering. In many ways, I think female friendships can be harder than romantic relationships. And it’s far more devastating when they go wrong.
I have a small group of valued friends now, yet always at the back of my mind lurk memories of my many toxic friendship experiences.
From dealing with vicious school bullies to betrayals by unreliable university friends and falling out with those bridesmaids, my life has been chequered by distressing experiences with other women.
So was I just unlucky? Not quite. It was after a good talking to from my mother, the broadcaster Esther Rantzen, that I began to appreciate my own behaviour was contributing to attracting toxic girlfriends.
Mum’s intervention came while I was studying at Oxford University. After dating a boy for a few months, a girlfriend had taken me to a cafe and, surrounded by lunchtime diners, proceeded to tell me she was having an affair with him.
Apparently, everyone knew about it. I was astonished. Not by his behaviour — I didn’t give two hoots about him. But she was one of my dearest friends. I would have done anything for her, including breaking it off with this boyfriend. If only she had told me first.
Her sneaking around felt like the worst betrayal. The fact our group knew about it was like a physical punch to the stomach.
Later, when I wept on the phone while telling my mother my heart had been broken, yet again, by a close female friend, she sighed heavily.
‘I have a few very close friends who I trust,’ she told me. ‘You don’t need more than that. Sisterhood works on the presumption that we will all get along just because we are women, but that’s not the case. You need to find women who genuinely support and enjoy your happiness and success.’
She was right, as usual. I began to realise how few happy, healthy friendships I had; and how much jealousy, on both sides, played a part in the others. I began to see I was not always an easy person to be friends with, warped as I was by my own insecurities and need for approval from my peers.
I was often in a self-destructive spiral that was hard to tolerate and did not make me the most reliable person. Maybe I was the problem?
But it was to take several more heartbreaks before I truly changed my ways. It wasn’t until my wedding day, and that disastrous fallout with those three bridesmaids, that I finally turned my back on the sort of toxic friendships which were breaking my heart more than any man had ever done.
The seeds of the fallout with my bridesmaids came in 2000, after my father, the award-winning TV producer Desmond Wilcox, had a fatal heart attack. His death was an event that, as well as causing me profound sorrow, caused my education in female friendship to take a backwards step.
While we hadn’t been in touch for three years, after leaving school on a sour note thanks to several spats and jealousies (of which more later), the unofficial leader of my small group of school friends called.
In my grief, I chose to forget all that had happened and was touched by her efforts to reach out. I jumped at the chance when she suggested meeting up with the others, grateful for any sympathy while I struggled with losing my adored father.
When I got engaged a few years later, I grappled with the decision not to have those old schoolfriends as bridesmaids.
After all, I already had six: my husband’s sister, my sister, two other genuinely good friends and two adorable flower girls. It was becoming ridiculous — did I think I was a royal bride?
So I plucked up the courage to ask the girls if they minded being honoured guests instead. The ringleader soon interrupted: ‘You’d better not be suggesting we aren’t your bridesmaids, Becca, because if you are I will not come to the wedding.’
Was she serious or being funny? I couldn’t be sure. All I know is I immediately plastered on a smile and raised my glass to toast their new status, as if that had been the plan all along.
So that was how I ended up with nine bridesmaids.
It was not a success. Those three never seemed happy with any of the plans; for the hen do, the dresses, the shoes, the hairdresser . . .
Perhaps they would tell you about the times they thought I was a Bridezilla, or treated them badly, but I began to dread talking to them. The last time I saw them was after my husband’s speech, when we handed out personalised thank you
Perhaps they thought I was a Bridezilla?
gifts: custom-made silver charm bracelets wrapped in beautiful blue paper with white raffia bows.
I hugged them close, thanking them for being my friends, although already starting to wonder if they truly were, if we hadn’t become too different or grown too far apart.
The band struck up. After our first dance, the MC called for the bridesmaids to join us on the dance floor. They didn’t come.
I looked over to their table and saw it was empty. They had gone. I never saw them again.
They jokingly became known by my family as the Evil Bridesmaids, though I am sure there were faults on both sides. But I had loved them, we’d grown up together and it broke my heart to lose them.
I found out later, through a mutual friend, that they believed themselves to be second best to the other bridesmaids. They thought I never wanted them there, which hurt them. So, they hurt me — and we’ve never spoken since.
I tried calling and texting, messaging them on social media, but it was only when one of them got married and didn’t invite me that I finally realised it was truly over between us. I blocked them from my Facebook feed and my life.
In my experience, men rarely behave in this way towards each other. So why do women?
I hate the idea that we can’t be friends because there will always be an underlying sense of competition between us. But perhaps there is a kernel of truth in that.
Indeed, I’ve always found large groups of women intimidating because there seems to be a game of comparisons simmering below the surface, in which I never fare well.
Looking back, the beginning of my trouble with those three friends began when I started at my allgirls secondary school, aged 11.
Perhaps because it was a singlesex school, or that we were entering puberty when peer approval is everything, but friendships suddenly became much harder to navigate.
I learned fast that Mean Girls existed in real life as well as in the movies.
I recall spending breaktimes at the edge of the ‘cool girls’ clique, smiling painfully as they made fun of the way I dressed, my bushy fringe and dental braces. They said I had no idea about ‘real’ life thanks to having parents in the public eye. Eventually, I became friends with three other girls also rejected by the clique, my future ex-bridesmaids.
We did everything together. It was sometimes intense. As is common with friendships at this age, we bickered a lot. As we neared the end of school, the fabric of our friendship began to fray.
I had started to flourish academically and was rewarded with prizes and special Oxbridge-focused classes. Around this time, it seemed my friends began treating me differently, teasing me for using words they thought pompous or for being too enthusiastic in class.
Without me knowing, they submitted a fake profile of me to our yearbook committee, filled with insulting descriptions about me being a swot and a geek. I only discovered this when I handed in my real profile — and the organiser told me they already had one.
‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’ one friend said when I confronted them.
I should have walked away from the friendship then, but didn’t want to give up on our years together.
Later, I got an offer to study English at Oxford. I remember trying to tell them at school. But when I called out, they ignored me and walked away, arm in arm. We all went to different universities, and in Freshers’ Week I quickly made a new group of girlfriends.
We bonded through the craziness of those pressure-filled early days, and were either found in each other’s rooms, studying together in the library or drinking as a group in the bar.
I remember feeling lucky to have met them. My confidence had grown and I no longer felt like a loner.
Yet fallouts continued — like the one over a boyfriend, which saw Mum give me those sage words.
With her advice in mind, I tried to seek out kinder friends. But I am a hoarder of all things, including relationships, and it was hard to completely ditch the girls who had so dazzled me in those early university days.
Only when those ‘friends’ exhibited terrible behaviour, did I finally manage to make the break. In an extreme example, I remember one of them going into my dorm room and trashing it not long before finals. I walked in to find all my notes and essays ripped up and thrown about. When I asked what
Mean Girls exist in real life, as well as the movies
happened, she simply shrugged and said: ‘I had a meltdown. You were too organised.’
As well as Mum’s pep talk, it was marriage, children and the stability a happy home life brings — not to mention the confidence that comes with age — which has brought me a healthier approach to friendships.
It’s become clear that as a younger woman I would just bond with the nearest available person, probably out of loneliness and insecurity.
Finally, in my 40s, I’ve got to a place where my relationships are genuine and supportive. Yes, there’s a handful of true friends from school and university, but the majority came into my life after I had children. A gang of mums who had values in common. They are like my sisters; we are supportive and not competitive. I would do anything for them.
But the main difference between these friendships and the ones before? Me.
I am happier, more relaxed now, no longer on the self-destructive path of my adolescence and early 20s. Back then, I couldn’t see how my behaviour pushed generous people away and encouraged contempt from others. These days I’m more able to give back and support the women in my life. There’s no competition between us, no bitterness.
Finding someone who can be honestly happy for you when you succeed is rare.
Jealousy, on both sides, seems to have destroyed many of my friendships. Those with females are different to those with men. They take more effort, but are worth it when it goes right.
I am just thankful to have finally learned that quality, not quantity, counts.