Black Women over 40, Here’s What You Need to Know about that Toxic Friends and Family Plan

I spent most of my life thinking that friendship was something I was doomed not to have. I had so many “friends” either mistreat or betray me, from a young age through adulthood, eventually, I gave up. I put having a bestie into the something-other-people-have category, and I moved on. I had acquaintances. People I’d go out to dinner with or to concerts with or what have you. I figured that’s as good as it got.

In hindsight, part of the problem was I didn’t know how to be a friend. I also had no close exposure to good women. It wasn’t until my 40’s, after I’d done some work on myself, that I built true friendships.

Now I can’t imagine my life without my girls. I don’t want to. I love these women. I lean on and enjoy them so much. This select group of Black women over 40 who I call my board of directors are an integral part of my life, and I would never want to be without them.?

They’re brilliant, funny, sincere, honest, generous, and each is special in her own way. One is Muslim, another is a devout Christian, another isn’t big on organized religion like me, but something we all have in common? Dodgy ass family members.

It’s wild really, the similarities in our family dynamics, and in the stories that we tell, when we’re from completely different parts of the country. One of my girls was even born in another country!?

These are not good stories. These tales are like a living encyclopedia of heartbreak, disappointment and quiet as kept, abuse, but these similarities suggest that family drama like this is more common than it should be.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that Black women aren’t a special group when it comes to having selfish sisters and brothers, narcissistic mothers, or insecure fathers, etc. We’re not the only ones suffering from relations who lack emotional intelligence, self-awareness, or who are so thoroughly steeped in trauma and what I recently learned is emotional dysregulation that toxic behavior is all they seem to know.

Women of all ages and ethnicities are subject to the added pressures that caring for these bum family members brings. But Black women can add racism, that oh so thick layer of bias and societal pressure, to the drama — all of which takes more strength and more energy to handle. Energy that we should rightly be spending on ourselves.

But my friends taught me that there is another way.

They taught me about boundaries, how to set and stick to them. They taught me that it’s not selfish to ignore that millionth call from someone who shares your blood and wants your money or more importantly your time and energy to bail them out of yet another situation that they could have avoided had they made better choices. Or, God forbid, followed the advice they asked you for and that you gave.

But what if this one time I ignore them they really need help? Girl. How many times have you thought that, and how many times did they really need help vs a hand out? Stop it.

My friends taught me that living well is possible for a Black woman with dodgy relations. It just takes a bit more work to protect your peace. But that work is work that you won’t mind doing because the rewards are so significant and long lasting.

I remember a time early in my career when my mother was putting me through the wringer. Or, I was allowing her to put me through the wringer. One of my direct reports had the unfortunate privilege of being my sounding board. A wonderful young lady who could see I was unsettled and asked me what was wrong? Big mistake! LOL

She came from a good family, suffered none of the drama that I dealt with on an almost daily basis. In hindsight, I can’t imagine what she thought of my family, they were so outside her experience. But she gave wonderful common sense advice, and was an excellent listener.

Many years later after I had done quite a bit of work on myself and healed, I apologized to her. I had absolutely no right to bend her ear with my family drama. She was in no position to refuse, after all, since I was her boss, so I was essentially holding her hostage. I feel horrible about it to this day.

But that’s the gag. The pressure your family — and by the same token bum ass friends or friend groups — can put on you needs an outlet. Without it that air that needs to come out of the tire lest it blow up and send the car into a ditch, will blow up on the wrong person — if you don’t have the right people in your life to take that weight.

And even if you don’t slip and unload at the wrong time, that stress and tension is visible to others. People see that you’re snappy, or lack patience, or are scowling or tired and worn looking. You don’t think that has an impact on perception on the job and the opportunities that come your way? Be for real, now.

But what can you do, right? You need an outlet or you may go crazy.?

Lately I keep seeing social media posts that talk about why you shouldn’t tell people your business. Why it’s better to just share news once things are done, the moves have been successfully made, and it’s time to celebrate. But it’s like I just told one of my girls earlier today: If you need to talk and there’s no one of substance in your life to listen and care about what they hear, to offer you support and counsel, it’s almost impossible to be that discerning. You can’t help yourself! You spew indiscriminately because you’re just so glad to have someone reasonable to talk to who actually listens.

It’s bad business any way you look at it. Black women over 40 cannot afford to have family dysfunction spill over into the workplace. We cannot afford to have it spill over into our personal lives and split time away from us caring for ourselves physically, spiritually, emotionally and financially.

To be frank, time is not on our side.?

Your 40s is the time of life when you should be solidifying and shoring up your foundation in preparation to fight and win against the challenges that aging will bring. It’s the time when you should be comfortably leaning into who you are as a woman, what you like, how you want to live, how you don’t want to live, and making refinements as you see fit.?

It’s not the time to still be dealing with the same nonsense many of us have been dealing with all of our lives from toxic family and friends.

The sad part is, that toxic friends and family plan is so familiar, many of us haven’t done that work. We don’t know who we are, what we like, how we want to live in a world free from interference and drama. How do we move in that space? What do our homes look like? Our bodies??

We haven’t taken the opportunity to figure that out — we’ve been too busy putting out other people’s fires and being pulled unwillingly into their petty ass dramas.

We may have even attached ourselves to the nonsense in personally destructive ways that make us think: This is what it is. There is nothing more that we can expect from life. That it’s our responsibility to be Ms. Fix It and that rock of reason and support for everybody else.

I call foul on that narrative.?

Yes, it takes the strength of the ages to break free from that cycle. And your bum ass family and friends will fight tooth and nail, with tears and guilt trips, to keep you accessible. But you can break away if you want to.

If you want to.

You can do it. There’s gonna be more back and forth and ups and downs than a buzz saw on a seesaw, but you can break free from toxic family and friends. But you need boundaries.

The family and friends who benefit from easy access to your energy, your time, your wallet, or all of the above, are not going to want to let you go. They’re gonna guilt you to hell and back. And ironically enough, they’re gonna make you think you’re being selfish for wanting peace in this brief life that we each get to live.

They’re gonna make you feel like you’re the only person who can possibly help them, and how could you be so cruel as to deny them the support they’ve come to expect?

But, you gon’ have to stand on business, as they say. You are going to have to be firm in your refusal to get pulled into anybody else’s bullshit. You are not interested.

As for the endless loans that are never paid back, and the use of your car, your clothes, and your time watching their children while they engage in nonsense, that is dead. It’s time for all grownups to stand on their own two feet. If you can make the good choices and adopt the discipline that allows you to have all the things that others want, then so can they.

My friends and I are on this journey. That’s why I can speak on it with such conviction. I’m in it! Not through it, I’m actively engaged in the battle. And it may be a battle I have to fight for the rest of my life. Unless I move away from these bums and change my number, which I’m not gonna do.

Instead, my friends are teaching and supporting each other in living a different way. A calmer, more peaceful way that lets adults work out their own mess and lets us live in peace and enjoy our lives the way we want to — free of burdens that are not ours.

This lifestyle embodies a more joyful way of being that allows us the time, energy and space to recognize and revel in life’s little moments and to plan for bigger ones once freed from the draining shackles of others’ nonsense.

This is not a pipe dream. This is evidence of the power in the community of like minded Black women that I’m actively working to build so that we can be free.