“Protecting your peace” can kill your friendships

If there was one bit of advice that has come to dominate the culture during the last few years, it would be some version of “protect your peace.” The refrain embodies a widespread attitude and movement that urges us to part ways with people or practices that demand too much emotional energy, too much drama, too much hurt. A friend can’t make your birthday party? Stop answering their texts. Your husband neglects to straighten up? Divorce him. A relative makes one too many jokes at your expense — well, that’s the last family party you’ll attend. Relationships should be easy, the thinking goes, and any hint of conflict is a sign of dysfunction.

Severing ties with a supposedly toxic person or family member is seen by some as a noble pursuit, an act of self-love and protection. People should, without a doubt, feel empowered to distance themselves from those who have inflicted profound pain and abuse. However, many experts say, there’s been an overcorrection: The impulse to isolate and cut people off at the first sign of conflict can actually be detrimental to mental and social health.

“‘Protecting my mental health’ has become the new moral framework,” says Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and senior fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. “It’s the new guideline for who to keep in and out of our lives.” By labeling someone as “bad for your mental health,” you give yourself easy permission to cut them loose.

Tension, conflict, and even ambivalence are par for the course in all relationships. The great irony is that by avoiding them altogether and idealizing relationships entirely free of friction, people may be denying themselves opportunities to grow and strengthen their connections.

The act of culling a social network is a relatively recent phenomenon. For much of human history, estrangement was a threat to survival. In small clans of 150 or so people, estrangement from even one person could have profound consequences, says Glenn Geher, the founding director of evolutionary studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz. If that person happened to be popular and well-liked, they might convince five other people to turn their back on you. “Once an estrangement exists, there’s usually fall-out estrangement,” Geher says. “Under ancestral conditions, that could have led to, in the most extreme case, all-out ostracism, which, if you’re in a group of 150, can be very dangerous emotionally as well as physically.”

The benefits of cooperation lose their appeal as cultures become more individualistic. When people are solely focused on their own needs above others, they may come to see conflict and demands on their time and attention as indicators the relationship isn’t functional. Rather than have a potentially thorny conversation, it’s easier to cast blame on the other party. The entrepreneurial spirit that’s come to define digital hustle culture as well as the rise of therapy-adjacent language has further entrenched individualistic ideals, says Jenny van Hooff, a sociologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, to the point where people believe they are self-sufficient and can survive on their own.

The desire to gird yourself from the pains of the world, or at least your inner world, is understandable when everything else seems beyond your control. Maybe you’re worried about the state of the country under an incoming Donald Trump presidency. Maybe, like nearly a quarter of Americans, you’re struggling to stay on top of your bills. As these external stresses mount, some may turn to their interpersonal relationships as a corrective. They over-apply concepts like “boundaries,” which can be helpful in certain contexts, as a means of telling other people how to act. “People are scared, confused, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world. How do I protect myself?” says therapist Israa Nasir, author of Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More. “People are flaking on their friends and calling it a boundary. People are not showing up for their parents and calling it a boundary. They’re weaponizing this for self-preservation because things don’t feel good in general.”

As a result, those who are zealous about protecting their peace may not be able to accurately discern between an argument and unacceptable behavior, a moment of contention and a “toxic” person. In a paper, van Hooff found that the way people described “toxic friends” online ranged considerably. A friend who was depressed or didn’t have a lot of money was considered “toxic” — so was someone who steals money and treats you poorly. These results suggest society has a narrow definition of what a good friend actually is, van Hooff says. If someone who can’t afford to go on vacation with you is a supposedly “toxic” friend, then who can be considered a great friend?

One consequence of cut-off culture is conflict avoidance as a default. Discussing the ways a parent has disappointed you requires far more emotional skill than refusing to talk to them again. As a result, when a problem worth discussing does arise, many people may not be able to adequately share their concerns without being accusatory or lashing out, Nasir says. “You don’t know how to handle difficult emotions. You just shut people out, you cut them off, you block and delete them,” she says. “So you’re constantly reactive. You’re seeing this actually societally, that people are melting down on airplanes, coffee shops.”

Conflict avoidance is a short-sighted approach to relationships that could be strengthened by a conversation where the other person admits wrongdoing and vows to change. Cutting someone out of your life sends a signal that you think they lack the ability to grow. “It’s a way of not engaging with that messy reality of relationships,” van Hoof says. “Actually, for a relationship to have any kind of value, [there is] going to be good and bad in it.”

All of this self-protection poses huge risks. In a 2019 study, Geher found that those with a high number of estrangements (including from family members, friends, exes, and coworkers alike) were more depressed, tended to have an anxious attachment style — where they fear being rejected or unworthy of love — and less social support. Social isolation can lead to depression, poor sleep, lower executive function, poor cardiovascular function, and blunted immunity. People who spend more time alone aren’t inherently lonely, but they’re much more likely to experience the despair of solitude if they lack a supportive social network.

What’s left is swaths of the population who have walled themselves off yet might yearn for community or more fulfilling relationships, who don’t understand that for people to show up for you, you have to be there for them, too.

Research does indeed show that one of the greatest contributors to a happy life are thriving close relationships. If you yearn for a fulfilling existence, rigid interpretations of “protecting your peace” and the pursuit of pain-free relationships might be inherently at odds with those goals.

Developing conversational and emotional skills to navigate conflict takes effort and practice, Coleman, the psychologist, says. Instead of shutting down when there are strains in the relationship, broach your concerns with empathy. Avoid labels like “narcissist” or “toxic” and instead share how you were impacted by someone’s words and actions when they hurt you.

Sometimes in adult child and parent relationships, the child might have to take the lead on these conversations if their parents default to casting blame or defensiveness. “Having empathy for people not being psychologically healthy is a virtuous thing and noble thing to do,” Coleman says. Don’t just write off parents who don’t know how to lead the hard discussion yet. “They may need time and effort and help to develop the skills.”

Conversely, if you find yourself on the receiving end of one of these difficult conversations, try not to get reactive, start a fight, and cut the person off afterward, but take accountability for your own actions, Nasir says. “We do en masse have an accountability problem,” she says. “Everything is somebody else’s fault. Everything is somebody else’s problem to solve — but it’s not.”

A major tool for handling conflicts in stride is emotional regulation. This involves being specific with what you’re feeling — is it disappointment? Frustration? Confusion? — and to validate the fact that you feel let down by another person, Nasir says. Practice these skills regularly by checking in with yourself throughout the day: How am I feeling now? Why am I feeling frustrated? Why do I feel like yelling at my partner?

Perhaps a paradigm shift is in order. Instead of taking a punitive approach with others, banishing them for any perceived flaw, slight, or shortcoming, what if society collectively extended grace and forgiveness? There will be times when a parent says the wrong thing or a friend provides unsolicited advice — as will you. No one person is entirely good or poisonous. People are not problems to be rooted out and then discarded.

What if a more effective path to protecting your peace involved nurturing relationships, holding them close? Accepting that others have the ability to both hurt us and lift us up. Everyone is imperfect — and they’re deserving of healthy relationships in spite of it.