I probably speak for most of us when I say that there are some relationships in our lives that we wish were easier. Family, friends – maybe colleagues? And while in terms of the latter some bridge burning might be far from possible for whatever reasons you may be facing at work, dealing with the other two could still be within reach for you, should this ever become a necessity.

Somehow I have been fortunate to have friends who have faced similar issues throughout most of their lives. Talking openly about our experiences helps us come to a better, more rational approach while playing devil’s advocates to one another. Having gone through similar situations myself, I found it very useful to share said experiences as some kind of a sanity check.

What I’m sharing here are my personal accounts based on years of successful bridge burning, once I face the fact that all the other options are exhausted. I do not intend to start any public quarrels as the people I’m about to mention aren’t here to defend themselves – therefore their privacy beyond my (former) relationship with them won’t be exposed. Plus of course I have my biases.

There are some people younger than me in my life that only recently embarked on their independent life journeys, and I believe the earlier they are (self-) aware about the consequences of burning bridges, the easier their life will be going forward.

Being the problem myself

One of the things I’m proud about myself the most is that my longest friendship to date has lasted 17 years. More than half of my life, dating all the way back to pre-teens. In fact, I’m taking a night train to this friend’s wedding in a couple of hours. What a blessing it is to have someone be there in your life despite all the ugly sides of yourself you’ve shown them.

(That blessing is mutual, of course.)

In particular during my late teens and early 20s I was a very arrogant person. Not much has changed in that department since, but the problem at the time was that I was also being a dick to my friends and family. Often publicly disregarding their opinions or concerns as if I knew better. In retrospect I obviously didn’t, and what helped me out was their resilience.

My friends, in particular women, would often call me out on my behaviour, explaining to me what was wrong and why. I don’t think it’s surprising to many that teenage boys don’t particularly care about the optics of their behaviour, but the reason why my wrongdoings stood out was that my academic performance meant I could publicly get away with more.

Insulting friends and family, openly making fun of someone’s hard work, as well as hiding behind “I don’t care”-s whenever someone would point out that my behaviour was, in fact, hostile. I knew that, and indeed I did not care.

Looking back, who would want a friend or relative like that?

Having dug deeper into the reasons of my behaviour in retrospect, I understand that it was one of many ways to make myself noticed by those whose opinion mattered to me the most at the time. Though that ship has now sailed for them and their opinions are irrelevant to me, the fault for causing the pain to the people around me is mine and mine alone to bear.

Not everyone was around for long enough to see me come to my senses. Some people are no longer alive to see the improvement, and I will have to live with this. That doesn’t however mean that my life ends with theirs, despite me no longer being able to beg them to forgive me.

While I couldn’t be heard at one place, eventually I’ve come to accept that there are people in my life whose attention I would come to appreciate much more. These were the friends who never gave up on me and were generous with their forgiveness – with time we all became independent individuals with very different lifestyles. Someone to learn how to live from.

The reason I mention all that is because I am no saint myself, therefore I feel obliged to give the people close to me as many chances for redemption as needed, as long as said redemption is something I can foresee happening.

Once that is no longer a possibility, you’re as good as dead to me.

Cutting dependencies and dealing with practicalities

When you are in a close relationship with someone, one way to express appreciation for and trust in each other is by letting them be part of your daily admin life. For me in particular this is reflected in exchanging apartment keys with my friends, as well as them being my contacts for authorities in case of medical emergency or death. I can take care of the rest myself.

The Russian trust but verify is a saying known worldwide since at least the Cold War. It is a principle I’ve been following most of my adult life. While that might make me sound paranoid about my relationships with friends and family, keeping track of dependencies they can weaponise against me in case of an argument helps me live the life on my own terms.

Estonians move out of their family homes on average at the age of 22, according to Eurostat – one of the lowest ages among Europeans. While one of the reasons for such early moves is the culture of independence and individualism, many people I personally know moved out early simply because they could no longer stand the brainworms of their parents.

Of course this is a tale as old as time – some parents interfere in their adult children’s lives way more than they ever should; some can be straight up abusive, verbally or physically. Housing is a dependency historically exploited by governments and the rich, though some families can threaten with no longer providing it to their offsprings as well – just to get their way.

Not just parents use that – your friends or partners who happen to be in control of your housing situation for whatever reason can do that too. So before you ever get into this situation, make sure you have a backup plan.

Yes, you might think that this would never happen to you. Then you fall in love, get into a marriage without a prenup and have a divorce a few years later. Whatever you may think of how fairly your assets and dependencies are being split afterwards – you did not take care of that beforehand, so now you have to face the consequences and deal with whatever you’re entitled to.

This is not to say that you should be paranoid about every single person in your life – what’s the point of having friends and family otherwise? All I’m saying is that in the end your safety and wellbeing should always stay in your own hands.

Always remember who has your keys, where you get your (pocket) money from, and always keep an eye on the housing market so that you know how much you need to have around in case of an emergency rental situation. Better to have at least 6 months worth of expenses in savings so that you can gather your thoughts in relative peace. Easier said than done, I know.

Again, that’s not to say you can’t trust anyone. Being ready for the worst might save you a lot of headache (and maybe even your life), even though the probability of it happening might be low. I was lucky to never experience this.

Setting boundaries

Sayings like blood is thicker than water, in my personal experience, are most often used by losers whose own families wipe their feet off of them. Misery loves company after all. But what if a family member let you down? They’re family after all, so instead of holding them accountable for shitty behaviour maybe go easy on them, or better yet – don’t even bother. They will change.

Is that what those losers think will happen?

I’ve had countless experiences with some of my family members where they would push their values on me and disregard my own, knowing very well where I stand.

And I don’t mean arguing whose position might be right. Just plain “I see it this way, therefore I think you do too – otherwise you’re wrong/ brainwashed”. Apparently respect for someone’s right to have their own position is only supposed to go in one direction. For many years I too thought that this would change, having repeatedly pointed this out.

After giving them way too many passes (we’re talking over 10 years), eventually I ran out of patience. And while this isn’t yet a situation where the bridge is burnt, it is very much soaked in gasoline and I have my lighter out.

Provided you took care of your dependencies beforehand, here are some ways that help me hold the people close to me accountable without going too far:

• Limit contact with them. Some friends and family may think they are entitled to constant access to you, no matter the context. Point out to them that their behaviour makes you uncomfortable and why. Explain what you’ve done thus far to make this relationship work and how they can meet you halfway.
• Go to group therapy together. You have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt, because what if, somehow, you are the problem? While this isn’t something you should burden yourself with, you’re not perfect either, so that still is a possibility.
• Define topics that are off limits for them. Not everyone is able to match your level of knowledge or maturity when it comes to discussing things that are important to you. It is not your responsibility to teach someone who doesn’t want to learn in the first place, but you can give still them the learning materials, should they choose to look inwards.

For me it has usually been possible to fix a relationship with someone after following one or sometimes all of the above steps. But what if it doesn’t help?

It’s burning time

I used to have a very good friend who helped me become the person I always wanted to be. Together we saw through a lot of bullshit that the Estonian society had to offer – now that I’m openly non-binary but live in Berlin, take a wild guess what the people over there think about trans people in general. Back then I was still having doubts about the choice I knew deep down was inevitable.

In fact I genuinely don’t think either of us would’ve had the lives we always wanted if we didn’t have each other at the time. We wanted out, and that was always the ultimate goal. We both succeeded, and I will always be happy for the both of us.

I would like to mention that I wasn’t always a great friend to that person. They would have many reasons to be mad at me throughout our friendship – and thankfully they’d call me out on that up until our official separation.

The reason for said separation was essentially the fact that, though I would often admit my mistakes, this was never the case the other way around. Additionally, my personal boundaries were often being breached, and I would repeatedly bring this up – just to be ignored. At some point I had enough.

What helped me cross the Rubicon that time around was the fact I was not the only one feeling this way – another friend of mine brought this up to me, completely unprompted. Then I knew I wasn’t being delusional and something had to be done about it.

We both cut our ties with this person completely, blocking them on every platform. Of course they could still reach out to us using different numbers, but the message was clear:

You don’t listen, so we’re not going to waste our resources on you either.

As sad as it was to part ways, that friend and I knew that the time has come to protect our own peace. There is no dignity in tolerating something hurtful that doesn’t particularly bring any benefit in the end. It is never easy to cut ties with someone you’ve trusted so much of your life to – but often it’s the only way.

You, reading this, know better yourself where the red line lies to you. I cannot give any advice on that, nor am I a certified therapist to be of any help here. What I can confidently say though, is that no person is worth destroying your mental health, no matter your relationship with them.

Finding good things in bad situations

It is so emotionally taxing to be dealing with bridge burning. But even more so is doing nothing about it. Ripping the bandaid will cause some bleeding – but even that will eventually stop. I personally discovered many positives in both situations I brought up above. For example, the relatives and their values.

The first days of the full-scale war in Ukraine made me go to the streets of Tallinn and protest every day for about a week. Many of my friends of many different ethnicities joined. This decision was a complete knee-jerk reaction. It wasn’t my country attacking Ukraine, but I felt I had an obligation to be out there, knowing the history of Russian world ‘s influence in my family.

I was tired, both physically and emotionally, but hopeful that those relatives would understand why I do this and that at this point it was clear to me who the aggressor was. My friends in Kyiv were being bombed. They just left Donbas some years before, thanks to the same aggressor.

But the relatives did not understand. In fact, again I was being called brainwashed behind my back. Now, about the positives.

Distancing myself from those family members for the past few months and mourning that relationship in advance helped me fall in love with Russian music again – the only part of that culture I really enjoyed. I’ve gotten much closer with the friends who moved to Berlin from Russia; before we would still have some friction despite having the same opinion on the war.

I couldn’t quite make myself appreciate either Russian music or friends to the fullest extent because of the deep shame I’ve been feeling these past few years, knowing that there is someone in my family using those same staples to justify the Russian greatness that makes them believe that nation has some sort of privilege to be up in other countries’ business, in a very violent way.

Knowing their stance on LGBT and the inevitable choice I’d have to make, it also made my life much easier to live from now on. Seeing everyone dear to me but them support me on my journey has been very encouraging, and I’m happy to now only be surrounded by people whose biases don’t mess with my own life.

The shame is now gone, and I feel happier and more confident in my choices seeing how I was yet again not heard at all after bringing this up for the last time. It is no longer my turn to grow up.

As for the good friend I used to have – not having them around helped me regain the confidence in my decisions that would often by made fun of or suppressed by them. Intentionally or not – I’d somehow always have to be made fun of or mocked while living a much more (financially) sustainable lifestyle.

I was always playing the long game – and eventually it paid off. Feel free to have a look at my other posts to see what I’m able to afford at the age of 29. The goal was always to live a happy life the way I see it, and I clearly succeeded at that.

If some bridges need to be burned for that – that’s fine by me.