Why You Need to Cut People Out of Your Life
We live in a world that tells us more is better—more friends, more connections, more family around you. But the truth is, keeping the wrong people in your life—whether they’re family, close friends, or just acquaintances—can drain your energy, reopen old wounds, and hold you back from healing.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
A Personal Story: Losing My Dad
In December, I flew overseas to visit my dad. My step-mum, my step-sisters, my sister from Australia—we were all together. For a brief moment, it felt like a happy, blended family. I cooked, cleaned, helped take care of everyone, and when COVID hit the house, I spent days in bed like everyone else, but the moment I was able, I poured myself into looking after others and, most importantly, being at my dad’s side in hospital.
It was also in December that I opened up to them about the domestic violence I was living through. I didn’t tell them about the rape, but I told them enough. And they were proud of me. They told me I was strong, that I had a plan. I’d contacted a lawyer, I was looking for a rental house, and I was trying to build an exit. I believed I had their full support. I believed these four women—my step-mum, my step-sisters, and my sister—were standing behind me, helping me walk into a new chapter.
Just before I came down with COVID myself, I had one of the most important conversations of my life with my dad. Everyone else was sick, so it was just the two of us. We talked about happiness. I promised him I would do everything in my power to be happy again. That promise has carried me through some of my darkest days. Even now, when I struggle, I hold onto that moment and hear his voice saying: “Go team.”
In January, everything changed. My dad, who had caught COVID back in December, then developed pneumonia. He was already fighting lymphatic cancer that was untreatable because of his poor health. By the time I arrived, he was so weak and in such pain that he could no longer speak and was rarely conscious. The doctors made the decision to put him on a morphine pump to keep him unconscious, easing his pain even as his body slowly shut down. It took a week.
For him, it was a gentle way to pass. For me, it was horrific. I sat beside him, holding his hand, talking to him, watching him fade day by day. I did not step foot outside of that hospital for the entire time. I slept on the chair by his bed, in a chair by the window and at one point on the floor in his room. It was the longest week of my life.
When he passed away, I thought I’d return to the same warmth I had experienced in December. Instead, the rug was pulled from beneath me. The three women I thought I could rely on—my step-mum and step-sisters—cut me out. Completely. The support I had trusted vanished the moment my dad took his last breath.
The only reason I was able to survive that time was because of my sister as well as two close friends – one I met when I was 12 and one from University. My sister had flown in from Australia, and she has been my rock through all of this. I would not have been able to get through the pain of losing my dad, the betrayal of being cut out, and the reality of everything waiting for me back in Canada without her. I am endlessly grateful that she is in my life. I just wish she lived closer—Canada and Australia are about as far apart as you can get.
We weren’t allowed to help arrange the funeral. I was told I “didn’t know the people well enough” to contact them, which may have been true since I lived in Canada and he lived in Scotland—but that didn’t mean I loved him any less. Or couldn’t have helped with part of the funeral arrangements. He was my only dad. My step-sisters had their own father who had passed, but my dad was the only one I had ever had. We were not even allowed to go to his house where my stop mom and step-sisters were as it was too difficult a time for our step-mom. Yet when the funeral came, the photograph chosen to represent me was one from when I was fifteen years old—over thirty years out of date—despite plenty of recent photos being available. It was a deliberate choice, and it felt like another way of erasing me from his life and memory.
During the funeral, when they spoke about my step-sisters, their lives were described in detail—degrees earned, careers in occupational therapy and academia, achievements highlighted proudly. But when it came to me, I was reduced to “living in Canada with four children.” My sister—who has multiple degrees, teaches high school biology and chemistry, and even lectures at a university—was introduced simply as a teacher with a husband and four children. Our identities, our accomplishments, our humanity, were flattened to little more than our ability to reproduce.
Then came another blow. As the story of how my dad met my step-mum was told, it was painted as romantic: meeting at work, an instant connection, their first date being a picnic on a Scottish moor. Except I know Scotland. You don’t picnic before May—the weather’s brutal. I was born that June. Which meant their first date happened not the year after I was born, as I’d always believed, but the year I was born. That revelation hit me like a thunderclap: another emotional twist when I was already on my knees.
At the funeral itself, friends of my parents—people who had known me since I was a child, people who were close to my step-mum—deliberately turned their faces away rather than speak to me. Not one word. I was invisible. But then one old friend came over. Someone I’d only known loosely as a teenager. He walked up and asked me, “Are you okay?” I broke down and i told him everything. The abuse, the rape, what I was facing when I went back, sharing details like I had spent time in the hallway on the phone when my dad was dying trying to get the guns removed from the house so it would be safer for me to return – I was that afraid. I told him it wasn’t the speeches or the photos that hurt the most—it was the deliberate cutting out. And then I said something that shocked even me in that moment:
“You know what the sad thing is? This isn’t even the hardest day I’m going to have this week.”
Because my dad’s funeral was on the 29th. The next day, I flew back to Canada, and what was waiting for me wasn’t comfort or rest—it was the domestic violence situation I was trying to escape. I slept that night with my boots on, ready to run if I had to. And the following day, I walked into a police station and reported the abuse and the rape.
Imagine that. Standing at your father’s funeral and realising it wasn’t even the lowest point of your week. That’s how bad things were.
Why We Need to Cut People Out
After living through all this, here’s what I’ve learned: you cannot carry everyone with you. Not everyone deserves a seat at your table.
There’s a misconception that cutting people out of your life is cruel. That you should keep showing up, keep forgiving, keep making space, no matter how badly you’re treated. But here’s the truth: every relationship you allow into your life is shaping your energy, your time, your emotional health. And if someone repeatedly brings pain, disappointment, or toxicity, keeping them close isn’t loyalty—it’s self-destruction.
One-Way Relationships
We’ve all had them—the “friend” who only calls when they need something, the relative who takes and takes but never asks how you’re doing, the acquaintance who leans on you but disappears when you’re struggling. Those relationships are not balanced. Love, respect, and friendship are meant to flow both ways. If you’re the one constantly giving, constantly pouring from your cup while the other person never fills it back, you eventually burn out. And you deserve better than that.
I’ve had friends who smiled in my face but reported everything back to my ex-husband-to-be—the same man who has been charged with sexual assault against me. Some even told him about the children’s police reports before the police themselves did. And their excuse was: “Well, I didn’t know who to believe.” That’s not friendship. That’s betrayal.
Toxic Family
Family can be the hardest to walk away from. We’re told from birth that “family is everything,” that blood is thicker than water. But biology doesn’t give anyone the right to mistreat you, manipulate you, or make you feel small. If being around certain relatives leaves you anxious, drained, or ashamed, then it’s not family—it’s dysfunction.
My step-mum and step-sisters silenced me, excluded me, erased me at the very moment I needed support the most. That’s not family—that’s toxicity. It is their loss as my sister and I have the only grandchildren between us – 8 in total all of whom called my step mom grandma. To lose that kind of family connection is a loss of something priceless.
People Who Don’t Celebrate You
Another reason to let go: if someone can’t be happy for you, they don’t belong in your circle. Real friends cheer when you succeed. They encourage you, celebrate you, remind you of your worth. If someone is quick to criticise, dismiss your achievements, or make you feel guilty for your happiness, they are showing you that your light bothers them. Don’t dim yourself to keep them comfortable.
At my dad’s funeral, my accomplishments were erased, my identity flattened to “four children in Canada.” I’ve learned that real friends, real family, celebrate you.
The Energy Test
Here’s a simple way to know who belongs in your life: pay attention to how you feel after spending time with someone. Do you feel lighter, supported, inspired? Or do you feel drained, criticised, misunderstood? Your body knows before your mind rationalises. Trust it. If someone consistently leaves you feeling worse, they’re not your people.
Choosing Yourself Isn’t Selfish
It hurts to cut people out. There’s grief. Anger. Disbelief. But in the long term, it’s freedom. It’s you choosing your peace, your future, and your happiness over the cycle of being used, ignored, or belittled. Loving yourself enough to set boundaries is not selfish. It’s survival. And once you make that decision, you’ll find that the space they leave behind is quickly filled by people who do deserve you.
The Friends Who Stay
Cutting people out hurts at first. There’s grief, anger, disbelief. But over time, it brings peace. Because when you remove the wrong people, you make space for the right ones.
I have amazing friends I can call and say, “I’m having a terrible day—can anyone meet for coffee this week?” and they are there. I have friends I go camping with, where we both bring our kids and make memories and have such fun over campfires and hiking and swimming in lakes.
And then there are my online friends. My ex-husband-to-be mocked me for this, tried to shame me out of it. But I’ve built incredible connections online. I game when I can’t sleep, and what starts as a shared hobby often turns into long conversations, Discord chats, WhatsApp groups. These friendships are real. They’ve been there for me in ways some “real-life” friends never were.
And just as importantly, I still have friends from school and university back in the UK. Distance and time mean we don’t connect every day, but we stay in touch—some several times a day, some weekly, some monthly, and some only a couple of times a year. Yet when I went back to Scotland and met up with them in person, it was like no time had passed. That’s what true friendship is: the ability to pick up right where you left off, even after years apart. The bond is still there. The trust is still there. The love is still there.
And then there are my therapy girls—women who have lived through unbearable pain, who carry scars you can’t always see, and yet who are still standing. They are walking proof that it’s possible to keep going, even when life has tried to break you. They are inspirational to me. We talk, we cry, we share the darkest corners of our stories without shame. They get it in a way no one else can. Together, we remind each other that survival is strength, healing is possible, and that none of us are alone. We got this.
These women are also the ones who nag me into looking after myself. As I sit here writing this, two of them had just met for coffee and realized they hadn’t heard from me today. They called to check in, threatening an “intervention” if I didn’t answer. Last week, one of them even drove me to the hospital after I choked on a bison steak, was heimliched multiple times, and ended up with aspiration pneumonia. Typical me, I tried to push through—too busy with back-to-school chaos to deal with it—until I coughed so hard I put my back out. I would like to state that I rocked the back to school in Olympic style in one day!!
One of these women and I are so often there for each other that we jokingly call each other “wives.” That’s what real friendship looks like: humour in the pain, loyalty in the chaos, and absolute certainty that you are not alone.
True great friends are the only ones you need in your life, and I’m lucky to have found several. And I had space for them only because I cut out the toxic, harmful people who were never really friends to begin with. Contrary to social media, it’s not about quantity. It’s about quality.
The Lesson: Trust Your Gut
For years, I told my dad I felt like my sister and I were on the “outer family,” never truly part of the core. He told me I was wrong. But I wasn’t. My gut knew the truth all along. It took 46 years and his death for that gut feeling to be validated.
And here’s the truth: if I had cut them out sooner, when my gut first told me they weren’t on my side, I could have saved myself heartbreak. You don’t need to wait until someone proves you right in the worst possible way. The signs are always there.
Today, I’m glad they are cut out. I will never unblock them on Facebook. I don’t care about inheritance. I don’t want my dad’s money. I wanted his love, his presence, his voice—and that is gone. But so are they. And for that, I feel lighter.
Closing Thought
Cutting people out of your life isn’t about cruelty—it’s about clarity. When people show you that they can’t honour you in your most vulnerable moments, they don’t deserve a place in your circle.
Yes, it hurts. Yes, it feels lonely at first. But in the long run, it frees you to build a life of peace, authenticity, and true belonging.
And when I doubt myself, I go back to that December conversation. I promised my dad I would fight for my happiness. Every time I choose peace over chaos, every time I cut out someone toxic, every time I hold on to the good friends—whether in person, across an ocean, online, or in a circle of women who’ve survived hell and are still standing—I’m keeping that promise.
I know he’s still with me, reminding me: “Go team.”
