I'm tired of just cutting "toxic" friends out of my life, it's beginning to feel like I will have none left! I want to learn how to communicate with them and build bridges.

I feel like it is popular wisdom that if a friend can't be a good supportive friend the way you need and want them to be, you need to distance yourself from them or even just cut them out of your life.

As the life of "real" adulthood has settled upon us - marriage, tough jobs and careers, multiple kids, aging and dying parents - I find my friends have less and less energy to be perfect friends. They can be needy and not be able to give back equally, they can be very self-focused, they can be stuck in dark places and become help-rejecting complainers. These friends all need support but don't have much to offer.

As teenagers and young adults we are taught friendships should be an equal partnership of giving and taking. While everyone needs help sometimes, the friendships should feel equal on balance and when we encounter people who seem like "takers" and not "givers", we are told to proceed with caution. Friends should have enough emotional room in their lives for you as a friend otherwise, you should move on. When older friends become "takers" after a time, they deserve a talk or two about being a better friend but when they can't match up, we are supposed to move on.

Right now, I feel I have maybe one friend out of maybe ten pretty close ones who has the emotional bandwidth to be a "good" friend by the old definition. The rest of my friends are dealing with the general catastrophes of adulthood - chronic illness, special needs children, becoming caregivers to their parents, complicated and acrimonious divorces, careers lost, etc. And these aren't isolated incidents like a boyfriend break-up, the issues themselves happen over years, with the repercussions felt afterward for life.

I, myself, have my own issues and have been cautious to guard my energies for "self-care" purposes, feeling there is only so much I can do for them (particularly with so many with issues). I am trying to follow the "oxygen mask" rules of relationships, that you take care of your needs first (put on your oxygen mask on the plane before you help others with theirs) and then you will have the strength to help others. But while I am sitting here breathing in my oxygen masks, and all my friends are breathing in theirs, I feel pretty isolated and I bet they do, too.