- It can be difficult to navigate a friendship with a "relationship dumper."
- And it's important to set boundaries when you are on the receiving end of this dynamic.
Imagine you're reeling from the emotions of just having fought with your partner. Do you sit with your feelings about the conflict and then talk things out? Or do you immediately text or call a friend to vent about your partner? If you answered the latter, you might be what licensed clinical psychologist and certified relationship and intimacy expert Jacqueline Sherman calls a "relationship dumper."
Sherman told Business Insider that a relationship dumper often overshares about their relationship, especially issues they're experiencing. This can cause the friend receiving the information to feel overburdened; they may also develop a negative perception of the partner being discussed.
If you're friends with a relationship dumper, experts say there are steps you can take to create boundaries and protect your friendship.
It can be hard to set boundaries with a 'relationship dumper,' but it's still important to do
While it can be frustrating, overwhelming, or even just annoying to provide emotional support to a relationship dumper, it's key to remember they're still your friend. There's a way to communicate boundaries while still maintaining the relationship.
Sherman told Business Insider a good method for creating boundaries is the "sandwich technique," where you begin by sharing how you feel connected to your friend, then communicate your boundary, and finally validate their experience and try to help them find another resource besides you.
She suggests beginning by saying something like, "I really love our friendship, and I love that we're able to share what's going on with each other's lives."
Then, to set a boundary around oversharing, you might say, "Lately, I've noticed that you've been sharing a lot about your partner, and although I feel really privileged to have that information, I don't know how to help when you're in need," Sherman suggested.
To close out the sandwich technique, you don't have to leave them without a space to vent or share. You might say, "I know that might be hard to hear; however, I know there are many resources for you. Do you want me to help you look for another resource?" Sherman said.
Sherman told BI that while couples therapy is certainly a beneficial resource you could recommend, individual therapy may also be helpful. It's a non-biased resource that may help process some of the issues they're experiencing in the relationship.
"Oftentimes, there is also a need for individual therapy to be able to process some of the challenges that you're experiencing interpersonally within your relationship and have someone who is nonbiased to your actual relationship," Sherman said.
Your friend may not be looking for resources and may just want to vent
While offering resources to a friend can be helpful to you both, your friend may also not be seeking help and just want to vent to you about what they're experiencing in their relationship. And just because you don't have the capacity to listen to their issues all the time, it doesn't mean their feelings aren't valid.
"I definitely think that friendships are an excellent place to be able to vent about things that are going on in your relationship, but everyone's capacity to be able to support looks different — So the individual needs to be able to have the self-awareness to know and recognize if they're being triggered or burned out from what their friend is sharing," Sherman said.
If you are feeling burned out from hearing about your friend's venting, setting a boundary might sound like this: "Where I am in my own life, I'm unable to assist more than I already have, so I would really appreciate it if our friendship can be focused on topics outside your relationship moving forward," Sherman said.
If you still feel nervous about having this conversation with your friend, that's completely normal.
"It takes a lot of courage to have that level of vulnerability to be able to say, 'Hey, can we do this dance differently,'" Hope Kelaher, a licensed clinical social worker and author of "Here to Make Friends," a book about how to make friends as an adult, told Business Insider.
But Kelaher told Business Insider that it's important to distinguish between nerves and an actual fear of communicating friendship issues.
"All relationships have ruptures and repairs, so if you're that afraid your friend cannot handle potential feedback and that it's going to ruin the relationship, I would caution people to think a little bit more about the value of that relationship," Kelaher said.
What to do if you find yourself venting to the same friend over and over
Most people who vent about their relationships beyond what their friends can accommodate aren't intentionally trying to cross boundaries. Even if you feel you've never been friends with someone who relied on you for emotional support amid their relationship issues — or exhibited the behavior yourself — it's still a pattern Sherman and Kelaher have both seen frequently.
"I think this is something that we've all experienced. I, myself, have been on the receiving and the giving end," Kelaher said.
If you feel like you've shared too much about your relationship issues in the past, or are showing up in this way with your current friendships, there are changes you can make.
Kelaher told Business Insider that people realizing they rely on a particular friend to be an outlet for their relationship details, especially their issues, can create an "ecomap" for their relationships where they think about themselves as the center and identify the people they use as a social resource.
"You want to rotate their usefulness and resourcefulness in and out, so one person is not overly saturated with being your emotional support," Kelaher said.
Being a supportive friend is great, but it's also important to create boundaries when hearing about a friend's relationship issues becomes overwhelming. And when we inevitably experience our own relationship issues, it's equally important to diversify what we go to a friend with and who we go to.