We hear about ended relationships all the time. Whether they’re pasted on the front pages of the magazines in the grocery store, featured in the newest “chick flick” coming to theatres, or seen through the 47 screenshots your best friend sent at 2 AM after she found out her boyfriend cheated on her, relationships and lost loves are themes we are bombarded with daily. Although there is abundant talk about romantic relationships coming to tragic ends, there is very little acknowledgement of another kind of breakup, one that, I would argue, can be even more painful. Today, I want to talk about breakups between friends.
Debba Hauper, the founder of an online community focused on friendship called Girlfriendology tells us, “research proves that female friendship can make us healthier, happier, less stressed and feel more beautiful.” So when you and a friend “break up,” the loss is substantial. Dr. Irene S. Levine, author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Break-Up With Your Best Friend, says “One of the things that makes it really difficult is that there is no one to talk to about it. The person you’d most want to talk to is the person you broke up with.” Losing your friend can make you feel devastated and alone, sometimes with nobody to help you cope with such a drastic change in your life. Levine also cites society as a factor in the increased difficulty of friend breakups, saying that “Women are raised with the idea that friendship is supposed to be forever, and they are often judged by their ability to stay friends, so there is a lot of stigma involved with friends who break up.” So, not only have you lost your best pal and confidant, the world is also going to judge you for your “inability” to make a friendship work.
Personally, I’ve been through some nasty breakups, both romantically and with friends. However, the breaks that cut the deepest were those between myself and a best friend. Jessica Smock’s Huffington Post article sums up what makes friend breakups so much more painful:
But when a friendship dies, women are left hurt, ashamed, angry and confused. Unlike romantic relationships — in which there’s generally the expectation of monogamy — there’s no such equivalent in friendship. So, when your friend wants out of your friendship, does she say, “It’s not you, it’s me,” or “the magic is gone,” or “we want different things” — or any one of the dozens of breakup clichés that we’ve all heard? Usually not.
As someone who struggled with depression and anxiety pretty severely throughout high school, friends came and went pretty rapidly, but it never got any easier. I felt so alone and ashamed, thinking “what’s wrong with me?” and “what did I do?”. I now know that these things happen, that they weren’t my fault, and that I am strong enough to move on. However, I want to draw more attention to this all-too-common occurrence. We need to open up the conversation about how to handle ALL kinds of breakups and be more open about how common these issues are. If we can come together and start talking about how normal a breakup between friends is, we can fight the stigma and show those that are struggling that this is just another part of life that will make us stronger in the end.
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