Breakups are the worst, but no one really talks about the breakup that shatters your soul completely: friendship breakups.
I’m a huge proponent of sharing our raw and honest truths with others in hopes of forming deep bonds and connections. If you’re uncomfortable that’s good because you’re growing. Being uncomfortable is necessary to form deep connections with others. I truly believe that by doing this, we create soul-ties, networks of laughter, hope, fear and trust that help us form the deepest, truest friendships possible. When that soul-tie breaks however, it can be life altering and shattering, and at times hard to overcome.
Last fall, I broke up with my best friend. We’ll call her Mandy.
Ten years down the drain. We’d been through it all together. It doesn’t matter how it started, what caused it, or who said or did what. What matters most to me is what I learned from those ten years and how I plan to make my next friendship last.
In friendship, don’t do anything if you’re expecting something in return.
Some of the biggest let downs in life are made worse by unmet expectations. When I give, I do so without expecting or wanting anything in return. Ask anyone in my family; if I say yes to a favor, it’s because I can give without expecting something in return. “Something in return” also includes holding it over someone’s head later. What’s the point of doing anything kind if you’re going to hold it over someone’s head to either make them feel badly or get something?
During our decade of friendship, we did so much for each other. For a while, it was mostly Mandy. She got me my first iPhone. One Christmas, I couldn’t afford presents for my daughter, so she bought tons of gifts and signed nearly all of them from me. Before a biscuit saved my life, she provided for me financially and fed me when I was too poor to afford food. Then my life turned around. I was finally able to give back in bigger ways, like she’d done for me.
For me, it was always about giving back and returning the favor. She may have never said, “You need to pay me back,” but I felt I needed to once I was able, just like any true friend would.
Someone holding you accountable is not the same thing as personally attacking you. And someone personally attacking you cannot hide under the false label of “holding you accountable.”
When we form deeply rooted bonds with people, we trust them. We trust them so much that when they speak to us about us, we tend to believe them and hold their words as truth. They have earned that right and that trust in our minds. But you need to be attuned with yourself and your self-esteem to know the difference between accountability and attacking.
Like any ending to something great, things got heated. Things were said that should not have been said. It doesn’t matter who said what or what was said, but I had to have the ability to look at everything and say, “Okay, this is something I have to work on in order to grow” and to look at other things and say, “Oh, naw, man. {Bleeeeep}.” It’s a tough pill to swallow when it feels like you’re being attacked, but there is some truth to what’s being said, and it’s empowering when things are said and you have the knowledge to see it as an attack and let it go.
Closure is for those who deserve it, not demand it.
You can take this one of two ways. It’s either for the former friends who deserve the closure, because they truly were good friends and it just didn’t work out or it’s for you. You deserve it. Maybe you had a bad breakup with a friend, and the closure is for you to move on easily and keep distance. Either way, closure is a good thing.
It’s hard when such a deep, long friendship ends. In the case of Mandy and me, I did the leaving. And I went about it in the harshest way possible. I moved, ignored all texts, phone calls, Facebook messages, everything. I ghosted her. As harsh as that was, that’s what worked for me. That’s what I needed. I needed time away with my own thoughts and to be around different people, forming new views of the world to realize what I wanted. And it worked.
My point is that when we finally spoke, we were both looking for closure. I felt that, after months of silence, she deserved to know why I was upset. This helped me come to grips with the reality of why I was stepping away from a decade of friendship.
I don’t share this to make myself look good or make Mandy look bad. I share this because we all experience similar challenges in friendships. Being a mom makes it worse; we long for those close bonds and friendships with people who know us and understand the struggles of being a mom. I hope that in sharing my experience, I can help another break away from toxicity or rekindle a friendship. At times, I wish Mandy and I were still best friends as I sometimes miss her terribly and wish I could share my new life with her.
In a way, I am grateful for this experience. When my daughter grows up, I can give her sound advice and hold her while she cries over friendships that no longer exist. I’ve cried for hours while listening to Damien Rice’s “Rootless Tree” and wondered if I’ll ever have a best friend again…Bright side, right?
