Healing From A Friendship Breakup

Friendship breakups don’t always come with a dramatic fight — sometimes, they just slowly fade. In this vulnerable solo episode, I talk about the kind of breakup that stings just as much as a romantic one: when a close friendship quietly ends. From chasing effort to choosing self-respect, I open up about my own experience and the bittersweet power of letting go. If you're going through one too, you're not alone — and yes, you’re still enough.

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to the new episode. It's a Saturday night. I'm just recording here, chilling in my apartment. The weather is still so confusing. It's still, it's this in between time where it could be really cold, but it could get really warm during the day and when you don't really know what to wear and it's too early for a leather jacket, but.

And you are cold in a leather jacket, but everything else, if you wear anything else is hot. So yeah, it's confusing time, but I don't want to make this podcast me complaining about the weather again, because I appreciate you guys listening to me complaining all through winter. So today I'm just gonna talk about friendship breakups.

That's such an interesting thing. How. It affects us, not even less than a romantic breakup, especially if it's a close friendship, because what I find with really close friends, I think about them almost as much as I think about my romantic partner and whenever something happens, I wanna tell them. And.

Yeah, I keep in mind what they're up to. I check in on them. And when you don't have that anymore, like I'm, I am going through a friendship breakup right now, and it's not even, it's not a breakup where we had a fight or we had a falling out. It's just this quiet breakup where you have different priorities and.

You don't find time for each other anymore. I don't wanna put labels on in or put blame on anybody, but I feel like it's more on the other person's side. And I was willing to put effort and I tried really hard to the point where, this is the thing about me. I will try really hard and once you get to me, once I let you in, you have close to unlimited chances with me.

But when I'm done. And I think this is one of these moments when I'm just done, I have tried a lot and. I have expressed interest. I try to make plans, but, and I'm always like, okay, you cannot meet me at a 10, meet me at a seven. But this person wasn't even meeting me at even four or five. It was less than that.

And I just value my energy and I value my time more than that. And I think this is a good lesson and. This is a good lesson of letting go because I think this is inevitable. My circle has changed so much and I think this is okay these days, right? Because we cannot expect, unfortunately, if it was up to me, every person you are close friends with will stay in your life in the same capacity for the rest of your life.

But, and unfortunately, it's usually other people that move on or lose interest or start. Drifting apart and not me. 'cause I'm just such a lover girl and in all my relationships and I always want to be close and talk and check in. And usually it happens when people get into a relationship or maybe a different job or maybe they have a child and yeah, I used to be really bitter about this and I used to be really.

Mad at my friends for doing that, but I think years and years of this happening have taught me to learn to let go and be grateful that I even got to experience such a close friendship. Because so many people, if I look at the stats, if I listen to podcasts by psychologists, they all say that.

Most people don't even have one person they can call a really close friend. And I think if you have one close friend in your life, you should already be grateful because it's not most people's experiences and you, the fact that you get to know what it's like to have a, have someone who understands you, who is.

For you all the time, anytime of the day, anytime of the year. Who will listen to you, who will comfort you, will tell you the truth. Truth if you need to hear it. Who will do stupid shit with you? I think. You're just by default, so lucky, and this is what I try to focus on through this friendship breakup I got to with this person, I got to experience what it's like to be really understood, to be really heard, and to not be judged for who I am, for not being perfect and to be accepted for not being.

Perfect all the time to be accepted for my emotions, for my mood. S swings for the good and the bad. You know what I mean? And this friendship has taught me a lot. And now that it's time to let it go, I try to fight the feelings of bitterness and. Maybe anger. Don't get me wrong. I went through all this, these stages.

I was sad, I was angry, I was bargaining, I was depressed all of these stages. But I think I finally moved into acceptance where I am ready to talk about it because I know this is it because I'm done. And when I'm done. There is no coming back from this. And you know what? I'm okay with this.

I have moved to the acceptance stage and now I'm just, I've let myself experience all and feel all the emotions, all the negative emotions of it, but now I'm ready to. Move into acceptance and gratitude because this friendship has taught me a lot and he has, it has showed me a lot of things about myself and about how I see life and what I want from friendships and relationships in general from now on.

And I think this is the lesson that we can all learn when a relationship, whether friendly or romantic. And I think this is a lesson to. To learn to let go and to not look for closure because in this friendship, I don't think, I just know that we're gonna slowly drift apart even more. It's not like we stop talking, but it's just I have changed my attitude, my energy out energetic output has changed, and I know it's just not gonna be the same.

And there is not much that can be done at this point. And I need to learn to give myself closure because I frankly don't even want to have a final conversation because I don't want it to end it. This person still means a lot to me and I know if we can hang out, we can hang out, but it is, the friendship is nearing the end of its cycle and.

There is no point in having a conversation. 'cause I've had conversations while I was still trying. And I think for me the most important lesson is that I did my best. I was there the whole time. I was super present and I. I'm not mad anymore. I'm just grateful for what this has taught me, and I'm learning to give myself closure because what can change?

There is nothing that this person can say or do that will change anything because enough has been done or like enough has been not done. You know what I mean? When you're constantly trying to hang out, when you're constantly trying to create opportunities for you to do stuff together, constantly trying to.

I dunno, do some, I don't know, to connect, to reach out to even hang out for an hour. To run errands together. To go for a walk, anything. And the person is not meeting you there. And it's not because they don't want to, it's because they have other priorities. But there's only so much I can take in terms of not being prioritized, like I'm not asking. To hang out every day, even every week or like lately every month at like at this point. You know what I mean? I'm just asking to, for the bare minimum basically. And when the bare minimum is not met, you have to learn to let go. So I think the lesson here is that if you're in a relationship where you are just not getting.

Even the bare minimum met, you just need to walk away. There is no point in trying to prove your importance to the other person. There is no point in trying to show them how cool you are, how understanding you are. There is no point in arguing doing anything. The only thing you can truly control is your energetic output and where you put your effort and your energy.

This is close to the only thing we can control in life, period. Once you learn that you'll be able to let people go with much more ease. It doesn't mean it's not sad, it doesn't mean you cannot be angry. You have to feel all of this stuff, but at some point, your closure is your own decision to not participate in this relationship, and you have to be okay that this is as much closure as you're gonna get and you just keep living your life.

Because any mixed signal, any lack of enthusiasm, it's already a sign. And when enough signs have accumulated, you just have to walk away. And this is what I'm doing currently. And again, I went through all the stages. I'm not, this is not by any means let them theory extension. I, because I think the Let Them theory that's a topic for another podcast, but I think it lacks nuance and it lacks empathy.

But it's about your decision. It's about your decision to stay true to who you are and not put up with a standard that you set for yourself. I think of myself. I consider myself a great friend, and this is one of the most important parts of my identity, and I. That great friendships come. Friendship comes with a standard, and if it's not met, then the person doesn't get to be a friend anymore, then they don't deserve it. That we can, maybe superficial friends, we can maybe be acquaintances, but that's it. And yeah, I think this is what I'm still learning and I'm getting better at it because during. In the past five years, I've had so many friendship breakups.

It's also because I am letting myself express my identity and express who I am. More more people naturally leave my life, and I think that's okay too. But this is something that I'm learning and I think it's, I consider this a very important skill to have in life, to learn people go and to be okay giving closure to yourself.

I am gonna end this here. If this sparked any thoughts for you, please let me know. If you're going through a friendship breakup, I know it's a popular topic now and I get a lot of messages about it, let me know and I can maybe talk about it more. But just know that you are enough on your own.

It's okay to have standards, and it's okay to eliminate people from your life who don't meet them, and you are great. You are going to be okay no matter what. You're gonna meet new, amazing people who are gonna, who, who are gonna make your life so fulfilling and so great. And ultimately, you are your own best friend and you are going to be okay.

Love you. See you in the next episode.