Chloe’s Guide to Friendship Breakups: How To Determine if a Friendship is Healthy
April 3, 2023
Author: Chloe Zeldin
Editor: Lauren Cuppy
Friendship breakups: they’re dreaded, they’re messy, and they’re shrouded in stigma. However, what comes with age is the realization that people come and go; relationships form and fall apart, connections fizzle out, dynamics shift, and friendships end– you learn quickly that not everybody plays a permanent role in your life. Most people are in your life for a reason and a season, as my mom never fails to remind me. I think that the fluidity of friendships, although scary, is beautiful and allows you to honor yourself and the way that you evolve. Sometimes, it is difficult to know when a friendship has run its course, or to recognize that a friendship is no longer serving you. Surrounding yourself with the right people and taking time to evaluate how your friends make you feel is imperative to peace and happiness..
The best way to go about ensuring your friendships are beneficial and healthy is to ask the right questions. To do this, you must begin by setting the intention of being mindful about who you let close to you, and doing what it takes to maintain your peace. Entering into this space requires challenging yourself, asking difficult questions, and being brutally honest with yourself, in order to answer them truthfully. This is a way to reflect on friendships and determine if I am succeeding in surrounding myself with people who make me feel good. Here are some questions that I ask myself when looking inward at how the friendships I put time and effort into affect me:
After spending time with them, do I feel energized, or do I leave feeling drained?
How does this person react to my successes? Does their support feel genuine?
When issues do arise, how does this person handle them?
What values do their actions reflect? Do they align with mine?
These are just a few examples of questions to ask that will lead you to a valuable conclusion on the role a friend plays in your life. Oftentimes, avoiding asking these questions can be the easiest route to take. But, you are doing yourself a disservice. There is absolutely no reason to be holding onto a friendship that drains you. There is no reason to hold onto a friendship that feels competitive, a friendship in which issues are constant and handled immaturely, and a friendship in which actions reflect an absence of values you care about. This is going to drag you down. In order to stay true to who you are and the person you want to become, you cannot allow this energy that is at odds with yours to stunt your growth.
Coming to the conclusion that a friendship is unhealthy or not something that you feel contributes positively to your life is difficult. Changes like these can be uneasy, and the gaps left by people who once occupied the space are not always easy to fill. But, it is a price I would pay any day for my peace. I will leave it at one last point; friendship breakups have a negative stigma around it– break it. To hell with that. You get to choose who you let it, who stays, and who goes. Do not let anything take that away from you; do not let bad friendships disturb your peace.
