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So you’ve experienced a change in your friendship. Are you unsure about how to feel about the change? Are you feeling unsure about what to do about it? Don’t fret, we are here to help.
Change is scary for a lot of people. It leaves room for a lot of nervousness and uncertainty and can take many people some time to adjust to. Luckily, not all changes are bad. Like you will see in this post, some friendship changes can be a good thing and can really benefit your friendship.
Prepare to have some of your burning questions about friendship changes answered and to be equipped with some ideas of how you can tackle the friendship changes you are experiencing. This post is all about friendship changes.
Your Guide To Friendship Changes
Is It Normal For A Friendship To Change?
Yes, it is absolutely normal for a friendship to change.
Neither you nor your friend is going to remain the exact same as you were when you first met. The life events, opportunities, and challenges you each experience will shape you and mold you into new versions of yourself. This growth and change may affect the way you view your friendship and potentially how you interact with your friend. Naturally, this is going to mean that your friendship experiences some changes.
Are Friendship Changes Good or Bad?
The short answer. Friendship changes can be either. Really, it is how you both navigate the changes to the friendship that will determine if they are good or bad.
Friendship changes can have the potential to bring you closer. Something may happen that causes you to take on different roles in your friendship. You may have to help each other through a tough time, share a new experience, or have your first disagreement that you manage to solve nicely (if you both have good open communication this can actually happen). All of these things can actually bring you closer as friends and may lead you to deepening the friendship you have. This is because the experiences you share have the potential to take you from being acquaintances to friends, from friends to close friends or even to being best friends.
However, friendship changes also have the potential to drive a wedge between you and your friend and push you further away from each other. Although this is largely dependent on how you both react to the change and how much you effort you both are willing to put into adapting and working with it. Therefore, it is also dependent and how much you both value the friendship and care about holding each other.
Why Do Friendships Change?
There are many reasons why your friendship may change. Life has a way of throwing many curve balls and forks in the road that can really change your path in life and affect you as a person. And the same goes for your friend.
Here are a list of things that can cause a friendship to change:
Physical distance
The physical distance caused by either one of you moving town, city, or country can cause changes to your friendship. The biggest thing is that it might mean that you are no longer in each other’s immediate or everyday lives. This can lead you to lose touch with each other and cause your friendship to fade if you are not careful.
Experiencing Loss
Experiencing any kind of loss and the grief process that follows it can affect friendships. For example, if you can show understanding and empathy to your friend while they are grieving and if they are able to be emotionally vulnerable and accept your support, then it can really improve your friendship. On the flipside, if grief causes your friend to isolate, withdraw and shut down and you are not able to show understanding and patience and work through this with them, it can negatively affect your friendship. It can put emotional distance between you and can leave you dealing with an array of negative emotions that may affect your friendship moving forward.
Your personal growth journey
Your personal growth journey is designed to help you grow and change. Naturally, this is going to cause changes to occur in your lifestyle. However, it may also cause a change in who you are that might impact your behaviour or your role in your friendships. For example, maybe you were once the quiet timid friend while your friend was the more outgoing one. However, through your personal development journey, you gained self-confidence, which helped you to be more outspoken and unafraid to share your opinions freely. This self-development is by no means a bad thing, however, it is likely to cause a change in the dynamic of your friendship. A dynamic change that you and your friend will need to work with and adjust to.
Your personal growth may have also caused you to have a change in values. As a result, your personal values may now be even less aligned or even more aligned with your friend’s and this can also subsequently cause a change in the friendship.
Conflict and misunderstandings
Disagreements are an unavoidable part of life.
You are more than likely to encounter some sort of disagreement at some point during your friendship. How you both deal with the argument can be the deciding factor in how it will affect your friendship.
If you are both willing to communicate honestly with each other, listen properly, be assertive and try to see things from the other friend’s perspective, it can really have a positive impact on your friendship. If you both approach all arguments in this way, especially for your first disagreement, it can really set a good tone for dealing with conflict in your friendship (believe me, I know from experience). It helps you be able to navigate feelings and opinions in a way that shows you still care about the other person. It also offers a space for constructive resolutions and genuine apologies to be made and for each friend’s needs to be met.
However, if not properly dealt with, disagreements can lead you to harboring unresolved issues and avoiding conflict completely. This is a very unhealthy way to operate in a friendship (trust me, I also know this from experience). If these issues begin to combine and fester over time, you run the risk of becoming bitter or resentful towards your friendship. These feelings also don’t just go away, they will continue to build and build. When the feelings get too overwhelming, they can lead to a big outburst, one that causes feelings to seriously get hurt or for drastic measures to be taken (like suddenly calling it quits on the friendship).
Entering a new phase of life
Starting a career, getting a partner, getting married, moving or buying a house, having kids, studying, retiring. These are all phases of life that come with their own series of experiences that can cause subsequent change in both you and your lifestyle. If your friend is in the same phase of life as you, it can really bring you closer. This is because they are likely experiencing similar things, allowing them to have insight into what you are going through and vice versa. This allows you to be good supports for each other and deepen your connection through sharing the experiences you encounter.
If you enter into a phase of life that it is different to your friend, or they enter into one that’s different to you, it can cause a change in the friendship. Depending on the phase of life being entered, it can cause feelings of distance, jealousy, envy and more. Also a lack of understanding of what challenges and experiences this new phase of life brings can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings and disappointment. However, if you and your friend are supportive of each other, have good communication and show patience and understanding, it shouldn’t affect the friendship too much.
Other relationships
As you create new friendships or start to invest time and energy in other friendships, it can start to impact and change your current friendship. It might mean you spend less time with them, talk to them less or become less likely to reach out to them for support. This might cause feelings of distance, rejection, frustration, disappointment, jealousy, or envy for you friend. Alternatively, your other relationships may make you closer to your friend than you were previously. Maybe you now rely on your friend more, seek their opinion and support and invite them to build connections with your new friends so that they can remain a consistent part of your life.
Life challenges
Life is full of challenges. These challenges can bring you closer if you choose to support each other through the more difficult times you both experience. These challenges can also cause a negative change in the friendship. This is normally due to a lack of understanding, empathy and good open communication. However, one of the friends shutting the other out can also cause distance and put strain on the friendship.
What To Do When A Friendship Changes
Firstly, when you recognise that you or your friend have started acting differently, or feel like your friendship is different somehow- it’s time to stop and reflect. Give yourself a moment to pause and think about how the friendship might’ve changed. Try to reflect on what might have been the cause of these changes and consider how they may be impacting both you and your friend.
1. Give Yourself A Moment Of Time
Friendship changes are not always an easy experience. Recognise that it is okay to feel an array of emotions when your friendship goes through changes. Depending on the changes, you may be experiencing anything from confusion, sadness, anger and relief to connectedness, joy, and belonging. It’s important to be patient with yourself during this period and give yourself some time to acknowledge and process these feelings.
You need to recogonise and understand where you are to know where you are going next. So take a moment to understand what is going on in your friendship and how it is effecting you. This will help you decide what you need in order to deal with the change and move forward.
2. Initiate Open Communication
Do not skip this step! Good communication is one of the most important aspects of a healthy relationship. Without this step, you run the risk of the changes your friendship is experiencing taking a negative toll on the relationship. To avoid this, here’s what you need to do:
Start a conversation
Make the first move. Reach out to your friend and let them know that you want to talk.
When you get the chance catch up, let them know that you have a concern about the change in the friendship. Then let them have the first chance to express how they have been feeling. You can encourage this by asking them if anything has been going on with them or if they have any concerns about the friendship. Try to be receptive to what they have to tell you and try to listen without getting defensive. There is a chance that what they say might hurt your feelings. However, if you can try to keep your feelings at bay and respond by nodding or saying “I understand”, it will help your friend to continue to be open and honest with you. Even though it hurts, it might help you get to the bottom of things and start to understand where they are coming from.
Then once they have finished sharing and you have responded appropriately, you can share your observations, feelings, and concerns about the changes in the friendship in return. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with your friend.
Actively listen to them
During this conversation, it is important to actively listen to what your friend has to say. Actively paying attention to your friend while they are speaking is a sign of value and respect. If you care about this friendship, then this is a must!
When you calm your thoughts and let what your friend says properly soak in, you can start to build an understanding of their point of view. Understanding their perspective, can give you valuable insight into their reasons behind the changes and their feelings toward them. Seriously, take mental notes. You’ll be surprised about how much you can learn about your friend when you start to properly listen to them.
Reevaluate and reset needs and expectations
Within this conversation, take the chance to clearly express your needs to your friend. Let them know what aspects of the friendship are important to you and take the time to learn what your friend needs are in return. Then discuss both of your expectations for the friendship. You both need to look at whether your expectations for the friendship align with what is currently happening. If your expectations are not in alignment with reality, you either need to readjust your expectations or if the expectations are reasonable, find ways to start ensuring they get met. In addition, if either of your needs are not being fulfilled, work together to explore potential ways for them to be met in the future. By doing this, you are helping to reduce future disappointment and underlying frustrations in the friendship and working to create a healthier more harmonious friendship.
What if the change has been a good thing?
Even if the change has brought good things to the friendship, it is still nice to acknowledge them and share your feelings with your friend. Talking to your friend about any good changes can help reinforce positive feelings about the friendship and bring the two of you closer.
3. Be Prepared To Show Some Flexibility
Friendships, like any relationship, require flexibility. There is always going to be some level of compromise when more than one person is considered. So be open to adapting to the changes to your friend or friendship and finding ways to accept it and move forward in the friendship.
Also, like you, your friend might need a little bit of space to also work through the changes and to grow individually. So, be flexible in allowing them room for personal development and self-discovery in the friendship. Understand that doing this may contribute positively to creating a healthier friendship for you both.
4. Find Ways To Reconnect
After experiencing a big change in a friendship, it is always a good idea to regroup and reconnect. This helps you find your way back to enjoying each other’s company and creating positive memories together. You can do this by:
Rediscovering your common ground:
At some point in time, you both enjoyed doing similar things together or liked similar stuff. It’s time to re-find them! Identify the things you have in common, shared interests or even values that you both share. These things can support with renewing your friendship and gives you a good place from where you can start rekindling the bond you share.
Once you have relearnt what you both share a passion for, invite your friend to start doing some of those things with you. It’ll help you rediscover some joy in your friendship and start strengthening a positive connection with your friend.
Exploring new interests and activities together:
If you want, you could also start from scratch and rebuild a connection through experiencing something new with your friend. Introducing new activities and experiences could bring some excitement and freshness into the friendship. Find something you both might enjoy or something that you are both keen to try and then actually give it a go. You never know, you may find a new passion or hobby that you can both share and connect with.
5. Turn To Your Support Network
If you are finding navigating the changes in your friendship to be a challenge and you need some emotional support, don’t be afraid to reach out. Lean on your support network. Talk to your other friends, reach out to your family or seek professional support from a counselor if needed. These people can provide a supportive ear to listen to you work through the situation you have going on with your friend. They can also give you great outsiders perspectives and valuable insights if you are needing some extra advice during this time. Also, it’s just really nice to know that when you are going through a challenging time, you are not alone and that there is someone standing in your corner supporting you.
So, when in doubt, reach out.
6. Know When It’s Time To Let Go
In some cases, despite talking openly about the changes, adjusting expectations, being flexible and finding ways to reconnect, the friendship change might just too drastic to overcome. Maybe you or your friend have become toxic, maybe the friendship has become unhealthy, or maybe it remains strained despite your efforts. In these cases, the friendship may no longer provide a safe or healthy space for you or your friend to be in. It may also start to do more damage than good for your mental health and happiness. In such cases, it’s important to recognise and consider that it may sadly be in both of your best interests to let go of the friendship and move on.
Phew, that was a lot! Let’s do a quick recap. You’ve now learn that changes in friendships are completely normal and there are a number of things in life that can cause a friendship to change. Some changes may be for the worse but some may actually bring you closer as friends. You’ve also learnt that if you are struggling with the change you are experiencing, the absolute best thing you can do is talk to your friend about it. This will help you decide whether it becomes your reason to let go of your friendship and move on, or whether the change is something you both can deal with and adapt to.
Hopefully, the next time your friendship goes through a change, you feel more equipped to deal with it.
“Friendships have different phases and change over time. All we can really control is ourselves. Be the type of friend you want have.” – Jessica Speer
