When Karyn* was in her late 20s, she dreaded meeting up with her best friend. She and Elaine* had been friends since their secondary school days and went through all of life’s ups and downs together. However, over the two preceding years especially, Karyn felt the two of them just weren’t on the same wavelength anymore.
“She was married with a child and I was single and having fun but also focusing on my career,” Karyn recalls. “But it was more than just having different paths in life. She became very judgy and questioned my decisions and actions. It became a chore psyching myself up for our monthly catch-up sessions. But I didn’t know how to – or if I even should – end the friendship.”
Karyn isn’t alone in feeling this way. It’s not you, it’s me – have you ever felt that way about a friendship? Many of us go through this experience of drifting away from our longtime friends or sometimes even feeling like we have outgrown each other. Unfortunately, breaking up with a friend is a lot trickier than doing so with a life partner.
Ending a friendship can be a very painful process. Often, it involves someone you’ve known for many years and it’s not easy to let go of that relationship as well as the memories and emotions attached to it. However, if you find yourself in a situation where – for whatever reason – you can no longer be with that friend, it’s perfectly okay to say goodbye.