How to accept that a friendship is over

6 steps to understanding and acceptance

A close friendship is both a delight and a comfort. It’s a journey of pure joy and intellectual stimulation. Friends are like a uniquely tailored drug for your soul. And despite this, or sometimes because of this, friendships do end. Here are the steps you must take to accept that a friendship is over.

• Accept your own shortcomings.
• Do initiate a conversation with your former friend.
• Make an inventory about what the friendship taught you.
• Make a funeral for the friendship.
• Take the time to grieve.
• Slowly move on.

The magic of a close friendship

There is a special form of closeness between you and a really good friend. The feeling is like no one else. There is trust, joy, humor and deep intellectual conversation. The connection between the two of you is often like nothing you have ever experienced before.

And despite all this magical joy, we often lose our friends. Sometimes big life events occur. There are new jobs, new boyfriends, and new countries that can come in between the two of you. For one reason or another, the friendship ends, which can be hard to accept. This difficulty is in itself a testament to the fact that close friends are just that special and important to us. They are, and they should be.

If you are the one who chose to end the friendship, read our article about ending a close friendship.

I still miss her

I still think of my best friend from ten years ago, even though we haven’t talked for a long time. She doesn’t answer my email and my texts anymore. I still miss her. The special bond we had is one that I, to this day, don’t have with anyone else.

When it comes to you and your best friend, you might tell her thing you have never told anyone before. The two of you have gone through traumatic things and, because of this, become even closer. You have a history.

When a friendship ends, it’s a combination between your actions and your friend’s actions. It’s not entirely your fault, but it is also not entirely her fault. If you accept this dual responsibility, you will have a much easier time moving on from the friendship.

Accept your own shortcomings

Your friend might have ditched you. But there was a reason she did this. Maybe you haven’t treated her the way she deserves to be treated? Sometimes we start taking our close friendships for granted. Maybe you haven’t invested in the friendship the way you should have done?

Not blaming her for the end of the friendship is an important part of accepting that a friendship is over.

The more honest you can be with yourself about your part in why the friendship didn’t work out, the easier it will be to move on. If you blame everything on her, you will hold on to your bitterness and resentment for a long time.

Why did you choose her?

You should also acknowledge the fact that you chose her as a friend. It was an active choice you made and thus you are responsible for the consequences of that choice. What was it about her that you liked and that you felt drawn to?

The things we seek in others often tell us a lot about ourselves. What do your friendship and the failure of that friendship tell you about yourself? Was she more serious or more fun-loving than you? Are there other ways you can address the issues that draw you close to her and that she gave you by being part of your life?

Every person in your life is also a reflection of you and what’s going on inside you.

Some friendships can turn toxic. If you suspect this is the case, it can help you to learn more about manipulative behavior.

Do initiate a conversation

Ask her politely if the two of you can meet and talk. If she agrees, listen to what she has to say and try to understand her point of view. The better you can understand why she wants to end the friendship, the easier it will be for you to accept that r´the friendship is over. Take a couple of deep breaths and just listen.

If she doesn’t want to see you give her some time. She might change her mind later on.

Write her a letter

If she doesn’t change her mind, write her a letter and describe everything you feel in regard to the friendship. Tell her why you think the friendship didn’t work out and which of your actions you regret. Put pen to paper (or possibly an email) and do a postmortem of the friendship.

If you really want, you can give her the letter. But I recommend keeping the letter for yourself and for your own personal development.

She might have her reason for not wanting to communicate, respect her wishes. To accept that she doesn’t owe you anything is an important step of moving on from a close friendship.

Make an inventory about what the friendship taught you

When you accept that a friendship is over, you should also analyze which lessons you will take away from the friendship. You can write this down because writing things down is ridiculously effective. Or you can just go for a walk and think about this question and come up with your own answer.

Doing this exercise gives the friendship extra value. She wasn’t just your friend; she taught you things. You are a better person because of her role in your life. You didn’t simply waste your time loving her.

She is valuable

This practice will help you accept that a friendship is over. You will know why the friendship was valuable for you and which lessons you take from the friendship, moving forward with your life. Everyone that enters our life teaches us things. They teach us practical skills (Did she teach you how to drive a car or how to repair a bike?).

On top of possible practical skills, the people who have been part of our lives teach us things about ourselves and what a friendship can be. They give us something to strive towards. Value the lessons you gained from your friendship and you will have an easier time moving on.

Make a funeral for the friendship

As humans, we have rituals to make sense of our lives here. Those rituals are often centered around celebrating milestones such as graduation and marriage. But rituals are also a powerful tool to acknowledge your grief and to find closure when something doesn’t work out as you had hoped.  

Thus, one of the best ways to finally accept that a friendship is over is to arrange a funeral for the friendship.

Trust me, give it a try

This step might sound melodramatic and gimmicky, but trust us on this one. One of the hard things about moving on from a friendship is that the end is often muddled with back-and-forth action, with hope and despair. You might have spent months trying to make the friendship work again.

A funeral will give you a final ending, a final goodbye.

Bring something that has a strong association with the friendship to a place where you and your friend have spent time together. Light candles, listen to songs that remind you of the friendship, think about all the great conversations and amazing times you have had with your friend. Cry for the friendship. Tears are an excellent way to heal and move on. Allow yourself to be really fuking sad.

Finally, say goodbye to your friend. Wish her a happy and long life.

Take the time to grief

Sometimes we don’t acknowledge our own sadness. Instead, we keep distracting ourselves with social media, travels and new hobbies. Don’t make this mistake. You have lost something that was extremely important to you. Honor your own sadness.

When a friendship has come to an end, work your way through your different feelings. Pull them out in the daylight and take a look at them and accept them for what they are. When it comes to our friends, we often have a big mix of different feelings, anger, frustration, sadness, jealousy. Accept your different feeling and spend a suitable amount of time analyzing them.

Your feelings are justified

The important thing is to not suppress your feelings. Don’t ignore them and don’t try and distract yourself. Stay with your feelings, be in that moment. Feel your feelings without shame.

Grieving the end of a friendship should be a process. You move through the different stages of grief over a period of time. For example, you can be angry, melancholic, feel betrayed. When it comes to friendship, the feelings are complex. Negative and positive feelings often exist next to each other. In the end, you should feel compassion and generosity towards your friend. By allowing the negative feeling to arise, you work through them and you come out a better person on the other side.

After a loss, we often want to fill that deep void with anything we can. At this phase, try and not to move on too quickly. If the friendship was significant to you, treat the ending as an important event. Grieve the friendship you once had with your former friend.

Slowly move on

The first months, or even the first years, after a friendship has ended, there will be a hole in your life. You will reach for the phone to tell your friend something, only to remember that she is no longer part of your life.

There will be many similar instances when it comes to big life events. She will not share your joy or your struggle. She should have been there, but she is not. As time goes by, this hole should become smaller. You should make a couple of new friends and develop new passions.

There is no need to try and speed up this process. Moving on from a friendship takes time. But make sure you start connecting with other people. To develop a new identity outside of the friendship that once was, is the final step when it comes to accepting that a friendship is over.

A final Note

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your friendship was not important just because your friend chose to end the friendship. She has her reasons, some of those reasons was outside your control. Acknowledge exactly how important your friend was to you, and move on despite this. Be an even better friend to the friends you do have.