How To Cope When Friendships Change

15 life-changing strategies and insights

Over the course of our life, our friendships are bound to change. This change can happen at any point and for a wide variety of reasons. Since our friendships often are important to us, it can be jarring, even upsetting, when they change.

To fully understand what’s going on, let’s first take a look at 10 of the top reasons why friendship change. Understanding what’s going on is one of the 5 best ways to cope when friendships change. We will also take a look at the top strategies you can use to handle an unwelcome change in your friendship.

10 reasons why friendship change

1. When someone gets a partner

Our love life also strongly affects our friendship map. When a change occurs in our relationship status, it often inflicts the relationship we have to our friends. The most classic example of this is when someone falls in love and stops spending time with their friends.

The opposite can also happen; your friend ends her relationship and as a result, change a lot of her habits.

Or, maybe you are the one who has a new partner and because of this your best friend is acting cold and distant. Having a child also falls under this category, since it is a major change in someone’s family’s circumstances.

The exact circumstances may vary a lot, but the basic truth is that something changed in your friend’s love life and as a result, your friendship changed.

2. When someone changes job/school

This is the second most common reason why friendships change. A lot of friendships are glued together by common ground in the form of a job or school.

When you see each other almost every day, it doesn’t take as much effort to sustain a friendship.

But when someone quits their job, or when a program ends, the change in how two friends relate can shift monumentally.

4. When someone moves away 

This is similar to the point above. Close friends usually live in the same city, or even in the same neighborhood. It’s part of the human survival instinct to form a close bond with people who live at a close approximation.

I think we have all experienced the struggle to keep the same closeness when one of our friends moves away.

The friendship is bound to change. The same mechanism is at work when you are the one who has moved.

5. When someone stops partying

This is a classic reason as for why friendships change, especially when it comes to younger people.

We all have different phases of our life and those phases don’t always correspond to what’s going on in our friend’s life. Some people get a family early on, while others choose to travel the world. When you don’t share the same experience as your friend, it is easy to start drifting apart.

The two of you are focused on different things and usually you also find other friends who share the same focus. Connection is based, to a certain extent, on a shared experience.

So when one of you stop going out, it is easy to struggle to keep the closeness. Friendship is a bond formed over socializing and many people are used to doing this outside of their homes. When someone stops going out, the whole friendship might transform as a result.

6. Being dumped by a friend

It’s quite possible that you are googling when friendship change because you were not the one instigating the change. On top of that, you are not happy with the change.

You just wish that things would go back to the way they used to be. Basically, you have been dumped by your friend and you don’t even know why.

This is more common than you think. The truth is that your friend might not even know why she doesn’t spend so much time with you anymore.

It is also possible that she has a reason. Find out if this is the case by having an honest and vulnerable conversation to try and figure out where she is coming from.

If you asked her already and she hasn’t given you a reason, this might be because people don’t always self-reflect enough to figure out why they act the way they act.

7. She found new friends

I’m not going to sugarcoat this one; it hurts when your friend seems to have replaced you. She found a new gang to hang with, or she found a new BFF and she seems totally smitten.

Be aware that this can be a pattern in her life. She might switch friend groups every other year. Some people thrive on the energy that comes with new friends.

New friendships can have a similar allure to falling in love.

Maybe your friend is a serial monogamist when it comes to friends.

8. A bid for intimacy was rejected

No, I don’t mean that one friend made a pass on the other friend. (Even if that happens as well.)

Rather, every relationship is an evolving dance striving for more intimacy. Maybe your friend told you something personal and you didn’t respond the right way. Or she always rejects your offers of more closeness.

We all have expectations of what a close friendship is supposed to look and feel like. Often those expectations are not verbalized. This ecosystem is more sensitive than you might believe.

This is the core reason why some people have deeper and more meaningful friendships than other people. They are better at the very specific kind of closeness that is necessary for a friendship to develop.

9. When someone gets busy

Let’s be honest: friendships are, for most of us, pretty low on the priority list.

We want a romantic relationship, we want to be successful, and we also want to pursue different passions while at the same time staying healthy. All of this is already a handful. Throw in friendship in the mix and you have one very busy schedule.

Friendship is one of those things that when it’s working, we don’t pay it any attention to. We expect our friendships to run smoothly. No one goes to friendship-therapy.

Because of how generally overlooked friendships are, when someone gets a little bit busier in another area of their life, friendships are often the first thing out the door.

10. Jealous friends

While doing research for this article, I came across a lot of people having experience with jealous friends, or they themselves being jealous of friends.

This is apparently a common reason when friendships change. It can also co-exist with the reasons I have mentioned above.

Something happens in your friend’s life that sparks jealousy in one of you. Maybe the jealousy is not conscious, but nevertheless, it acts as a catalysator for whatever change is taking place. This dynamic is especially common when it comes to friends finding a partner or advancing in their careers. To find out everything you need to know about jealous friends, read article 11 sings of jealous friends.

It is also worth mentioning toxic friendships. The change can happen because your friendship has led to unhealthy dynamics. I recommend my article 7 signs of a toxic friendship, to find out more.

Your friendship-change can also be due to a combination of reasons

Maybe it’s not one thing that has made you lose your friendship the way you knew it; more often than not, it’s a combination of several of the reasons above.

Our lives are constantly evolving, and our different friendships don’t always keep up.

We have many things competing for our attention and often, we take our friendships for granted.

We don’t realize that a fulfilling friendship takes energy and effort.

If you don’t feel fulfilled in your friendship, maybe you haven’t put in the work necessary? I strongly recommend (no pun intended) checking out my article The secrets to strong friendships, for a comprehensive guide on the subject.

What was enough effort one year, might simply not do the trick anymore.

4 ways to cope when friendships change

1. Reach out and have an honest conversation

If you haven’t done it yet, this is the first step when friendship change. Watch a Brene Brown video about vulnerability and make a bullet-point list of what you want to tell your friend. To be able to reach your friend, it’s important that you start by expressing your feelings in a non-judgmental way.

At the end of the day, our friends don’t owe us closeness. Friendship is a choice and one that we constantly have to keep on making.

Instead of blaming them for the change, express how you miss them and the important part they play in your life.

If you can take the truth, do ask them about what has changed. The feedback you get might sting, but it can be very valuable to bring to your next friendship.

2. Acceptance

Friendships are trickier than one might believe.

There are a lot of things that need to be present to create an amazing, inspiring friendship. Both people need to be invested in the relationship. Both people need to put in the time and effort to build and sustain a close friendship. The friendship-chemistry needs to be there, as well as the ingredients for a long-term commitment friendship.

So when a friendship changes, you have to work towards accepting your friendship for what it is, exactly at this moment.

Don’t beat yourself up for the mistake you might have made. Also, don’t blame yourself for not being able to keep the friendship the way you want it.

Instead, give yourself the closeness you long for. We are all our own best friends. We often crave from others what we don’t give enough of to ourselves.

3. Find new common ground

If both you and your friend agree on working on the friendship, the most effective thing to do this is by finding things to do together that both of you like.

Friendships blossom over a shared interest and shared experiences. Knowing this, you can proceed with creating this exact breading ground. Pick a fun activity and get cracking. The connection between people also happens when both are immersed in a shared passion.

If you are the one who is most dedicated to the friendship, you might have to join your friend on their playing field. Show up to the activities your friend appreciates, and your relationship will improve.

When friendships change, you might have to change to keep the closeness.

4. Make new friends

Ok, so friendship is a bit like dating. The more alternatives you have, the less desperate you become (and the more likely that you manage to snare a catch.) So when you feel desperate for your former friend, the solution is to make new friends.

Sure, they won’t live up to the same high standard as your friend, at least not right away. But that is not the point, the point is for you to become better at becoming close to people.

Making friends is a skill and one that can be improved.

Check out my article How to make new friends in your 30s, it’s full of good strategies regardless of your age.

5. Work on yourself

This is one of those nondescriptive pieces of advice that all relationship experts hand out. And I’m no exception. The reason why this advice is so popular is that our outer landscape is always a reflection of our inner landscape. We are attracted to the things that we lack in our relationship with ourselves. For example, if we are dismissive of our own feelings, we tend to seek out dismissive friends. The people that enter your life are not random, you are the one who invites them.

It’s a bit depressing realizing everything is your fault. It’s also simultaneously empowering. You are in control; you are capable of change.

How to work on yourself

You work on yourself by treating yourself with the care and consideration you would offer to a dear friend. Sit down, light a candle, and make a list of the things you would want to change in your life. Follow through. Take care of yourself.

Become more spiritual by practicing mindfulness, meditating and spending more time in nature.

Deep down, you know what you need more of and what you need less of.

A final note

Friendships are important. Some of our friendship is more fulfilling and everlasting than family relationship and romantic relationships. Having friendships is also a crucial area when it comes to your general well-being. It’s nothing you can skip. You need friendships. Our biological blueprint values friendship.

Friendships always evolve. Now when you understand why, I’m confident that you will be able to keep up.