How to Repair a Friendship

The first step on how to repair a friendship is to acknowledge how important friendships are. Great friendships are among the most fulfilling, amazing and fun things in this sweet life of ours.

Our friends inspire us to be brave, creative, and generally better versions of ourselves.

How to Repair a Friendship – The crash course

Give your friend the space she needs.

Don’t worry that she might forget about you; she won’t.

Take the space you need to find your individuality outside of the friendship.

Look at your behavior, and determine in which way your behavior led to the current situation.

Have a different conversation with your friend. Make sure you don’t repeat the same accusations and demands. Be honest and vulnerable.

Find something the two of you can do together to help you connect as the people you are right now.

Why friendships sometimes fail

A good friendship is like an ecosystem of its own.

There are places, songs, and jokes that belong to the two of you. Because of this unique landscape, it’s also easy to become too close and dependent on our friends.

When our lives change, we often need time to figure out how the friendship fits our new reality.

A friendship that lasts for years or even decades needs plenty of flexibility to adjust to all the different things that will happen to us. Don’t expect your friendship to be as it has always been.

Allow change to happen.

Is your friendship worth saving?

Generally speaking, friendships are precious and worth saving. But you can only repair your friendship if your friend is equally dedicated to making the reparations necessary.

Relationships take work and dedication, which is true for friendships as well as romantic relationships.

Go through the steps I outline below, and show her how important she is to you.

Also, give her plenty of time and space to figure things out on her own. But after a while, you have to figure out where she stands and if your friendship means as much to her as it does to you. Also, make sure that the friendship is not toxic; 7 Signs of a Toxic friendship.

Is she equally invested?

Somewhere in this process, you have to ask her if she wants to save your friendship. Your friendship is only worth saving if the two of you are on the same page.

If you want to save the friendship for lack of other friendships, I recommend checking out our article How to find friends in your 30s. Try to repair your friendship from a place of abundance mentality.

With that caveat out of the way, let’s dig into exactly how to repair a friendship.

1. Give her space

Friendships are complicated things. When you have a friendship fallout, the problem is probably deeper than what you have acknowledged.

Your life decisions and her life decisions most likely play a part in the friendship break. Often friendships change their forms because life changes us. We might move, find a new job, fall in love, or start a family.

Allow the friendship to breath

All of those instances can push us away from our friends. Don’t take her new reality as an attack on you or your choices.

If it’s your new reality that pushes her away, give her time to accept you as the person you are right now.

She needs to figure things out

Whatever your friend’s new reality is, give her a suitable amount of time to discover who she is right now. If you are special to her, she will come back.

She just needs some space to adjust to her new life and figure out how you fit in the picture. Sometimes the best way to repair a friendship is to just chill for a while before you take the initiative to rekindle the friendship spark.

A friendship worth saving will survive a quiet period.

The problem can be both of you

Sometimes it’s not her, and it’s not you; it’s a combination of two people that becomes toxic.

It’s kind of like when you mix two chemical solutions and they start to bubble.

On their own, they were stable. Together they are a volcano. If this is the case with your friendship, you can take time apart to become stronger as individuals.

Maybe one of you, or both of you, are frustrated with your life situation and need time to figure out what to do. As friends, we sometimes need to give each other space without worrying that the friendship is over. And that’s why it is a good idea to take a break.

2. Have a different conversation

You might think that you and your friend tell each other everything. Or, at the very least, that the two of you could tell each other everything if you wanted to.

This is simply not true. In all relationships, there are conversations we are not having. There are painful things we might avoid talking about. But when your friendship is on the line, you have to be brave.

To repair your friendship, you have to acknowledge the dirty embarrassing things about yourself.

Are you jealous of your friend? Resentful? Do you feel that she is more successful than you?

Take a look at some harsh truths

Whatever uncomfortable truth is hidden beneath everything you do talk about, try to bring it up. Be vulnerable and see how she responds.

She will probably feel inspired to do the same when you take the lead and bring up things you never talked about. Listen to what she has to say.

Share your secrets

Many times the best way forward for a friendship is to allow the two of you to go deeper. To acknowledge the dark rooms in your souls, the hidden spaces you have previously left alone.

You can check out How to get someone to open up emotionally. These strategies work on friendships as well.

Try to find out her reasons

If you feel your friend is pulling away from you, you should ask her why.

This simple question might open up a different kind of conversation. Be honest and simply state your feelings; I miss you.

Pick a quiet environment when the two of you have lots of time.

Make sure you listen more than you speak if you are serious about repairing the friendship.

Try not to get stuck in things you have told each other before, find new approaches and angles and focus on having a conversation that is different from all the conversations you have had before.

3. Take a break

This point is similar to the one about giving her space. But this one you should implement after you have had the different (difficult) conversation.

This break will give both of you time to heal and reflect on the new things you have found out about each other. Unlike a romantic relationship, a friendship is more likely to survive and even thrive after a break.

If you feel your friend withdrawing more and more from you, be strong and give her plenty of time on her own. We easily lose ourselves in close relationships. Sometimes, we need the space to find out who we are without the other person in our life.

Let her breathe

She needs a break.

Respect that, and don’t guilt-trip her when she comes back. Everyone is justified in taking care of themselves and their mental health. She doesn’t owe you anything. No other human owns you anything. So don’t behave like she is your property or your therapist.

I know you miss her, and I know everyone else seems pale in comparison. But nothing can take away just how special your friendship is.

4. Don’t bring all the old things to your “new” friendship

When you rekindle the friendship flame, it’s a good idea to view the friendship partly as a new friendship. Renegotiate the terms of the friendship.

I don’t mean that you should sit down, like two generals, and have a negotiation, even if you could do that too.

I mean that a person might be too much in big doses but amazing in smaller doses.

If you have a tight friendship, the risk is that you have become too close. Yes, there is such a thing.

Start including her in your life again

What you need is your friendship in smaller doses. An amazing friendship takes up a lot of time and mental space. But often in our lives, we want to give a bit of all that space to a romantic partner, careers and hobbies. That’s OK.

After the break, treat the friendship as a new exciting thing, keep your expectation low and don’t fall back into the same friendship.

Take things slow and accept that you might never be those two people spending New Year’s Eve in your bed, watching black and white movies and drinking champagne. (She has other plans now.)

5. Consider your own behavior

I will let you in on a little secret about humans. We all think we are the one who gives the most. We think we clean the most, we think we pay the most, and we think we listen the most.

If your friend seems distant from you, the reason most likely is that she feels she has been giving more than she is receiving. There are many different ways people give to each other. So even if you feel like you have given a lot to her and to the friendship, she might have given more in other areas.

Do apologize

If you know you have misbehaved or hurt your friend in any way, it’s time for an apology.

The more insightful and honest you can be about your own behavior, the more likely she will accept your apology.

Listen to what she has to say and try to view the situation from her standpoint. A heartfelt apology is one of the best ways to repair a broken friendship.

6. Charm her when you want to repair a broken friendship

You have taken a break, and given her plenty of space. You have critically examined your own behavior. Thanks to all this work, you have a pretty good idea about what went wrong between the two of you.

Now it’s time to win her back. The way you go about this is that you charm her the way you charmed her when the two of you first became friends. Let’s call this part “the seduction.”

Play to your strength

There was a reason the two of you clicked, to begin with. Think back to that time. Think back to who you were and what was your strong side?

Was it your humor? Was it a particular interest the two of you shared?

When you meet up with your friend, make sure that you play to your strongest sides and wow her all over again with your humor and everything else you have to offer that makes you unique.

7. Find what your passion is right now

A lot of friendships don’t end because there is a lack of love. Friendship normally ends because you don’t have so much common ground anymore. Examples of this are that you stopped living next to each other, or you don’t study together, or you don’t work in the same place.

You have probably both shifted your lifestyles and your interest.

We change during our life. What was our biggest interest at one time is most likely not our biggest interest a couple of years later. How we like to spend our time in our twenties is not the same as how we like to spend our time in our thirties.

When we were young

My best friend and I used to stay up all night, watch trashy TV (Army wives, millionaire matchmaker), eat takeaway sushi, smoke cigarettes (inside!) and talk for hours. That was our thing, our routine and it was fantastic.

We always had the ambition to go out, to meet other people, but most days, we didn’t.  

I don’t know what we would do if we were still friends today. But I do know that it would have to be different. I’m not that person anymore. In the same way, you and your friend have to find what your friendship is today.

Find something new to connect over. Do something new together.

A Final Note

Don’t give up on your friendship. Fight for your friendship. But by fighting for your friendship, I don’t mean obsessively calling and texting her and confronting her with her lack of presence in your life.

I mean the opposite; give her all the space she needs.

Let her enjoy you in small doses.

When you do spend time together, make sure it is quality time.

If she acts distant, there is nothing you can do. Just let her be herself.

You being kind and generous enough to give her exactly what she needs might just be the reason why she chooses to come back.