When Friendships Expire

Some friendships that I made during low points in my life didn’t last after I healed and stopped people pleasing

Photo by Sam Lion: https://www.pexels.com/photo/charismatic-ethnic-women-on-city-street-5710219/

“Hey Alex, I’m planning a long weekend trip next month! Would you like to come?” “Hey Alex, I’m hosting a birthday party. Would you like to come?” “Hey Alex, how’s it going? Thinking of you.” “Hey Alex, are you planning to do anything for your birthday?” “Hey Alex, happy birthday to you!”

Silence.

Over the last couple of years, I have had two of my long-lasting friends fade away and it’s been weighing on me. These were people who I shared many cozy memories of long-distance trips, BBQs and dinners at home, and heartfelt conversations with. I felt like I had failed somehow when the friendship faded away. I wondered if there was something wrong with me and that was why I kept losing friends. That didn’t make sense though. Some of these friendships lasted for more than fifteen years so obviously they were working for a long time and then something changed.

What I realized is that these friendships started when I was at a bad place in my life. Back then, I lacked boundaries, I could tell things weren’t going well but didn’t know why. I spent a lot of time hashing things over with my friends who acted as stand-in therapists. While it was nice to have some shoulders to cry on, things didn’t get better for me for a long time. I was able to keep these friendships while things weren’t going well because I think those friends were going through similar things and we were all collectively not facing our issues, just going through life on autopilot.

The thing that changed is that I started putting a lot of work into therapy and healing myself emotionally. I managed to turn my life around and started doing better in many areas of my life. I started taking care of my needs. I got into a healthy relationship, whereas previously I was either perpetually single or in unhealthy relationships. I got a better job that paid well and had a supportive manager instead of constantly complaining about the outdated culture in my last company.

I identified several toxic family members who were dragging me down and distanced myself from them. I worked on developing my relationship with my parents and healthy family members and learned to get less triggered by them. I stopped drinking alcohol almost entirely. When I re-introduced my friends to the new version of myself, that’s when my friends noticed a change and our communications tapered off.

I think these two friendships worked earlier in my life because I was in the habit of making myself small so others would feel better. This tendency stemmed from growing up in my competitive family environment where family regularly bullied other family members to make themselves feel better. In this environment, I learned to downplay my accomplishments to remain invisible and less threatening to my insecure relatives.

By operating this way, I kept myself relatively safe, although family members still lashed out at me and tried to put me down. I believe I then unconsciously extended this tendency to shrink myself to my friendships, and I attracted people to me who needed someone like this because they didn’t want to be reminded of their regrets and lack of growth. For so many years, I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until I began to work on unearthing many negative unconscious beliefs and correcting them.

I had a habit of downplaying myself and my achievements so that others could feel better about themselves. Sometimes, I would stop myself from sharing some successful aspect of my life because I know the other person wouldn’t like to hear it. Then if I forget to censor myself, I worry if the other person will stop talking to me. I’ve made disparaging statements about myself so the other person wouldn’t feel threatened. I’ve also let vaguely demeaning statements and backhanded compliments slide as I was worried speaking up would upset the other person.

It was a lot of work having to carefully sense what my friends could handle and then adjust myself accordingly. I was performing intense emotional labor by carefully analyzing what I could and couldn’t say in front of my friends to protect their emotions. I shouldn’t have needed to do that. However, I put up with it at that point in my life because I needed these friends and the benefits of the friendship outweighed the negatives. I was living in a new city and I needed a community, and these women provided it.

There are many negative consequences of constantly shrinking myself for others. For starters, my friends didn’t know my whole personality because I censored some of it. They didn’t know my true achievements, desires, and capabilities. They didn’t meet my boyfriends or other important people in my life. It caused me to lose confidence in myself. Our subconscious believes what we say, so if I tell another person that I don’t think I can do it (even when I think I can), my subconscious will hear this and shape my self-concept. When this is repeated over and over again, I suddenly start to believe that this diminished version of myself is the real me instead of the empowered version of myself.

The biggest consequence of shrinking myself is that I end up attracting the wrong type of people in my life. I end up attracting people who are too inflexible or insecure to see the real me instead of people who see what I can do and encourage me to live to my fullest potential. The people I surround myself with make up my community. Over time, being constantly exposed to these negative people can shape my life trajectory to be small instead of expansive.

“If you’ve ever worn underwear that’s a few sizes too small, that’s what it can feel like when you are constantly making yourself smaller to help others around you feel bigger. In this case, making yourself smaller means repressing your true personality, thoughts, desires, and self around others simply because…they can’t handle the truth.” — Bruce Y. Lee M.D., M.B.A.

I noticed with certain friends that they couldn’t be enthusiastic about my accomplishments or when good things happened in my life. Once, I shared some good news with my friend.

“Hey Alex, I got a promotion!”

Many minutes passed. Finally, my phone pinged, “Congrats! Have you gotten an iPhone yet?”

I paused as I stared at my phone. I was thrown off and confused about this response. Her “Congrats!” seemed to ring hollow to me. A good friend would have asked some questions and shared more enthusiasm than a one-word acknowledgement of such an achievement.

I increasingly felt that my role in the friendship was to reassure her that she wasn’t falling behind. Perhaps she was insecure. In addition, she seemed to be very concerned with status and whether someone appeared to be doing better than her (hence her question about me buying an iPhone). I noticed that she focused on things like job status, relationship status, symbols of success like expensive phones, cars, and houses. I cared deeply for her, but I rarely felt fully seen, celebrated, or cherished in the friendship for being myself.

In my other friendship, I felt like I had to hide my romantic relationships. Although we had known each other for almost fifteen years, I never once met a man she was dating. We talked about it plenty — it was one of our main conversation topics — but I only heard of these men and never met one of them in person. It didn’t occur to me as strange until recently.

On my end, I introduced her to a few of my ex-boyfriends. However, I had a hunch that things might not go well when I introduced her to my most recent partner and my suspicions were confirmed. She brought up embarrassing stories about me and threw a tantrum. She did tell me that she often got bored and restless after being in a relationship for a few months and that’s why they didn’t last for her. I guess that she could see our paths were diverging. The heartfelt birthday and Christmas cards that we exchanged every year started to taper off, and eventually, she wasn’t even returning my texts.

I had a funny notion that I’ve carried around with me for years: that I couldn’t be in a healthy relationship and have friends at the same time. It was difficult to explain, yet I suspected that somewhere deep down it could be true. I’m realizing now that this is true, although I would amend my statement to: I couldn’t be in a healthy relationship and still be friends with certain people at the same time, mainly this one friend.

“The ending of any relationship teaches us something. It could show us some unhealthy patterns we have in our relationship. For example, maybe we don’t have the best boundaries or we keep having the same issues with people. When one ends, we can more clearly see what went wrong and that can help us prepare for future relationships so we don’t keep making the same mistakes.” — Kati Morton

I’ve decided that I’m going to stop people-pleasing. I’m not going to shrink myself anymore just because other people can’t handle it. Previously, I might have told a friend that I received a raise, and then minimized it by saying, “It’s not a big raise though.” Now, I will fully acknowledge it by saying, “I worked really hard and I deserved the raise.” I will tell my friends the truth instead of having to guess ahead of time whether they can handle it or not.

Similarly, when I have someone special in my life, I will introduce him to all my friends instead of hiding him. My friends’ reactions will give me important information. If they are happy for me, they are a good fit in my life. If they are not, then I may need to evaluate how much to invest in the friendship.

Imagine how much more fun I can have with my friends, and how much more energy I’d have to plan and enjoy fun times with my friends when I’m not worrying about what other people think and having to choose what I say carefully because of it. In the end, it’s better to seek and be around people who appreciate who I am and encourage me to be myself.

Two people can outgrow friendships, whether it is because of diverging paths, lifestyle changes, values misalignment, life transitions, or personal growth. Sometimes people who know us through our wounds have difficulty relating to us after we heal because the relationship was built around needs that no longer exist. I know that I have to accept when friendships have run their course. Sometimes, I reach out as many times as I can and it’s up to the other person to reciprocate. It’s a two-way street. If the other person is silent and not actively making an effort, there’s nothing I can do.

Although I know now that there were some unhealthy dynamics in my friendships, I still miss my friends’ presence now that I don’t see them anymore. They meant very much to me in the time we were friends, and they were a part of my life for a long time. They saw me through many ups and downs. I know I can make new friends, especially focusing on healthier friends, but that will not replace the fifteen years of history I had with my former friends.

As I have moved forward on my healing journey, some of my other friends are happy for me when they see the positive changes I have made. A few of my friends are curious about what I’ve done differently. I know I can keep these friends who will be supportive and cheer me on as I build my life. I can bring them with me forward in my life. If people are intimidated, they’ll exit my life naturally.

If they are moving in the same direction, I don’t think they would be intimidated and would be interested in getting to know me better. It hasn’t been an easy transition, even with the support of my therapist and partner. However, as I let go of expired friendships, I look forward to filling the space that has opened up in my life with friendships that are more balanced and equitable and with people who are on a similar life path as me. I think a more rewarding social life will follow naturally.