Friendships Change: Embrace The Beauty of an Evolving Bond
Friendships change as people change; it’s one of those bittersweet facts of life. Someone you once shared a deep, meaningful connection with may feel like they are slipping away, becoming less relatable or familiar to you. Perhaps time has gotten the better of your bond. Or distance. Or a set of circumstances within or out of your control. Whatever the reason, coping with a change in friendships can be difficult.
It’s normal to fall into nostalgia and long for the way things used to be once you realize something’s different. As creatures of habit, we long for patterns and routines that make us feel comfortable and safe. So when we start to sense a shift in our relationships, however slight, we tend to take notice. This is especially true if you’ve spent years building a bond with someone you’ve come to love inside and out – despite knowing all of their flaws and the skeletons in their closets.
If you’re navigating through unknown territory in a friendship in your life, there may be good news. It turns out, as much as we are creatures of habit, humans also crave novelty and growth. A change in your friendship may not necessarily signal the end of something beautiful – but the beginning of something new.
Read on to determine if your changing friendship is one worth fighting for. Then, discover ways to embrace those changes rather than resisting them!
Friendships Change, Is Yours Worth Fighting For?
So long as the change in your friendship isn’t the result of toxic, red-flag behavior, it’s worth pushing through your discomfort and fear of rejection to explore a long-term bond. There are two wonderful gifts you can give both yourself and your friend: space and grace.
Take time to navigate through your feelings and concerns and mourn your past with this special person. Offer them the space they need to do the same. Keep space in your heart for a vision of what continuing the relationship in the future might look like.
Lastly, extend grace during moments that may feel uncomfortable, stressful, or unfamiliar. Remind yourself that your friend is just as human as you are and that he or she may very well be feeling what you’re feeling. Erring on the side of grace, you’ll be more likely to assume their intentions are good and avoid negative self-talk spirals that can often morph into self-sabotage.
As You Grow, Your Friendships Grow
Just as you benefit from evolving over time, so do your relationships. The truth is, strong friendships should change over time. Without significant change, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to establish real trust, forge lasting emotional connections, and navigate through the tricky bits of life together. You’d remain stagnant and your friends would likely leave you feeling unfilled.
Building A Rich, Layered History
As tempting as it can be to walk away when you’re feeling challenged by uncertainty, think of what you might lose by doing so. If you consider your friends the family that you get to choose, then you can begin to look at some of your close friendships as lifelong commitments. By doing that, you might be more inclined to view your current dynamic as just one layer in the rich tapestry of history you’re building together. This will allow you to weather some of the rocky patches with this goal in mind: to have friends by your side whom you know intimately and value deeply.
Learning to Communicate Your Concerns
Ultimately, what ends up coming between a lot of friends is not necessarily the changing circumstances but the lack of communication around those changes. If you’re struggling with your feelings for a friend, share that with them. This is a great opportunity to ditch the people-pleasing traits you’ve picked up as a young girl and express your needs. You’ll feel lighter having set your truth free (reminding yourself that her reaction or feelings are not your responsibility). Plus, you may just pave the way for open, healthy communication for the rest of your friendship!
Going The Distance
The health of friendships will, to some degree, always hang in a delicate balance. They require two willing, vulnerable participants, a spark of magic to fuse the bond, and a lot of commitment from both people to evolve that bond over time. The effort pays off in dividends, though: there is nothing more rewarding than having people in the world who see you and accept you just as you are. Even if those friendships change over time.
