Losing an important friendship hurts as much as losing a love. It is an emotional support, a source of joy, a piece of us that goes away forever. Turning the page isn't easy.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2022
Losing a friendship is the cause of sometimes unbearable pain. As clear as everyone is the difference between partner and friend, in reality losing the daily support, confidence, laughter and shared experiences that only a friendship can give, can be comparable to the end of a relationship.
All of us, whether we like it or not, we have to face a series of physical and emotional suffering throughout our lives. The latter, the most frequent and perhaps the most painful, can involve the breakup of a love relationship as well as a friendship.
At bottom, the human being is deeply social and empathetic, and it is therefore natural to seek, beyond one's partner, other bonds and friendships. A friend represents an inestimable value, a relationship that enriches and gives psychological health thanks to its power to remove worries and stress, generating positive and reciprocal situations.
Yet, many relationships are destined to end sooner or later. A triggering episode does not always occur, sometimes distancing and coldness appear almost naturally. This happens especially with reaching maturity, when people begin to be more selective about their relationships.
Some studies such as the one conducted by the University of Oxford in England, show us that from the age of 30 we begin to prefer the quality of a friendship over quantity. Nonetheless, However, losing a friend is most of the time a pain, with often greater repercussions than in the case of a couple relationship.
“Friendship is more difficult and rarer than love. For this reason it must be kept as it is. "
-Alberto Moravia-
Losing a friendship, an unexpected breakup
It is worth reflecting on an interesting fact that comes to us from Tel Aviv University. A study conducted by Dr. Laura Radaelli indicates how people do not have enough data to determine whether a person will turn out to be a true friend or not.
In many cases, we are reluctant to accept the uncertainty of friendship and the idea that it can fail. Furthermore, many times the value we attach to a friendship is not paid in the same way by the other person.
Because losing a friendship causes great pain
The pain of breaking a friendship is proportional to the importance that friendship had for us. It doesn't matter if it's a childhood friend or if the relationship is recent. Losing a friendship is painful for the following reasons:
- We lose emotional support. We untie ourselves from a person who offered us support that others close to us could not give us
- A complicity vanishes from one moment to the next, a refuge where we relieved pains and shared smiles.
- We see our expectations broken. We used to take that relationship for granted. Sometimes, we attribute the same importance to a certain friendship as our romantic relationship, convinced that it will always represent a point of support for us.
Last but not least, losing a friendship can be traumatic as it undermines a person's concept of loyalty. This is often a real attack on trust, causing perhaps the most painful wound. Discovering that you have been betrayed, deceived or that private information has been disclosed to other people can lead to profound trauma.
How to deal with the breakup of a friendship?
Accepting the breakup of a friendship, if it was very meaningful to us, involves feeling pain. As much as we can get used to having friends come and go, there are relationships that leave deeper grooves than others. To deal with the pain, the advice is to focus on the good moments lived and on what we have learned from that friendship, giving priority to all that we have shared.
If we focus our gaze on disappointment, the effort we will have to make to move on will be greater. Grudges are bad travel companions, which set limits, sow mistrust and raise walls in front of the possibility of returning to socialize.
As Robert Louis Stevenson said, a friend is a gift we give to ourselves. He found this treasure in fellow writer Henry James. Although they only met two or three times in their entire life, they managed to build a very strong correspondence friendship from which they drew support in difficult times.
It is not easy to find again a person who can represent a treasure or a real beacon of our life. Yet that person is there, often closer to us than we think.
