Ever get into a fight with one of your friends?
Yeah, that has happened to all of us at least one time in our lives. There are times when you will fight with your friends but then make up and put it behind you. However, there are other times where you start having problems with a friend, fight and then not make up after that, thus ending a friendship. Losing a friend like that can be terrible, but it is OK if you have to end a friendship.
Just recently, a similar situation happened to me with a former friend. Over the past few months, we had a lot of different things going on in our lives (from things at work to school and relationships, the latter really playing into what happened). When my friend started this new relationship, our group of friends and I were very happy for them. I knew that we probably would not be around each other as much, but I thought it was better for him to focus on the new relationship.
However, it was then that I noticed his entire personality did a real 180-degree flip on our entire group. A lot of us started to receive some serious attitude and some hurtful words. I tried to tolerate it since he was my friend but, needless to say, that did not work out. It then led to me lashing out at said person because the mistreatment with our group was starting to get out of hand. That led to things only escalating and making the situation worse. Even my friends knew how frustrated I was getting since I would bring this up one time too many (from my perspective since I brought it up constantly) with them. However, as I write this, I realized that it really was time to end all this negativity.
So, how does this relate to actually stopping a bad friendship? Well, two things: not letting all the anger fester and to actually stop it if there will not be a resolution any time soon. My mistake here was that in trying to just ignore the problem and then letting the anger build, I played a part in causing an argument. One thing to keep in mind is that when a problem in a friendship shows up and talking about it will not do, try to put some distance between yourself and the problem. It will give you a better chance to evaluate the friendship and plot the best course of action. If you just ignore and don't evaluate it, it can lead to a massive fallout later, ending things on a really bad note.
The other thing to keep in mind is that if you have a friend creating a problem, and there is no way that it can be solved, it may be time to end it. You do not need to end it with dropping a whole lot of hate, but you need the other person to know why you cannot continue. It is better to at least have an understanding of why things did not work out instead of letting the anger to continue and no one knows why a friendship ended.
Just because a friendship ends, it does not mean you need to be upset about it ending. Sure, you will have a moment to be upset (something that we all do), but you do not need to look at it as a failure. Every relationship we have with someone does change us or it tells us more about the world. With my failed friendship, I think that it provided me so many experiences that changed me, and I would not to change those for anything. Try to look at the friendship by how it changed or taught you something. This can help you make your peace with it and move on.
Though friendships come and go, we need to not get hung up on their terminations. Instead, we need to understand why it failed so we can move on.
Excuse me, I have some moving on to do.
