We talk a lot about grief when it comes to death, or even divorce, but we don’t often name the grief that comes from losing a friendship.
Maybe it was sudden. Maybe it was a slow drifting apart. Maybe there wasn’t even a big fight, just silence where there used to be laughter, texts, and “you’ll never believe this” phone calls. Maybe it’s come from the division of politics. Maybe a shift in faith or values where there used to be shared agreement.
That kind of loss can cut just as deep. Because friendships aren’t just “extra.” They’re the people who know our stories, our quirks, our kids’ middle names, our favorite snacks. When they’re gone, there’s an empty space in the everyday moments that used to feel full.
One of my greatest heartaches in the past 5 years was losing a best friend with no real explanations, just unanswered questions. From standing beside each other in our weddings to one day being cut out. The hurt from those kinds of experiences are carried with us into future friendships for better or for worse. If we don’t have the tools to process them, heal and move forward in a healthy way it’s almost always going to come back up for us in future friendships.
In the current climate and division we’re living in, I don’t go a week where I don’t have conversations with others about how relationships have changed or ended. It’s a real struggle that so many are navigating currently.
If you’ve walked through the grief of a friendship ending or are currently walking through it, you’re not alone. The pain this causes is valid. It matters. And it deserves to be grieved just as much as any other loss.
If you are experiencing this or have seen that the broken relationships in the past are making it hard for you to trust others, keeping you isolated or hindering you from forming deep friendships for fear of being hurt again, Grief Recovery work may be just what you need.
Schedule a chat with me to see if this is something that you could benefit from. Having a safe space to process and the tools that you can use in any grief or loss is something that’s needed for flourishing throughout our lifetime.
There is hope for you to think of a past relationship not just with sorrow or anger but maybe even gratitude, no matter how it ended. But to get there, you have to take the steps to move through the pain left behind.