Home→Forums→Relationships→How can I gently break off a friendship?
- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 1 month ago by Nicola.
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November 11, 2013 at 5:33 am #45110reejayParticipant
Hi everyone,
I have a friend that I’ve had since I was 9 years old but over the years I feel like I’ve changed and she no longer brings anything positive in to my life. She wants to drink a lot every time we meet up, she’s unreliable, she’s borrowed money and not paid it back. Generally I feel like she drains me more than anything when we spend time together.
She recently sent me a message saying she missed me, she’d been thinking about me and she wanted to come visit me at Christmas. I really don’t feel like that would be something I could get excited about but I don’t know how to break it to her in a gentle way that I basically don’t want to continue the friendship. I would really hate to hurt her feelings as she doesn’t take rejection or criticism very well and I just don’t want it to dent her confidence or make her feel bad about herself.
Any thoughts or advice would be so very much appreciated as I feel a great heaviness and anxiety about this. Thanks very much.
November 11, 2013 at 6:25 am #45114memmParticipanthttp://succeedsocially.com/endfriendship
I think this article sums it up quite well. It really comes down to what you feel is the right thing to do. Personally I think being straight forward has a sense of honesty about it that is important for your own well being.
November 11, 2013 at 10:41 am #45125NicolaParticipantI’ve had to let a couple of relationships go because I’ve felt like they don’t bring positivity to my life any more. At first I thought I was a bad person, and couldn’t do it because it’s mean etc etc. But then I realised I wasn’t a bad person, I had a right to be with people that give me as much as I give them and that helped justify it in my head.
The most recent ‘break up’ was with a girl I had known for a couple of years, we had gotten quite close but she was 14 years younger than me; had an old head on her shoulders for her years, but whenever I would struggle emotionally (especially with a recent 4 year relationship that was quite rocky) she wasn’t able to give me anything – as she hadn’t experienced it herself. I found her getting impatient with me, and becoming quite ‘just get over it’. So I decided to back away and one day told her a truth about something completely unrelated in her life, which created a bit of bad feeling, I felt terrible as I hadn’t really addressed the real problem, but then after a few days we had a long chat on the telephone and I told her I thought we should have a break, she was trying to handle some things in her life and I was in mine, so we both decided to do that. Since then, we keep in touch via email every few months and that really suits me at the moment. Perhaps in the future we will hook up again, but for now we’re both on the same page.
I think the succeedsocially article is good, choose which way you feel more comfortable with, I prefer directness I know I’d be hurt if that came at me but I’d appreciate it in the long run. I hope you can find a way of doing it for you x
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