My husband and I recently celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary, and oh how time flies. Our sweet toddler at the time is now a teenager and our daughter conceived that night is now 10. As I searched for a quote to share on social media that accurately represented marriage, and the changes that have transpired over our time together I found this one.
“He never suffocated his wife with his own idea of who he expected her to be. Rather, he loved, fully, every new woman she became.” It resonated with me, with how my husband has loved all the versions of me so far. The smaller and bigger versions. The working and non working versions. The long and short haired versions. The coloured hair versions. The extroverted and introverted versions. The depressed and excited versions. All the orientation and identity versions. The gothic version and the fluro pink version. But it also made me think about friendships, perhaps in defining what is essentially different about relationships and friendships.
None of us stay the same, and as much as we love and grow with our friends, sometimes they grow into people we don’t like anymore. Even if we do love them. Or did love them. Our investment in friends perhaps isn’t as high as in a relationship. You can walk away from a friendship relatively unscathed or unaffected at times. Perhaps this makes it that much easier to get attached to who they used to be and not accept who they become?
Of course, it would be naïve to ignore the fact that even some marriages end under these circumstances, so perhaps this is less about the type of relationship and just about human nature. Either way, is it ok not to like or love the person someone changes into, even if you loved the person they were?
I think it is fair to say it isn’t always a choice. We feel how we feel, and if your friend has changed considerably, it might be kinder to walk away than to smother them with your expectation of who they should be, or resent them for not being that in the instance that you cannot like or love the person they have become.
That said, it is common to find yourself in some internal turmoil, weighing and comparing the person you knew then, and the meaning of your relationship then, to how it feels now. Thinking about how meaningful a particular friend once was and how joyous your relationship used to be can actually keep you hanging on longer than necessary in some sort of limbo decision making process.
It is never easy to let a person you once considered a friend go. It is worth some deliberation indeed. However, thinking for too long keeps us stuck in sometimes toxic situations when it would be better for everyone involved to just bite the bullet. Just because a relationship used to be meaningful doesn’t mean it still is or ever will be again. It also doesn’t mean it never will be again. Maybe it depends on the size of the change, or how at odds you now are with your values.
The global pandemic for example, has put people at odds in unexpected ways because their comfort level around risk or their ideas about vaccinations differ in ways that suddenly made them incompatible in fundamental ways. Politics have had similar consequences. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the change is – whether your friend has become a conspiracy theorist or whether they have found religion that is at odds with your own values or beliefs, or if they just have taken up a lifestyle that you don’t approve of or feel safe around. If your intuition is telling you it is time to go your separate ways, you are allowed to do so.
It doesn’t make you a bad friend, or a bad person. It doesn’t discount the meaning your friendship once served. It doesn’t make you heartless. Ending a friendship is no less painful than having one ended for you. It doesn’t even mean you hold ill feelings towards this person. You may indeed wish them every success and happiness, even if you won’t be around to see it or share in it.
Maybe it comes down to asking yourself if you met this person as they are today, would you still be their friend? If the answer is no, that is usually a pretty big hint. At the end of the day, as romantic as the idea may be, we are not married to our friends. If we can’t love or like the person they have become, we probably should move aside and make room for people who can. Right? Sometimes staying hurts more than leaving and that is when you know it is time.
It is ok to walk away from people who put you at odds with your values, or who make you uncomfortable, or who you just don’t like, even if you used to. Remember that was a different version of yourself, too.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
Don’t stay with someone because of who they were instead of who they are.