5 Signs It’s Time to Break Up with a Friend
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Unlike our romantic relationships, we often expect our friendships to be easy. Friendship is essential to our health and well-being: A study conducted through Flinders University in Australia even found that having close friends well into old age can help us live longer. The amount of friends you have may vary. According to Robin Dunbar (famous for Dunbar’s number), the average person cumulatively has approximately five close friends, 15 best friends, 50 good friends, and 150 friends who would attend, say, your wedding or funeral. The size of your circle and the actual people you befriend will evolve over time, but not all friendships are meant to be. A study from Utrecht University in the Netherlands asked 604 adults about their friendships and then followed up seven years later. They discovered that most people replaced half of their friends, and only 30 percent of their close friends remained. So how do we know when it’s time to break up with a friend?
We spoke with Nedra Glover Tawwab, a licensed therapist, New York Times bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, and guest on Oprah’s “The Life You Want” Class on forgiveness, along with Danielle Bayard Jackson, a friendship coach, educator, and host of the Friend Forward podcast, about the five signs to look for when considering a friend breakup.
You give 100 percent, but your friend gives 0 percent
Reciprocity is part of our social contract, but what happens when a friendship is nowhere near equal, meaning your needs are not being met and reciprocity is dwindling?
Bayard Jackson encourages us to ask ourselves some questions: “Is it possible that she’s contributing in a way you haven’t credited? Maybe you’re overlooking something because your expectation is that she contributes in a way that mirrors your own. Also, is it seasonal, or is this evidence of your entire friendship?”
If you find that you’re the one pulling all the weight all the time, it may be a sign to break up with your friend.
Your texts go unanswered—or you find yourself avoiding them
Most of us are guilty of leaving a text message or two on “read,” or forgetting to return someone’s call, but when this becomes the norm in a friendship, it may be time to give the friend the boot.
This is a sign that you can’t seem to make time for one another. Glover Tawwab urges us to consider who we want to make time for in our busy lives. “There are just some people who really annoy us, and we don’t talk about that enough,” she explains. “When we see their names, we think, I don’t feel like being annoyed today. The way they talk about their problems, the way they blame other people is annoying to hear, so you’re not going to run toward answering that person’s call.”
There are no boundaries—or way too many
The University of Edinburgh defines personal boundaries as “guidelines, rules, or limits you can create to identify reasonable, safe, and permissible ways for others to behave around you” and “your response when someone steps outside those limits.” They’re an essential component to any successful relationship, but sometimes a friend doesn’t respect boundaries. If it happens repeatedly, this can be a sign the friendship has run its course. As Glover Tawwab explains: “When we have to establish so many boundaries with people that it becomes exhausting, many of us do choose to just let the relationship go.”
You don’t want to share your wins or fails
If you can no longer trust a friend with news or secrets, the relationship may be toxic. “If you have to continually do the mental labor of measuring your words, withholding information, minimizing accomplishments—to either make this person comfortable or to make sure you don’t become a target—it probably wouldn’t be wise to remain in the relationship,” explains Bayard Jackson. “Women tend to harbor those kinds of fears and anxieties in their body and mind. It would be actively harmful for you to remain somewhere where you feel like you have to walk on eggshells.”
You’ve outgrown who you were in the past
Our friends are our mirrors. They reflect who we are. So what happens when we are no longer the same person we were when we started the friendship?
“I think it’s great to have people you can reflect with, but also those relationships need to grow with you, and if not, you’re just holding on to things that no longer fit,” says Glover Tawwab. “That’s okay to revisit occasionally, but is it something that we have to maintain? I think there’s a difference between maintaining a relationship and having a relationship.”
Before taking the plunge, ask yourself: Does this friendship add value to your life? What is it missing? If you do find that your friendship is ready to come to an end, read here about how to move on from a friend breakup.
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