What Causes Friendships To End? Let’s Find Out

What causes friendships to end?

It can be a sad moment when they do. When I reflect back and look at all my friendships that did end, I wonder why they did. And if you’re in the same boat, that’s why I made this post today; to discover what causes friendships to end.

But first, let’s start with the question…

How do friendships end?

A friendship doesn’t necessarily end all of a sudden. You and your friend can gradually drift for a variety of reasons (e.g. lifestyle changes, changing personalities). In those cases, these friendships ending are less noticeable. However, sometimes they can end abruptly due to a situation and these ones tend to hurt more.

In this post, I’ll go over the various reasons what causes friendships to end and what you can do about it. Whether you’ve already lost friends and want to self-reflect on them, or you want to preserve the current friendships you have, this article will help you see the frictions that can cause people to stop being friends. Sometimes it happens gradually, while other times it can happen suddenly.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Lifestyle changes.

The first and foremost reason that can cause a friendship to end is simply when you or your friend’s lifestyle changes. A lot of the time, you met your friend through a specific situation such as going to the same college or working with the same company. Or you happen to meet each other in the same city. That’s how you share some commonality.

But when things change in your life or your friend’s life, it can disrupt the friendship. For example, if you always hangout with your friends in the city and you moved out of that city recently, it’s going to be hard to maintain that same level of friendship if you’re gone. Likewise, if you decide to start a family with your spouse, you’re going to have much less time for your current friends when you have to dedicate your time towards your kids.

When life situations change and we don’t try to maintain a friendship, it can be easy to drift apart. Eventually, it can gradually lead to a friendship ending.

Changing personalities.

I’ve talked about this before, but you have to account for changes in life. Not you or your friends will stay the same forever. Things change and people change. And in my experience, when people change, it can put a strain on the friendship to the point where it can eventually end.

For example, if you were into drinking in your 20s and wanted to move on from that. But your current friends want to keep partying and drinking. If that’s the case, it can be hard to get along with them and be into the same things.

Another example is if your beliefs and boundaries have changed as well. Different political views can really put pressure on a friendship, especially if you both have opposite views. Some people may end a friendship if they find out that their friend has differing political opinions.

There’s not much you can do about this. Things change and people change, and you have to accept that friendships come and go.

Lack of honesty.

Not being truthful can really kill a friendship. While it may feel like being honest with a friend seems like a given and not something you really need to think about, it can be a lot harder than that. Sometimes you don’t want to upset your friend, so you might hide the truth from them. Or you’re scared of losing your friendship, so you may end up not sharing your true feelings and eventually, it comes to a boiling point.

I remember one time when I was younger, I wanted to hangout with my friends. At first they said they were too busy to hangout with me. But then I found out they actually hung out together without me, and they just didn’t want me to show up. That really hurt me and that pretty much strained the friendship to the point where it eventually ended.

Now of course, I was young and did do a lot of stuff that annoyed them, so in retrospect I can see why they did that. The better thing to do is to confront me and let me learn what I was doing wrong, so I could correct it. But instead they lied to me and ended up hurting me more than it should have.

Stuff like this can really wreck a friendship. When you’re not honest with friends, it can end a friendship.

Selfishness.

Sometimes friends do stupid stuff that can really put a damper on a friendship. Selfishness is one of the big negative traits that puts a lot of pressure on friends. When you or friends put themselves over the friendship, it can put an end to things when one of you simply have enough of it.

Selfishness from you or your friend can manifest in many ways, such as:

Expecting your friends to cater to you all the time, but you won’t do the same. This could as trivial as always wanting to pick the venue to hangout, but never wanting to show up when other friends want to go somewhere else.

• Making things always about you. There are people who only care about themselves, even in a group setting. This could definitely rub your friends off the wrong way.
• Only talking about yourself. I always talk about being a good listener, because it helps you maintain strong friendships. If you’re always the one talking but never doing the listening when your friends talk, your friends won’t appreciate that and will feel you’re being selfish.

So if you want to avoid losing friends, be more selfless. One easy way to do so is to listen to your friends and hear them out.

Betrayal.

Last but not least, we have betrayal. And when it comes to friendships ending, betrayal is by far the worst way for a friendship to go. When your friends do something to betray, it can really sting to the point where you end the friendship right away. What’s worse is that you don’t expect it, because you thought they were your friends.

Here are some examples of friend betrayals:

• When a friend talks behind your back and you find out about it.
• Your friend has an affair with your love interest.
• Your friend humiliates you in public when you least expect it.

Betrayals can be devastating, and it makes sense why friendships end suddenly when they do happen. But you can still handle them properly when they occur. Click here to read my article about how to deal with friend betrayals.

Conclusion

I hope you found this post informative and helped you figure out why friendships end. It’s not always pleasant. Sometimes they happen naturally, other times they do not. But with this knowledge you have, you can deal with it if or when they happen.

If you have any questions or feedback, leave them in the comments below!