What To Do When Friends Move Away

What to do when friends move away.

It can be a sad day to see it happen. Your friends decide to move out of your small town or big city, and you can no longer can hangout with them in-person anymore. It can be a lot of emotions to process, especially when it’s your best friend. I know what it’s like to see a friend move away. It can feel heartbreaking and you know what’s best for you.

But how should you deal with this? Does your friend moving away mean the friendship is over? Or can you continue on like normal? That’s what we will be discussing today!

In this post, I’ll go over the things on what to do when friends move out. Again, it can be an emotional experience when you don’t see your friends anymore. These are the things you should know when it happens.

Alright, let’s get into it.

It’s okay to feel sad when it happens.

It can be difficult to accept that your good friend is moving away from you. This is especially true if they are a close friend you’ve known for so many years.

But if you do feel sad, don’t feel about it! Even if you are in your 30s and feel like you need to be an adult, don’t feel pressured to hold it in. Your friend is someone you cherish and value, and feeling like you are going to lose them can be hard on you.

However, you are not losing them, because…

It’s not the end of the friendship.

Let’s get this out of the way; just because your friend is moving, it doesn’t mean the friendship is over. It may seem like it. After all, your friend is no longer in the same place as you are.

But I can attest that I’m still friends with the ones that moved away. Yes it’s still possible to stay friends with them. It definitely has changed (which I’ll get to in the next point). However, I stay friends with them by keeping in touch with them online or by chatting on the phone. And whenever I am in their new city or they come back home to mine, we tey to make time for each other for the occasion.

So the answer to the question; yes, you can absolutely keep the friendship going! And no, your friend moving does not automatically mean the friendship will end. With the Internet these days, it can be so easy to message and contact your friends instantly.

With that said however…

Accept that the friendship will change.

When your friend moves away, you will have to accept that the friendship will change. Not only will your friend be further away from you, they are also probably being influenced by the new environment around them.

These things can influence the friendship in so many ways. You probably won’t be able to talk with your friend as often as when they were living in the same place as you. If they put you first back then, they may not do so anymore. Everyday things will get in the way and make it harder to talk with your friend.

With my friends that moved away, we still keep in touch. But the friendship has definitely changed because simply we have our own lives to take care of. Being in different cities really exacerbates this, due to the different locations. It definitely won’t be as easy or convenient like living in the same place.

Despite this, you should…

Be happy for them.

I think the best thing you can do is be happy for your friend. They are taking a big journey and starting a new life in a different place. Believe me, they didn’t move away because of you and they are focusing on other areas of their life that’s not related to you. So don’t take it personally!

Once again, you will have to accept that they won’t may not make you a priority with their time when they have immediate needs to take care of. So the best mindset is to be happy for them and be available for them when they are able to.

Try to stay in contact with them.

Last but not least, you should try to stay in contact with your friends abroad. I can tell you from my experience, it can be so easy to let your friends drift apart when you don’t see them very often (click here to read more about how friends drift apart). So if you want to keep the friendship going, you should message or call them every now and then.

With that said however, keeping in touch is a two-way street. While you may do your part in staying in contact, your friend may not do the same. I certainly have experienced this; I put the effort to keep in a touch with my friends. However, that same friend didn’t do the same. And at some point, I realized that I couldn’t be the only one keeping things going.

So if your friend doesn’t want to stay in touch, then there’s not much you can do. That is the true downside of a friend moving away; there’s no guarantee that the friendship will stay as strong as it used to.

Conclusion

I hope you found this post informative. Seeing a friend move away can be hard. The subsequent consequences such as drifting apart can be even more difficult to deal with.

But all you can do is be happy for them and try your best to stay in touch. The friendship will almost always change when they move away from you. However, if your friend values you as they did when living in the city, then the friendship will probably stay as strong!

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