Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [61]
Divorces, specifically, can lead to unexpected “long good-byes” between friends. During the months or years preceding the divorce, the friend experiencing marital problems may not be herself. Understandably, she can be edgy, depressed, or preoccupied. It may be difficult for her to focus on anything but her own desperate situation. She may not care to share her time or feelings with certain friends, as some begin to drop off her radar. Some of her friends may not understand and step away on their own, leaving her feeling misunderstood or unsupported. In couple friends, dividing lines may be drawn if a female friend opts to side with one spouse over another. It can be devastating when a close female friend and her husband opt to take your husband’s side.
Even the aftermath of divorce has a profound impact on friendships. With one friend married and the other divorced, two woman’s lifestyles may become more disparate. They may no longer share the same interests or social circle; the divorce may entail a disruptive move or change in financial status; the divorcee may find that she has to devote more time to her children or to her work to make ends meet. The divorced woman may prefer to spend time with single, divorced, or widowed women who have more freedom to travel or go out together on weekends. More importantly, she may feel that they are more in tune with her emotions. If a friend is in a tenuous partnership, she may find the divorce threatening and seek distance.
Fortunately, disruptions like these, while common, aren’t always the rule; many women going through painful separations and divorces say that they have been able to rely on their female friends (and sometimes their friends’ husbands) to help them survive through this tumultuous time in their lives.
Serious illnesses can also separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to friendships. In her book Cancer Is a Bitch: Or, I’d Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis, author Gail Konop Baker writes: “I’m part of a club I didn’t mean to join.” Baker, a mother of three and wife of a doctor, was a self-professed health nut. She ran marathons, practiced yoga, and ate organic foods. Like many of us, she believed that she could keep breast cancer at bay. Then, at the age of 45, she was the first in her circle of friends to be diagnosed with breast cancer. She describes the instant bond she felt when she met other survivors. “It’s like we share a secret language,” she says.
While her old friends were supportive in every concrete way during her treatment, bringing her food and taking care of her kids, she sensed their own dread and fear. Some women were able to transcend that. “Just before my surgery when I was in a very funky funk, one of my best friends came over and told me, ‘If you have to shave my head, I’ll shave mine in solidarity.’ Luckily I didn’t have to but her words made me feel like she would walk through the fire with me,” says Konop Baker. Her illness, she says, turned out to be a defining event in terms of her friendships. “Cancer brought clarity to my life and gave me license to declutter my life. So yes, some friendships, the ones that were draining me, fell away. I felt like I didn’t have time to waste on relationships that weren’t mutually enriching. But it also made me aware of the depth of some of my friendships and deepened those bonds.”
Whether a woman is single or married, losing a job can be an assault on her self-esteem as well as her finances. So if your friend gets a pink