Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [84]
One result is that many women make a concerted effort to find substitutes, to replace the friend that was lost. That’s what happened to Meg, 25, who was tortured by a blowup with a friend. “I spent the next six months in a state of constant anxiety, obsessed about what had happened, guilty beyond belief, replaying the whole thing in my mind again and again, trying to figure out whether I was wrong or she was wrong,” she says. “It gradually got better but still, three years later, it’s hard to talk about it without getting upset.”
Leah, 23, broke up with her girlfriend at the same time she broke up with her boyfriend. “It affected me terribly, and the two losses became integrally confused,” says Leah. “To lose the two people closest to me—through what at the time felt like two acts of betrayal—was too much for me to handle.” She experienced feelings of anger and sadness for almost a year after she first cut things off with her friend and says she still experiences such feelings now, although to a lesser degree. “I am still especially wistful when I think about how we had envisioned our future—two neighboring houses where our children would play together in the lot between. Letting go of that was as hard as getting dumped by my boyfriend,” she says.
Give yourself the gift of time to mourn and get over the loss, but don’t allow it to poison other relationships. Oddly, some women come away feeling grateful after losing a friend. They have gained a heightened awareness of how precious and how fluid female friendships are and how important it is to make them a priority in their hectic, multitasking lives. They learn that they can’t take their good friends for granted. They recommit to being there for them, and to devote the time they need to keep up relationships.
“It’s taught me that it’s okay to love your friends as fiercely as you would a partner,” says one woman. “A friend is a different kind of partner. And while not all friendships will last a lifetime, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t truly valuable.”
CHAPTER 9
GETTING OVER THE MYTHS: LEARNING FROM LOSS
“It’s the friends that you can call up at 4 A.M. that matter.”
—MARLENE DIETRICH
The search for perfection and permanence in any relationship is usually elusive. But when a friendship was meaningful and fulfilling, and you thought it would last a lifetime, it’s difficult to accept that it’s ended. This is especially true the first time it happens. The person to whom you poured out your heart and soul, told all your secrets, and with whom you forged a presumed sisterhood, is gone.
Find solace in knowing that you’re not alone and that millions of women have experienced this pain. As painful and disappointing as these breakups are, they make us wiser and make our friendships much stronger and more resilient. So here are some last words of advice for dealing with these breakups:
ACCEPT THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE
Most friendships are bound to a specific time, place, or season. Some women characterize these relationships as having expiration dates or shelf lives, because friendships tend to run their natural course. “I realized that friendships do come and go as you get older and your interests change. So now, I simply accept that fact,” says one woman.
A best friend who once had a starring role in your life may reappear once again, only this time as a cameo. “Some things and people come into your life for just a short period of time, some for a bit