Friends are a wonderful thing, and so are good friendships. However, friendships can also go wrong for many reasons. When that happens, it can feel devastating. In fact, in many ways it is as bad or worse than the breakdown of a romantic relationship, because we don’t really think of friendships as ending, and we’re not always prepared for the possibility.

This page discusses why friendships may go wrong among both children and young people, and among adults. It also suggests what you can do to try to rebuild the friendship under those circumstances, what other actions you might consider, and when to call time on the friendship.

Why Friendships May Struggle

Our page on Understanding Friendships explains that there are different types of friendships, built on different situations or foundations.

Sometimes you are generally happier spending more time with one particular friend than another. Equally, your friendship may be built on different foundations: a common cause, or a common enemy, rather than a genuine interest in each other.

Once you understand this, it becomes clear that some friendships will simply fade over time. Your common cause or common enemy will fall away, and you will have nothing left on which to build.

When you correctly diagnose the type of friendship, this fading should not be a surprise.

Sometimes, though, you get the assessment wrong. One of you may think the friendship is closer than it turns out to be. This can be a problem, and can turn out to be very hurtful if you are the one thinking the friendship was closer.

However, there are also other reasons why friendships may change or fade. These include:

1. Geographical distance: one or both of you moves away

This can make it difficult to keep in touch. Social media and mobile phones reduce the gap, but it is hard to maintain a friendship without close and regular contact. Especially if your friendship was quite new, you may find that it is hard to maintain at a distance.

It is also fair to point out that both of you need to put in the effort to maintain the friendship. When you move, you need to spend time and energy building new friendships in your new location. This means that you may have less time to spend on old friends.

Established friendships may survive, but some may not. In any case, the friendship will change, especially if you were seeing each other often before you moved.

2. Romance gets in the way: one of you starts a new romantic relationship

When you start a new romantic relationship, you tend to be very wrapped up in your new partner. There is a recognised phenomenon known as the ‘honeymoon period’ when couples focus exclusively on each other, and don’t spend much time with friends. After a while—usually a few weeks and at most a couple of months—they tend to ‘re-emerge’ and want to re-engage with friends.

However, they often want to engage with each other’s friends, as a couple. They want to introduce each other to their friends.

This can leave friends feeling a bit lost or left out, or that they are being forced to share a close friend with their new partner. This may change the friendship, often permanently. Even if the romantic relationship ends, the friendship may never be quite the same again.

It can be even more of a problem if you don’t get on with your friend’s new partner. Over time, you may also find that it is difficult to maintain a friendship with someone if your partners don’t also get on—which unfortunately can happen.

It is possible to keep a friendship going even under those circumstances, but it is also hard. You both have to recognise that you need to meet without partners, which is not always easy to acknowledge. You may therefore find that you grow apart if your romantic relationships last.

3. Changing circle: one of you makes a new friend or friends with whom the other is not comfortable

In the nature of things, you are likely to have friends from different backgrounds and with different interests. You may find that you are comfortable with many different kinds of people—but what happens when your friends are not comfortable with each other, or you are not comfortable with your friend’s friends?

Under the circumstances, you have a choice.

• You can step away from the friendship, and just chalk it up to experience; or

• You can talk about it, and decide if you want to see each other but in the absence of the other friends that make one of you uncomfortable: effectively, compartmentalise your lives.

There are no clear rules about which option to choose. It depends partly on how much you both value the friendship, and how much you are prepared to put into maintaining it.

However, it also depends on the level of discomfort. Sometimes this is so extreme that it is hard to understand why anyone would choose those friends. This is likely to be particularly true if the new friends are engaging in behaviour that the old friend thinks is risky, unpleasant or downright illegal. If so, they may feel more comfortable cutting ties altogether.

4. Moving on: one of you makes new friends and you don’t have as much time to spend together

Sometimes your lives move on, and so do your friendships.

One of you may make new friends, and want to put more time into those friendships. This is not an unreasonable choice: you have to invest in friendships to build them. However, it often means that you are not able to spend as much time with old friends. The friends left behind may also feel left out and neglected, sometimes without knowing quite what has happened or why.

The only answer here is communication. If you feel neglected by a friend, it is worth chatting about what has happened. It may be that they hadn’t even noticed, perhaps they thought you were busy with something else, or even they thought that you were neglecting them!

Anything is possible—and you will only find out by asking.

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5. Relational aggression: one of you is excluded from the friendship group

For young people in particular, friendship groups can be quite fluid and change rapidly and unpredictably. One of two close friends may suddenly find that they have been squeezed out of a shared friendship group.

Of course it is possible to maintain a friendship even when one of you has been left out of a shared friendship group. However, the person who is still in the group may come under pressure from the group NOT to spend time with the excluded person.

This is because this type of exclusion is actually a form of bullying, known as relational aggression.

It is about using relationships as weapons, and excluding others to ensure that you are included. The perpetrator or perpetrators may be trying to damage others’ social standing or relationships by setting them against each other, and excluding people one at a time.

It is important to stress that this is NOT a normal part of friendships, and you don’t have to put up with it. If it happens to you, it is a good idea to talk to a trusted friend or someone in authority (at school or work) to try to resolve the situation.

There is more about this in our pages on Bullying.

6. Unequal relationships: one of you always seems to be the one making the effort

Friendships are meant to be equal—or at least broadly so.

There needs to be some ‘give and take’. However, sometimes it can feel like you are the only one making the effort to get in touch, or organise meeting up, or that your friend is always asking for your advice, but not interested in helping and supporting you.

You may feel like it’s no longer worth putting in the work—and in some cases that is true (see box).

Before you stop trying altogether, though, it is worth having a conversation with your friend.

They may not realise how you feel. They may think that you like being the one to get in touch and organise things. They won’t know that this isn’t the case until you tell them.

However, they may also be struggling with their mental health, and finding it hard to do anything.

Mental health problems such as depression can cause people to feel more withdrawn, and not stay in touch with friends. People experiencing mental health problems often worry that friends won’t understand what they are going through. They also don’t want to be a ‘burden’ on others. This may also stop them from reaching out to friends. Your contact could be a lifeline—and you don’t want to withdraw it without warning.

7. You have a big argument or fundamental disagreement about something

Arguments and disagreements are part of life. It would be extremely dull if we all had exactly the same opinion about everything. You can disagree with friends just like you can disagree with your partner, and it doesn’t have to mean the end of the friendship or relationship.

Your friends and your partner certainly don’t have to agree with you all the time. In fact, if they don’t, it can be a signal that you may be wrong, or at least that there are two sides to the argument.

There are, however, two things that may cause you to rethink the friendship:

1. If you disagree with a friend over something that feels really fundamental to you, which suggests that you don’t share the same underlying values; and

2. If the way that they express themselves in the heat of the argument suggests that they do not respect you as a person. For example, if they use derogatory language to talk to you, or belittle you in some way, that could be a sign that they are not really a good friend.

Generally speaking, you can ‘throw off’ an argument. However, it is very hard to overlook the feeling that someone does not respect you as a person, or doesn’t share your values. You can generally tell when there is a mismatch like this, because it will leave you feeling extremely uncomfortable, but you probably won’t quite know why until you think it about in a lot more depth.

That said, even these issues are worth talking about.

Poor communication can get in the way of sense-making. You might have misunderstood, or even misheard. Your friend might have had no idea about the impact of their language or expression on you.

It is worth telling them how you felt (and our page on having difficult conversations with a partner, and giving feedback to your partner may be useful here). If they give a heartfelt apology, you may want to put the issue behind you and continue the friendship. If, however, you feel that they have minimised your concerns, or told you that it was ‘just a joke’, that could be a sign that the friendship has run its course.

Communication is Key

There is a common thread running through all these situations and their solutions: communication.

As in any relationship, communication between friends is key. Once you start making assumptions about a friend’s intentions or thoughts, you are heading down a one-way street, usually to the end of the friendship. Good friendships take a bit of work, including frank and honest conversation. However, good friendships are also worth that effort.

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