Letting Girlfriends Go

29 January 2007

Most of us know how to deliver breakup news to a bloke: be honest yet tactful and avoid gauche text messages along lines of “IDIVORCEU.”

But what are the rules for breaking up with a girlfriend?

For some of us that question verges on blasphemous.  I mean girlfriends are a girl’s best friend!  Oprah has Gayle, Nicole has Naomi, I have Isa, you have … someone, I’m certain of it.

I picked up a gift for Isa recently, a magnet picture frame for her fridge.  I included a shot of Isa and me, taken when we were out shopping one weekend.  Under our photo, etched on the frame, it says, “Girlfriends are angels among us.”

But what happens when the angel in your midst turns into an anti-angel?  Well, not so much that she, or you, morph into something akin to a troglodyte; rather your differences suddenly loom large.

Beaty gave me great advice once, when I was whinging about a girlfriend.  “Always allow your friends three faults,” she’d said. 

However, despite the wisdom in Beaty’s dictum, that friendship is about tolerance and respect for differences, friends can grow apart in the manner of parallel paths hitting a junction whereupon one path veers right and the other left.

When divergent life choices cause two people to move in different directions maybe it’s just time to let go and say goodbye.

For instance, when couples come to this place in their relationships either he says or she says words to the effect of, “It feels as though we’ve grown apart, like we have little in common anymore.  Maybe it’s time to call it quits.” Or words less civil than that!

Girlfriends, on the other hand, do what?

Oprah and Gayle disagree but then they make up.  Presumably they apply Beaty’s dictum, as do I with Isa, which is why I bought best girlfriend the cutesy frame.

I have had girlfriends who just faded away.  There was no exchange of words when we came to that junction and took different paths.  We simply went our separate ways.

Now I wonder what it might have been like to exchange a loving and respectful “goodbye.”  Though admittedly I wonder with trepidation.

How do we consciously let our female friendships go?   Do you know?

Posted in Best Girlfriend Wisdom

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2 Responses to “Letting Girlfriends Go”

  1. ann raabe Says:
    January 30th, 2007 at 9:45 am

    Fading away is lazy and perhaps cowardly…or maybe the friendship was not a true one to begin with?

    The best policy is honesty. Love and honesty.

    Friendships go through an ebb and flow, like the cycles of the Earth. I have experienced with decades old friendships that this is very natural rhythm, and it is nothing to worry about, rather something to observe and cherish.

    However, there are those people that one doesn’t want to be friends with anymore! It is not a black white matter this question you are posing, dear Tildy!


  2. Terri Casey Says:
    February 4th, 2007 at 9:01 am

    About 3 yrs ago i ended a friendship that had lasted about 20 yrs. Throughout that time, it had always felt imbalanced, and some of my friend’s behavior i wd not have tolerated in anyone else. Why did i enter into that friendship and continue in it for so long? I actually took this question to a personal advisor who suggested that my friend and i might have had a past-life mother-daughter relationship that kept me rather hooked in it, feeling responsible and like i cd not “abandon” this friend. while i’m not sure what i believe re past lives, something about this suggestion of a mother-daughter dynamic rang true. I decided then to end the friendship, and this same counselor gave me some good advice: Ending a friendship is not unlike ending a romantic relationship. If you really want to end it rather than try to fix it, simply state that it’s over for you, don’t invite a dialogue, and don’t respond to pleadings for make-ups or meetings. i took many hours to compose a short note from the heart to my friend stating that i was ending the friendship, that it was not her fault or due to something she’d said or done, just that it had run its course for me. i thanked her for our connection over the years, wished her well, and asked her not to contact me. She did send an email in which she apologized for whatever had triggered this ending and asked me to reconsider. I did not respond to that message. indeed it’s possible to know without a doubt that when something is over, it’s over. i’ve not missed our friendship; on the contrary, the matter feels clean and clear, and i feel sure that my friend has moved on, too.


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