By Royane Real

Author of    “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends”

No matter how long you have been a friend to someone, no matter how good a friendship you may think you have with another person, you may one day be surprised to find that what you thought was a solid friendship is actually hanging by a thread. 

Your longtime friendship may suddenly, mysteriously, come to an end, with no explanation ever given to you.

There are many reasons why a friendship might suddenly come to an abrupt, unexpected and bitter end.  The person who has been cut loose or betrayed will often react in disbelief and hurt, wondering how this could have happened.  How could somebody who seemed to be a good, true friend, suddenly turn their back and become an enemy?

I have myself experienced this painful and mysterious ending of a forty year friendship with my formerly best friend.  To this day, she won’t tell me why.  Whatever her reasons may be for ending this friendship, she refuses to talk about it.  

It turns out that the mysterious ending of a friendship for no apparent reason is actually quite common.

I remember learning to sing a very beautiful song with bitter lyrics provided by Shakespeare, in which he says, “Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.” Shakespeare must have been aware of friendships that turned out badly, even though he wrote this line hundreds of years ago.

So the problem of friendships turning false is an old one, probably going back in history to the earliest times. 

Many betrayals happen between human beings because we are often weak, and we are often selfish.  The acts we commit because of our selfishness and our weakness can end the best of relationships, no matter how long they have existed. 

One reason that friendships blow up for no apparent reason is that over the years many small grievances may accumulate that are never aired.  Perhaps the person who was feeling some sense of grievance or restentment decided it would be best to avoid a confrontation.  Perhaps the other person simply doesn’t know how to deal with problems that come up in any relationship, so those problems never get solved.

These unaired grievances can wear away the foundation of the friendship, so that even though the façade of the relationship looks good, there is a dangerous rot underneath.

The person in the relationship who feels angry and resentful no longer notices any of the good things the relationship with the other person is providing.  All they see is the things they are angry about.

Yet they might never say a word.  They may continue acting sweet in your presence as if nothing is wrong.  Or they may start to make a lot of mean little jabs at you.  But if asked, they will deny that anything is wrong.

Why do people in a friendship so often pretend that nothing is wrong, even when they are just about ready to walk out the door?

The most likely reason is that they simply don’t know how to handle the situation.  They don’t know how to air their grievances without destroying the relationship.  Perhaps they fear the depth and rage of their own anger.

But by doing nothing, they eventually destroy the relationship without airing their grievance. 

The best way to prevent an explosion from destroying your relationships is to find a way to deal with problems earlier, and in a non-threatening, positive way. 

It won’t be easy, because most of us are very poor at this type of confrontation.  But letting a serious problem fester carries a far greater risk to the friendship or relationship in the long run.

This article above is written by friendship expert Royane Real. 

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