5 Ways To Detach & Release An Unfulfilling Friendship From Your Life

It’s never easy to release a friendship, especially if it played such a significant role in your life. But something didn’t work out, and learning to let go, heal and move on, is significant in your future happiness. Here are 5 ways you can detach from and release an unfulfilling friendship.

Be clear and communicative

When you know that it’s time to end a friendship, it’s important to approach the situation with as much calm, clarity, communication, and love as you possibly can. This will mean that you need to get the following clear and understood with yourself first, and it’s best to take a few days to fully answer the questions and write down all the reasons why you want to end the friendship, so you are concise and controlled when presenting your point.

Why is the relationship no longer working? How do you want to interact (if at all) moving forward? Where can you acknowledge your part in the relationship breakdown and end? What gratitude can you offer to your partner for their part?

Breakups are hardly for all involved, so the more clear you can be about why it’s happening, the easier it will be for you to communicative that in a loving, healthy way – and the better it will be for everyone.

Practice forgiveness

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong,” Ghandi.

Forgive them and forgive yourself - and you will be stronger. This won’t be the end result you had for this friendship when you first began and very few of us go into a relationship (romantic or otherwise) expecting it to end. There are likely to be regrets, things you wish hadn’t been said or done, or just general guilt that you couldn’t “make it work.” In order to move on, it’s important to forgive the other person and to forgive yourself. There was a reason why you came together and there’s a reason you are moving apart; acknowledge the good, the bad and the beautiful from your time together and know that it all served a purpose in both your lives, shaping the person you are today.

Allow yourself to grieve

This is an especially important step in the process, and one that’s often skipped – especially by those who actually ended the friendship. There is a definite sense of loss when a relationship ends; you’re not only losing their companionship and presence in your life, you’re also losing the yet-to-be-made memories and opportunities you had envisioned in your future. After all a friendship break up is just as painful as a romantic relationship. You’re allowed to say your heart is breaking, because it’s just as relatable.

You have to allow yourself time to mourn, it is normal and it is healthy. And when it’s not express, it can become trapped inside, negatively affecting your health, potential happiness and your ability to move on. Give yourself permission – really feel these feelings, but know that the grief won’t last forever.

Reconnect with yourself

Ending a relationship will understandably free up some time in your life. Take advantage of this opportunity to spend time with yourself! Reconnect with you. Who are you? What do you like to do for fun? What are your goals? How are you feeling? How can you help yourself process these emotions you’re feeling? It’s likely that most of those answers will be affected, even if only minimally, by your relationship. The positive is that now, you only have to answer to yourself – be honest, have fun and get to know yourself again. It’ll make you that much stronger and more grounded moving into your next friendship.

Learn the lesson(s)

Admittedly, this is not always something you can do right away. Reflection takes time, finding out your flaws and criticising your own actions is difficult, but nevertheless a worthwhile task. If you’re willing to be self-aware and exploratory, you will soon begin to see the value that your friendship brought to your life - even if it has ended.

When you are ready, ask yourself the following; What have you learnt about yourself? How have you grown throughout the duration of the friendship? What have you learnt about the nature of friendships; about how you show up and behave in them? What would you have done differently?

Of course, there’s no need to try and be ‘perfect’ – to have understood the changes you need to make, will simply make you a better friend in another relationship.

The five-step process will help you heal from the loss of a friendship and hopefully shape you into a better version of yourself.