How to Move On From a Friendship Gone Sour

Originally written in November 2020 and published here.

At the beginning of 2020, I never thought I'd be writing this - but here we are. This year has been unforgettable in many ways for us all. But putting all global events aside, 2020 has brought a lot of surprises to my personal life, too - one of the most painful being that I fell out with a friend.

A friend who, for the last 10 years of my life, I considered to be my closest person. She was someone I called my best friend, someone I relied on being in my life until the day I die. And now we don't even speak.

It has been months since we last spoke. We somehow went from communicating every single day to a deafening silence. In those months that have passed, I have been focused on one thing only: moving on.

I have been reminiscing over what happened, how it happened, what it all means. I went over our last fight, over the way we left it off. I pondered if I had any regrets, asked myself if I saw it coming. And somewhere along the way, I found out that I have indeed embarked on a moving-on journey. And a successful one, too.

I'm no moving-on-from-bad-friendships guru. But I know that sharing my story might be helpful to some of you. So, here are my five tips and observations for moving on from a friendship gone sour:

Accept that a chapter has closed

My friend was someone who was a constant in my life. Now the only constant thing left is her absence. And while nowadays I find myself mostly feeling fine, it was difficult, to begin with. I had to accept the simple yet hard truth: she was gone.

What I realized was this: yes, she was no longer there for me - but that wasn't a bad thing. She was still in my life. She was all over my past. She was in my memories.

She influenced me in many great ways. So, yes, it's over now. The chapter of her in my life has closed. But that's ok. Some people aren't meant to be in our lives forever. And while the chapter has closed, I know this: she will always be part of the book.

Allow yourself to feel

The first few days after we "broke up" were the most difficult. I never liked change, and this was one of the biggest changes in my life, possibly ever. She was always the one thing I was sure of, and suddenly she was ripped out of my life.

I remember waking up the day after we fought. I was a mess. I was crying and my heart was pounding. I was on the verge of a panic attack. All I knew was that she was gone. I felt alone.

The next two days were a blur. I was in denial. I put on a brave face.

I have this tendency to bottle up feelings. To distract myself. Focus on other things. Not face what's going on. But trust me, you can only keep this up for so long. What I was doing there is delaying the pain. I wasn't getting rid of it.

What I experienced was a great loss. And when I finally allowed myself to feel the weight of that, it was a lot. I was mad. I was sad. At times I was even glad. It was overwhelming, but it was important. I needed to feel all of this to be able to move on.

If you don't allow yourself to feel, you're only holding yourself back. You can't move on if you're being stagnant. You have to go through the pain to arrive at a better place.

Remember you're not the villain (but you're not the victim either)

Our friendship ended on a bad note.

I know my friend. I can imagine what she was feeling when this all went down. And I think she was angry.

To be fair, so was I. I was angry at her. I felt betrayed and hurt. All the things that have been brewing under the surface for years came out. I realized all the ways our friendship hurt me. In many ways, I resorted to seeing myself as the victim of this horrible toxicity.

But that was when it hit me. I know her. I know she's mad, too. She must feel the same way that I do.

From my point of view, I was the one who was slighted. In the darkest moments, I felt that I gave everything to her and never got anything in return. But then I considered what she must be seeing and feeling.

In her eyes, it's me who's the villain. It's her who got hurt.

The moment I realized that was she sees is the polar opposite of what I see, I felt relieved.

Moving on is hard. It's hard because you have to actively work on it. And in that process, you might have to face some of the mistakes you made. You might also have to face this feeling of victimhood. But what helped me the most was owning the fact that I was neither a villain nor a victim.

I was just a person. A participant in this mess. If we ever had this out, I know for a fact we could both go on for hours trying to convince the other one that she was to blame. That we were the ones who were hurt.

It gives me peace of mind to know this. It allows me to let go of my anger and pity. We both created this mess. What would be the point in blaming myself or accusing her?

At the end of the day, there is no scapegoat to be found here. Just two humans who messed up, like we all often do.

Remind yourself of the good things

Moving on from such a friendship can feel like a dark process. You're focused on anger and regret. You're trying your hardest to forget, to let go of grudges.

I find the process to be easier when I remind myself of the good stuff. Sure, we broke up in an ugly manner. But there was a lot of good before that. We were friends for 10 years, after all. There ought to be a lot of happiness as well as pain.

Moving on from someone is about finding the right balance. The balance between remembering what you had but no longer feeling hurt by its absence. And to find that balance, you need to have balance elsewhere, too.

It would be hard to move on if you only focused on the bad. You're not moving on if that's what you're doing. You're just dwelling on your terrible experiences. What you're doing is the opposite of moving on. You're holding on.

Whenever I feel this surge of negativity build up in me, I try to balance it out. Yes, there was the time she gaslit me. But remember all the times she brought me tea when I felt down? One doesn't negate the other. But they balance each other out. For every mistake we made, we had a moment of bliss.

I don't want to remember her in anger. I don't want to hold on to the darkness. There was a lot of light between us, too, and it's good for me to remind myself of that.

Don't forget that it's a process

"Remember that progress is not linear either. Sometimes you make great progress for a while and then you slide back a little. That's OK. Don't give up." - Lee Labrada

It's been about four months now. I think. I've never been very good at keeping track of time.

Since then, I've made a lot of progress. Most days, I think of her fondly, in nostalgia. In peace. I have travelled a long way on the moving-on train.

But some days, I go back. I feel the loss of her, and it upsets me. During those days, I remind myself of this:

It's ok to feel this way. Moving on is a process. It doesn't happen fast, and it doesn't happen all at once. There will be setbacks. The important thing is to take it one day at a time.

Losing a friendship is difficult. Especially if the way things ended puts a damper on your view of the whole relationship. But it's important to remember that these things happen. People change, and they grow apart. Sometimes, we don't have a choice but to move on.

My friend was someone incredibly important to me. She still is. There are days when I feel sad that she's gone. There are days when I feel angry at her for leaving. There are days I feel I should've ended things sooner.

Most days though, I just get on with it. I still have a way to go, but I have been moving on. And while she will always be someone who had a great impact on my life, right now I can breathe and smile at the thought of us. It's all in the past, after all.