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Friends grow apart all of the time – and I mean good friends. Friends who were once BFFs, had the friendship bracelets, filled photo albums with pics together, traveled together, went everywhere together – were inseparable. To some degree, it’s understandable that that level of closeness won’t exist forever. People get married. They have children. They have other responsibilities that leave little room for an all-consuming friendship. Even the best of friends can’t have sleepovers every night of their lives, forever. They’re sort of supposed to do that with their, ya know, spouses and things like that. But some friendships become really distant – strained even – due to some interesting life circumstances. Sometimes, more than the usual business of life and family obligations drives friends apart. As you get older, you start to discover what your values and beliefs are around some pretty major things like money, fidelity, and politics…These are things that didn’t impact your friendships when you were young. You didn’t have concerns like that in high school or college. But when you become adults with homes and families and careers, you can find that, you and your friends differ in some pretty fundamental ways. And some friendships won’t survive those differences. Here are common reasons female friends grow apart.
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A possessive partner
This is very common: one friend gets involved with a possessive partner, and that partner changes everything. He doesn’t let the woman out of his sights. He doesn’t want her out late. He starts to manipulate her, influencing how she behaves. He pulls her away from her friends, isolating her from her support group, and even turning her against them.
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A new religion
One friend can either find religion – either on her own, or through a romantic partner – or just become more involved in her preexisting religion as she gets older. It is common, as people get older, to seek answers through religion. But the religious community can consume one’s life, and can leave them judging friends outside of it, or just too busy with their religious community to see friends outside of that community.
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Different financial situations
You’d like to think that money wouldn’t impact a friendship, but it does in many, many ways. If you have vastly different financial situations, then it can just be hard to see each other as often. You can see each other one-on-one, but, mixing friend groups becomes difficult. Maybe everything your other friends invite you to is something that your childhood friend can’t afford to do, so you’re stuck choosing between seeing new friends, and seeing your old friend. That puts a strain on the friendship.
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One becomes superficial
You also just have people who become more superficial as they get older. If they have financial success or marry someone wealthy, they can become accustomed to a high-end lifestyle, and can forget how to enjoy themselves when budgets are at play – like the budget of their less-wealthy friend. Hey, some people become snobs as they get older.
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Different politics
Many people finally find their politics as adults. You have young political individuals, but you also have many people who don’t really know where they stand on big issues until they get older. And then they can learn that they have very different political views from their friends. It can be hard to feel close to somebody who feels completely differently from you on issues like…wearing masks during pandemics and…women’s right issues.
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Marital issues
How you handled married life or how you viewed marriage was never a component to your friendships until you were, well, married! Once you and your friends start to get married, you will start to judge each other based on how you handle your marriages. It just happens. If your friend is unfaithful or mean to her husband, it’s hard for you to look the other way. If a friend takes on a submissive role to a misogynistic husband, it’s hard to look the other way.
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Parenting views
Parenting views are another thing that just don’t impact your friendship until you are, yourselves, parents. And then you can have very strong opinions on parenting. You can get into arguments because you judge the other’s parenting style. You can resist having play dates between your kids, when you don’t like the way your friend treats kids.
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One friend remains childless
This is nobody’s fault, but it can be difficult on the friendship if one woman has children and the other doesn’t. The priorities of the two women can shift in different directions. It can be hard for someone without children to fully understand what someone with kids goes through, and, likewise, it can be hard for a mother to still be completely present for her friends when she has kids to look after. It’s natural.
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One works; one doesn’t
Sometimes this shift occurs: one friend goes on to be a career woman and the other stops working. She’s a stay at home mom, or even just a stay at home wife without kids. In some cases, two women in these situations can grow apart because they just don’t relate to one another’s experiences. A career woman may feel more at home round other career women, who she feels appreciate her struggles and experiences and drive.
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One is a workaholic
Perhaps both women work, but one is a workaholic – her career is her whole life. She will always put her work before anything else. That can mean canceling on her friend often and at the last minute because something work-related comes up. That can mean missing major events like weddings or baby showers, because of work. If one person prioritizes relationships and family and the other thinks work is more important, it can be hard for the two to stay close.
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One becomes more conservative
One friend can become more conservative – not necessarily politically but socially. While the two women may have met at a time in their lives when they loved to party and were a bit rowdy, if one settles down a bit more, and befriends conservative people, she can feel embarrassed bringing her wild friend around her new friends.
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Mismatched spouses
This is a tough one. What are you to do when your spouses don’t like each other? You’d think that, if two women love each other as friends, then the men they choose to spend their lives with will love each other too, right? That’s not always the case. Sometimes, you choose a spouse who just can’t get along with your best friend’s spouse.
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It’s your spouse or me
This can be tough, but sometimes it’s your spouse and your best friend who can’t get along. It’s hard to imagine, but you may have chosen your spouse for very different reasons than you chose your best friend. The two may appeal to completely different sides of your personality – so much so that they don’t like each other.
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The adventurer vs the shut-in
As people grow older, they have experiences that either make them more excited about life and what it has to offer, or more frightened of life and what it has to offer. If one friend falls in the former category and one falls in the latter category, it can be hard for them to spend time together, as one wants to adventure, and the other does not.
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Life changes bring on resentment
All sorts of life changes can foster resentment between friends. If one friend becomes very wealthy, and the other stays poor, or if one gets married, and the other stays single, or if one becomes semi-famous, and the other remains obscure, one friend can resent the other. It takes a lot of confidence and stability for friends in these situations to remain friends.
