Our goal at GIRLFRIENDOLOGY is to inspire you, and improve and strengthen your female friendships.

We love to provide ideas for meeting new friends, ways to celebrate those friendships and special events/holidays together and share stories of best friends who remind us to appreciate and care for each other. Our contests, interviews (on our podcasts and live BlogTalkRadio show) blogs, Facebook updates and tweets all focus on the good part of girlfriendship. And, fortunately, there’s lots of that.

But for every high, there has to be a low (we’ve chatted about highs/lows before!) and sometimes friendships come to an end – which is usually painful and sad, especially if the friendship was one of our valued relationships.

The following article explores what to do when a friendship ends. Have you gone through this? What have you learned? Please share in the comments. Thanks girlfriends. And may you have many, MANY more highs than lows – especially when it comes to friendships.

When a friendship ends

Published on 29/03/2009, Dr Margaret Mwenje

A broken relationship can break your heart depending on how much you had invested in the relationship.

When it is over, you may be left feeling angry, disappointed, frustrated and hopeless. You may keep hoping and praying your ex-friend will change her or his mind and come back to you. The fact is she or he may have made his or her mind never to come back to you.

Actions speak louder than words and you can tell when someone is really not coming back. She has deliberately decided to move on with life. You may have been treated unfairly, but be fair to yourself and move on too.

Don’t blame yourself for the broken relationship. It may not help to keep crying over spilt milk. If you contributed to the problem, learn from your mistakes so that you don’t transfer them to future relationships.

This is because you can’t keep on doing the same thing expecting different results.

There is a reason why the relationship has come to an end. Don’t allow yourself to lose your mind because this will make you no good for future relationships. Naturally, you are supposed to grieve over the lost relationship. You need to go through grief but not get stuck in it.

As you grieve over the lost relationship you might feel angry with the lost friend or yourself. This is okay. However, it is important to express your anger in constructive ways.

Make sure you don’t turn anger inward. Unexpressed anger is a killer. It can lead to emotional and physical problems like stress, depression and ulcers.

Don’t allow anger to eat you up. Your friend has given up on you and you should not give up on yourself. You still have value despite the fact that you have been crushed, dropped, and tossed around. Just like the $1000 bill that has been dropped on a dusty floor leaving it looking dirty, old and unappealing, it maintains its value; you too still have human value.

Celebrate your life

It is good to come to a point when you can celebrate your life no matter what.

This is your life and you need to decide that you are not going to spend it in misery because of some people who came into your life and left.

People come in our lives for a reason and purpose. Life is like drama on stage.

Friends may join you on stage during certain scenes. However, when their part is done, they have to go. Start developing your self-confidence. Stay strong and be your best friend.

Develop a positive attitude

Keep yourself busy with positive activities that make you feel good about yourself. This will keep your thoughts away from the hurts. Avoid negative people or downers.

Try to hang out with positive people who make you feel good about yourself. Avoid abusing drugs or engaging in other destructive behavior. Some people turn to drug abuse in an attempt to medicate their inner pain. This does not help because it leads to destructive addictive behavior.

Don’t get into a new relationship too soon

Allow yourself time to grieve completely so that you don’t transfer unresolved issues into your new relationship. You need to pamper yourself.

Do something good for yourself. Give yourself a treat. Practice positive self-talk. You have to have a good relationship with yourself before you attempt to have a good relationship with others out there. Love yourself, appreciate yourself, be proud of yourself and walk with your shoulders high because you are somebody!

You have to work on yourself first, because you can’t give what you don’t have. Nobody can make you really happy if you are not happy with yourself.

margaretmwenje@yahoo.com, The Standard | Online Edition :: When a friendship ends.

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Tags: friendship, girlfriends, lose friend, relationships

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Be a Better FRIEND, Girlfriend Advice and Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.