Romantic breakups are hard. The pain and emotional turmoil that comes with that territory is something we’re all familiar with through pop-culture. You watch movies from a young age where people are thrown into the pits of despair due to a love lost. Or maybe you watched your own parents go through it. Perhaps that firsthand account of seeing real hearts get torn apart prepared you for the romantic type of breakup. 

But there’s one type of relationship ending that people don’t talk about. The “friend break-up,” is probably one of the most confusing and underrated experiences out there. It could happen for a million-and-one different reasons. Maybe it was your fault, maybe it was theirs. Or maybe it was just time and circumstance. But regardless of the cause of the rift, it ended with someone saying they don’t want to be friends anymore, someone getting blocked or worse– ghosted. In any case, the friendship is officially terminated and there’s no obvious chance for repair. If you’re going through a friend break-up, or are still ruminating about one, here are four points to remember to help you process and move forward with or without that friend. 

1. Different People for Different Seasons

Have you ever heard that expression about life having seasons? Each period in your life will be marked by different joys or hardships. Well, as varied as those seasons are, so are our friends. Friends may come into our lives for different reasons. I believe Allah sends people when we need them most. Maybe we’re in college and struggling to make friends and we click with one person who introduces us to ten more, but we never hang out with that first one again. Or maybe you become besties with someone at work, but then you change departments and you never hang out anymore. Those friendships were real, they just weren’t meant to last. And while that’s not the same as a friend who either ghosts or makes a sharp exit from your life, the same rule applies: some people are only meant to be with you for a certain period of time. Whether it’s a bad ending or not, accept the ending and move forward. 

2. You Can’t Control Other People 

I had one (or maybe two) bad friend break-ups. With the most recent, it ended with a big fight and I attempted to repair it. Although my apology was accepted by her, she said she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I thought six months plus a trip to her city might change things. Upon asking for a meet up through a third party friend, I was shot down. She said she didn’t have the emotional capacity to restart the friendship. It was heartbreaking after seven years of friendship that there was no willingness to repair from her end.

But that year, I learned a good lesson: You can’t control other people. I couldn’t control how she responded to my invitation. I couldn’t force her to be my friend again. Like any relationship, both parties need to be willing to compromise, forgive, and forget. If she wasn’t able to do that it was on me to accept and let go.

3. Don’t Let it Define You

A break up with one friend doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad person or a bad friend overall. It’s possible that things didn’t work out with that one friend because of something specific to that relationship or that time period. It doesn’t mean that you need to start reassessing all your relationships to see if there are similar problems lurking. 

However, if you routinely have friend break-ups, or realize that you don’t have friends for more than a few months or years at a time, maybe it’s time to look deeper. Are you the problem? Or was it a one off thing? Either way, learn from the relationship and move on. 

4. There’s Always Hope

Sometimes in life people end friendships because they’re having a hard time in their own lives. Their reason for breaking up may have had nothing to do with you. In those cases, there may be hope. Your friend might come around again. There might be a chance to start over and reconnect. It’s never too late to try again. Why? Because real friends will always find each other. It might take years apart from one another, but when the time is right, true friends meet again under the right circumstances. The people who are meant to be in your life, end up there. Have hope!