Not all friendships are meant for forever. This is confusing to consider when so much of what we’re taught about friendship is in the context of either the permanence of covenant marriage or the theology of Christian niceness. It is difficult when we have spent extenuated seasons of life in loneliness and are desperate to hang onto companionship. It requires thought when we consider Jesus’ mandate to love. While we are never off the hook of loving others, there may be some relational hooks we need to dislodge in order to be at peace. And sometimes the most peaceful thing to do is walk away. The question is when and how?
WHEN
There are lots of kinds of relationships we can have with people—family member, colleague, acquaintance, friend of a friend, mentor/mentee, community—but friendship is a special kind of relationship that is both compatible and reciprocal.
Friendship should be inherently mutual.
You can feel when there is a power imbalance in a relationship. There are seasons in all relationships that can be more one-sided for whatever reason, but the effort, energy, and level of vulnerability should be pretty similar over time: when it is, you won’t even be keeping score. But when you’re always giving, and they’re always taking, something is off.
If you are having to change who you are to be compatible, then the friendship isn’t keeping pace with your growth. If they are constantly feeling like a drain, are rarely contributing, or if you can’t be honest about who you are with them, my guess is you’re not actually talking about a friendship anymore.
Maybe you’re talking about mentorship. Possibly you’re talking about ministry. But when the pressure to maintain the friendship at a previous level is causing more harm than good, the friendship part has already ended.
Friendships often end without us knowing it.
What continues isn’t friendship, it’s just damaging interpersonal dynamics between people who lack self-awareness.
These may include:
A predictable cycle of: offend, apologize, repeat
A lack of progress in a journey towards healing
An agenda or set of expectations they won’t state outright
Unhappiness unless things go “their way”
Jealousy about other relationships, dynamics, and experiences
An absence of self-awareness they don’t take steps to mitigate
Justification of bad behaviour by blaming others or past hurts, by crowdsourcing advice until they find permission, or by cherry picking scriptures that support their view
Failure to acknowledge their responsibility for outcomes or impact on others
Resisting proactivity, prevention or change but demanding help in predictable crises
Disrespecting your time, or ignoring advice or resources you’ve already provided, but continuing to demand more
Expecting to be the exception to the rule when it comes to group dynamics
Sabotaging what they can’t control
Using gifts or acts of kindness as currency: to buy affection, to incur the debt of a future favour, or as payment for bad behaviour
Being ruled by insecurity and fear and easily threatened by those who aren’t
Are people who continuously do these things worthy of love? Absolutely! They need healing. They need compassion. They need ministering to.
But they aren’t capable of friendship right now.
To expect it of them isn’t loving. To pretend you have it isn’t truthful. And the faster you put boundaries around how and when you show compassion, the more energy you will have to give that person the kind of love they are in desperate need of: one that is patient and kind versus one that is exhausted and begrudging… a love that points them to our Saviour without trying to BE their saviour.
Some people think love and compassion are the opposite of boundaries, but
there is no such thing as love without boundaries. Loving someone is not the same as letting them manipulate you.
It may not even be the same as keeping that person as a regular influence in your life. Love without boundaries is not love: it is abuse, it is enabling, it is destructive. Engaging in and permitting the worst kind of human behaviour are the least loving things one can do. Love says I care about you too much to let you walk this path of destruction. Love says I want your healing more than your happiness. Self-love says, I am strong enough to live without this behaviour even if it means being alone.
Don’t wait until it’s “all bad.”
Many people remain in toxic relational dynamics because they are moved by the appealing qualities in someone to continue tolerating abuse. It’s like they believe that until a person seems entirely nonredeemable, they must stick around. The world is not as easily divided into hero and villain as fairy-tales would have us believe. No one is entirely unredeemable. Of course, they are sometimes nice to you. Of course, you sometimes have fun with them. Of course, they have some good qualities. That’s why you got involved in the first place.
But true friendship means taking the good and the bad, and if you can no longer accept the bad, you may have to walk away from the good.
Otherwise you risk placing conditions on your love, sending confusing signals, and staying trapped in an on-again, off-again cycle that will exhaust you, hurt them, and frustrate your support network.
HOW
You are allowed to break-up with a friend.
Not every connection is an until-death style covenant. Some friendships can have seasons. Some naturally run their course. Some pick-up and drop-off where we leave them.
In rare cases it might be gentler to let someone get the hint that you’re not interested in spending time with them anymore. After all,
Healthy people can read social cues and are capable of growing apart without it threatening their identity.
But once an actual or perceived friendship has been established, it is not kind or honest (or likely possible) to just avoid someone until they go away. “Ghosting” them by pretending to change your cell phone number, avoiding calls and texts, or always being “busy,” is not providing the closure either of you need or rising to the level of integrity that you are capable of…and truthfully, it is unlikely to work anyways.
It may be possible to re-categorize the person in your mind (from friend to acquaintance for example), without changing much of your behaviour, but most likely you will need a direct conversation to redefine your connection or to end it entirely.
If you can:
do it verbally (writing can come across as harsh and anything you put in writing can be used against you)
keep it short (the more you say the more room there is for unnecessary hurt)
don’t wait for them to agree (know that it probably won’t be mutual)
Ending a relationship isn’t a democracy.
and an unhealthy person will not be satisfied no matter how clear your explanation is. This is not about convincing the other person to see things your way, it is about modelling respect and explaining in kind and clear terms that you are going to move on.
Ending a relationship does not necessarily mean the relationship is broken. It means it is concluded, or at least completed in its current state.
Most toxic relationships have at their root a manipulative spirit. And when it comes to the game of manipulation, there is no winning—there is only to stop playing.
Are there people who will abuse these principles as an excuse to be unloving, to fear commitment and to justify disloyalty, or avoid accountability? Of course! The risk of freedom is always that people will abuse it. Don’t let that stop you. Be loving, be at peace, be free.