I’ve outgrown 2 friendships, cut off a family member and another friend due to incompatibility. My circle is smaller.
Anyone else outgrowing friendships in their 30s, and how are you navigating this?
I’ve outgrown 2 friendships, cut off a family member and another friend due to incompatibility. My circle is smaller.
Anyone else outgrowing friendships in their 30s, and how are you navigating this?
Comments
Yes all the time and I’m happier for it.
I have out grown a couple friends, they completely understand and are respectful about it!
Your 30s is a time to go for quality over quantity. Most people have less time than before to hang out with friends, so might as well be sure you want to give them that time.
That’s the point of your 30s. Life gets busy and there’s no point in spending energy sustaining any type of relationship already on life support.
Yes and I’ve never been happier. At the same time, I have made new friendships that are more in-line with who I am as a person now, rather than the person I was 20 years ago.
Yeah I have no friends
Yes, a few months ago I cut off a friend from high school. The reason was that she was growing more passive-aggressive every time I talked to her. I told her sensitive information and she would take jabs, not directly at me, but at people who did similiar things that I did. I didn’t do anything immoral, but I was going through a rough time, and it felt like she was kicking me while I was down.
There were times that after a phone call, I’d repeat the conversation in my head to play devil’s advocate because it sounded like she was taking jabs at me and I’d debate whether I was being too sensitive or whether it was intentionally-hurtful or not.
After a while, I just got burn-out on playing devil’s advocate. Talking to her made me feel like shit and my gut feeling was that it was intentional, that she was bringing me down to feel good about herself.
Yes. It’s completely normal and as a society we really should be normalising ending/outgrowing friendships that have run their course, as well as making friends at all ages!
No one would blame you for not being still with the same partner from high school, I feel this same energy should be applied to all relationships not just romantic ones.
Yes – I only speak to my mom and MIL mostly about my baby. I share everything personal with my husband only, and I don’t have any friends.
Yeah, lifestyle changes, people grow apart. I’m not happy about the loss of any friendship, I still miss my BFF that I met back in 2007. But the person he became, the life he chose, it was no longer compatible with mine so we had to part ways. Every friendship that ended these past couple of years ended up being a “good riddance” for lack of better term. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I do my best to build new friendships but it takes a lot of effort when it’s not a friendship of convenience made at school or work, so it’s a slow going.
Yep. It can be sad, but in the end I am happy I don’t put up with shit anymore. This has allowed me to meet new and better, quality people.
Yes. It’s weird. Unlike the other commenters here I’m not super thrilled and happy about it. It’s more like.. I’m okay to be outgrowing my past, but I’m still in limbo and unsure of the future. That feels really weird and like a mini midlife crisis
In the last few months, I’ve cut off 2 friendships that I felt were just really imbalanced and negative. What sealed it was when, funny enough, both violated my boundaries with one showing up at my apartment door, 1030pm in the evening after I had said I’m taking a break from social media apps and people (having not had quiet/ alone time in 3 YEARS)
Oh, and before anyone comes at me for saying the friendships were “negative”—it’s because these people were chronic complainers who needed an enabler. I thought I was being a supportive ear but overtime even though life was getting so much better for them, they fixate on the most trivial things. We are adults. Not everything that goes wrong is a crisis and I no longer want to be the enabler for it. Learned my boundaries and happy to let go and move on.
It’s been really hard but I got tired of putting in all the work. I got tired of being their cheerleader and being there for support and then them doing the bare minimum for me. I have had the hard conversations. Nothing changes. Long distance is just hard. My husband and I had joined a small group. It went no where it was all about their kids and troubles in marriage. We were just in a different stage. We didnt talk or do anything outside the group. We met once a month. Took three months off. As soon as we left now they reach out and say they miss us. Yet when we were there they didn’t engage with us. I have no capacity for one sided friendships. My husband and I decided we are done trying after trying for 8 years to make friends. We now pour into each other and spend time doing fun stuff. We realized people are at different seasons. We don’t have kids and trying to be friends with people who have young kids is almost impossible. I know for me I don’t want friendships that are only talking about struggles and deep trauma. I want fun and laughter and more equal. I am okay supporting people but not all the time not heavy stuff that is more for a therapist. My husband always meets people who just use him and take advantage of his kindness. They always want something and are never actual friends. It’s hard and lonely at times but we have no more space for hurt and disappointment. It’s not for a lack of trying.
Yeah it’s pretty sad.
Literally just went through my first friendship break up and I foresee many more lol
Yes, I cut off all my friends! I have none now and I’m so much happier! I’m not going to deny, it gets lonely but honestly having friends is toxic and constant negativity jealousy, so I rather not have any! 🤷♀️🥺
I’m starting to wonder: is the whole “lifelong friendship” thing yet another belief that we have been brainwashed into believing? Much like all the other tropes we are told to believe in: you MUST get married; you MUST have children; you MUST buy a house….
Whats wrong if a friendship just naturally dies out? It’s not a “failure”; it merely served it’s purpose (hopefully for both parties) Assuming nothing toxic or damaging happened, there’s really nothing wrong with short term friendships.
Let’s be honest: if we are all 30 and up, chances are you grew up believing in a “Sex and the City” clique of girls who would be lifelong friends and always down to hang out…..I’ve always taken issue with the themes in SATC despite it being a fun TV show, because it seems many of us used it as some type of Blueprint for our romantic partners and especially our friendships. But the show was fiction (and heavily crafted by male writers strangely enough) But if you do any type of deep dive on the characters and their relationships, they weren’t very good friends to each other at all…..this is also hilarious to me, considering the real life bad blood between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Catrall.
I just feel like, just like with romantic partnerships, maybe we should re-evaluate how we navigate adult female friendships as well. As for myself, I’m autistic/ADHD so I never could maintain friendships well. As a kid I had more friends and playmates….but that was largely because I was people pleasing/masking/or being the “clown” of my group to get them to let me in their clique. By the time I hit puberty and developed boobs, that was all over as girls started competing for boys attention and saw my emerging beauty as a threat. I didn’t like the attention, so I covered up and started hanging out with goth/emo/punk kids….probably the last time I felt like I was accepted as myself (have a soft spot for scene kids to this day) As an adult woman, I’m only just now focusing on developing friends again and it’s a struggle. Most have families and careers now. Also, many people have more mental illness and personality disorders than before that prevents them from forming connection with others (not a judgement, just my opinion amd experience) I’ve gotten by with the help of my therapist and my cat, and a youthful optimism to just keep trying….
I’m leaning into my lone wolf era