6 Signs You’ve Outgrown A Lifelong Friendship

One of the hardest parts about moving through life is accepting that not everyone from our past will make it to our future. 

The older we get, the more we learn who we are. And while the core of who we are underneath can remain the same, something I didn’t expect was how everything starts shifting suddenly from your 20s to your 30s: the values you hold, what you prioritize, and even friendships that you swore would last forever. 

But life starts happening, and before you know it, it’s been months without any communication between you and your friend. The friendship feels like it’s barely hanging on by a thread, and the thread is only there because of your past together and all the memories you share.

Losing a connection with what you thought was a lifelong friendship can be just as hard as coming to terms with a long-term relationship ending. While it’s never easy or something you expect to happen, here are 6 signs you’ve outgrown a lifelong friendship:

1. The Friendship Feels One-Sided 

We all know that for any type of relationship to work, effort needs to be put in by both sides. 

All of our lives are busy, even if they look busy in different ways. Maybe your friend just had her first baby, but you’re finally starting to excel in your dream career. Or you bought a new house where you plan on settling, while your friend moved across the state.

It’s important to recognize the difference between being in a busy season of life, knowing you’ll eventually reconnect, or if it feels one-sided. You don’t need to stay in constant communication, but if you feel like you’re the one who is constantly reaching out without anything in return, it might be time to re-evaluate where your friendship stands. The best type of friendship is one where you’ll know you’ll pick up right where you left off, but if you’re the only one putting effort in without reciprocation, it might be a sign that it’s no longer mutual.

What’s hard about a lifelong friendship is not wanting to accept that you may both be starting to outgrow it. But when it becomes one-sided, it’s not worth continuing to prioritize someone who no longer prioritizes you.

2. There’s A Lack Of Support 

Do you feel like you’re always the one supporting your friend through anything and everything, but then she’s nowhere to be found when you need the same support in return? Maybe you tried to call your friend to vent about a life problem, but you feel like all it did was go in one ear and out the other. When there’s a lack of support and feeling like your friend couldn’t care less about what’s going on in your life, it’s difficult to want to maintain and support that friendship. 

There might be times when your friend will have to lean on you a little more than usual or vice versa. But during those times, you know that you both always support each other no matter what.

Friends are there for each other in thick and thin not only in the good times, but especially in the hard times too. When you feel like the support isn’t there because your friend never responds with more than two words without chiming in about their own life, it’s difficult to want to keep nurturing that friendship.

3. Your Interests No Longer Align

As you discover more and more about who you are through different life experiences, you might realize your interests with a friend have changed and some things no longer align. When you start to get to know somebody, you find ways to connect and build on those connections. But sometimes friendships change simply because you find that you aren’t connecting in the way you once did.  

One of the hardest parts about accepting that you’ve outgrown a lifelong friendship is realizing that your stages of life might not intersect like they used to. It’s nothing against the other person, but the reality is that when we go through life changes, we might not always align with the people we were once close to. It’s hard to keep connecting with a friend when neither of you can relate to what the other one is going through.

Related posts you might like:

• What Nobody Talks About When Grieving A Friendship
• How To Set Boundaries In Friendships
• The Truth About Strong And Deep Friendships

4. The Friendship No Longer Fulfills You

I’ve always believed that we have different friendships in our lives because they fulfill us in different ways. Sometimes you might need that one friend who always knows what to say, or the friend who will support you no matter how big or small your dreams are. But when you find that the lifelong friendship isn’t fulfilling you anymore, it might be a sign that you’re starting to outgrow it. 

Some people are meant to be in our lives for a short time, while others are meant to be lifelong. The people who are with you from the beginning might not always make it to the end because we each have our own paths in life. If you find there’s no sense of fulfillment in your friendship, or you’re constantly feeling drained after you’re around them, it could be because the friendship isn’t supporting you and the person you are in the ways that it used to. 

5. There’s Too Much Conflict Or Negativity 

Do the friendships and relationships in your life bring out the best or worst version of you?

Disagreements and conflict in any type of friendship or relationship are inevitable. But there’s a difference between the occasional disagreement and constantly having opposing viewpoints that begin interfering with your friendship as a whole. 

Being in a friendship when there’s constant conflict can bring an unnecessary amount of negativity into your life. What’s hard about wanting to maintain a lifelong friendship is wanting to hold onto the relationship as much as possible, since it’s always been a part of your life. But if there’s too much negativity or conflict all the time, you might be outgrowing somebody who isn’t willing to grow with you or change. 

6. You Feel Like An Inconvenience 

Do you feel like you’re always an inconvenience to your friend when you try to reach out and connect, even if it’s a simple text? While a strong friendship is built on the premise that you don’t always have to be in communication to know the other person still cares about you, you still shouldn’t feel like an inconvenience when you do try and reach out.

Sometimes it’s not always about how much time you have with somebody, but rather the time that you do get. Things do and will change in our lives, but a strong lifelong friendship will always make its way back to each other. If you feel like you’re always bothering or inconveniencing your friend, then it might not be worth investing any more time into the friendship. 

While outgrowing what you thought was a lifelong friendship is difficult, sometimes things can and will change as you transition from one stage to the next. Maybe your interests start to no longer align, or you find that you’re not only on a different chapter of life, but a whole book altogether. 

The people who come and go in our lives are always there for a reason, helping us grow and teaching us things about ourselves that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. Change is always hard and uncomfortable, but know that for every loss, there will always be another gain.