When friendships go bad

“When I went back to teaching I was very glad to have someone at my school who really understood me,” says Elena, 42, of Toronto, of a friend she prefers not to name. “But over time things soured… I found that if we weren't talking about her issues in the classroom, she wasn't interested. And she definitely didn't want to hear what I had to say about strategies she could try.”

But the end came when Elena had to have back surgery. “I heard from another teacher when I came back that my friend had been saying that I was fully recovered more than a week before I came back, when that simply wasn't true. I realized that since I had come back to work things hadn't been good between us. After that and a few other things I ended up just writing her off.” Her friend eventually transferred into an administrative position at another school, which made it easier to let the relationship go.

Unfortunately these kinds of stories are common. Friendships can be intense relationships, similar to siblings and sometimes longer-lasting than marriages. As Jan Yager, Ph.D, and author of When Friendship Hurts explains:

“As friends become closer and more intimate, expectations also may arise so that disappointments become more likely, and painful, than during the early stage of the evolving friendship.

Furthermore, as a friendship that formed within a certain context, such as at school or at work, expands to include a multiplicity of situations and even other relationships, conflicts may arise that may derail the friendship. In addition, the longer you remain friends, the greater your investment in maintaining the friendship; you are more likely to ignore or try to explain away negative behaviors. But you (or your friend) will be able to put up with only so much, and the friendship may last only until such an act of betrayal occurs that the situation has to be addressed and resolved or the friendship will end.”