How to Clean Up Your Friendships

There has been much written on the art of breaking up with a friend. Quite often it can be harder and more stressful than ending a romantic relationship. Along with these articles on ending friendships, there seems to be a movement towards “purging” friends: once a friendship is on the rocks, just dump the friend, regardless of how long the friendship has lasted. Thankfully, if you have hit a rough spot with a friend, this doesn’t automatically mean that the friendship is over. There are things that you can do to clean up the friendship and get it back on track.

Is it important to you? The first thing you need to do is decide how important the friendship is to you. Maybe you honestly don’t want to be friends with this person anymore. This does happen and there is no need to feel bad about it. But maybe the friendship is important to you and you want to revive it. Before deciding to dump your friend, make sure.

Talk it out

Quite often the reason a friendship goes south is that you’ve stopped communicating with each other. Something may have been misinterpreted whether it be words or an action. Instead of talking about it, you two let it slide. Only you don’t. You hold on to it, but don’t mention it. But maybe you’ve done or said something too, and your friend doesn’t talk to you about it. All of a sudden there’s hurt feelings and resentment on both sides, further breaking down communication. Mention things as they come up. Quite often asking for clarification can clear things up. If you aren’t sure what your friend meant by something they said or did, ask! It can save you a lot of heartache.

Get together

If you never saw or talked to your spouse or partner, how do you think that relationship would fair? Life is busy, but if you want your friendships to stay strong and healthy, you have to talk to or see your friends regularly. If you are swapped with work and home, drop an email or send a text message to check in. A few words regularly can go a long, long way.

Address issues head-on

This is similar to talking it out, but usually happens after the fact. If something major has happened between you and your friend, address it head-on. A falling out or fight doesn’t mean the end of the friendship. Get together and discuss what happened. Quite often what you’re feeling doesn’t reflect what actually happened and vice-versa. Before meeting agree to leave the blame game out of the discussion. Be open and honest about how you feel and be willing to listen.

Leave the past in the past

So, you and your friend had a falling out but you’ve managed to talk about it and have moved passed what happened. Make sure that is actually the case. If you have any lingering concerns or hurt feelings you need to talk it out and resolve what has happened. Then leave the past in the past and move on. Holding on to what happened in the past will only make things awkward and possibly ruin the friendship. And if it’s something you aren’t sure you can work past, than you need to readdress the friendship.

This is a Guest Post by Vernon Marker. He is a freelance writer for Marriage Fitness. Marriage Fitness is an innovative step-by-step relationship-changing system that teaches you how to save your marriage. Any couple that is going through marriage problems and want to know how to save a marriage can find answers through Marriage Fitness.