Episode 19: Friendship Breakups

In this solo MMHR-style episode, Marie talks about the grief of outgrowing friendships, awkward social media dynamics after falling outs, missing people who no longer fit your life, and why friendship breakups sometimes hurt even worse than relationships. This episode is emotional, honest, relatable, and sprinkled with a little humor for anyone who’s ever found themselves stalking an old friend’s Instagram story wondering how strangers happened so fast.

Grab your coffee, your iced tea, or your emotional support snack… because today’s tea gets personal. ☕🖤

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back TDT fans. It's Marie and today's episode is going to be a solo episode, a mini solo episode at that. But today we're going to be talking about something that honestly deserves a lot more attention than we more than often anticipate. That's going to be friendship breakups. Because why does nobody warn you that losing a best friend can just hurt almost as much as it is to sometimes lose an actual relationship? Like seriously, romantic breakouts, people bring you ice cream, but friendship breakups, people act like you should just get over it because friends come and go. Meanwhile, you're sitting there grieving somebody who knew your favorite snacks, your trauma lore, your family drama, your toxic X phases, and every embarrassing thing you've done since I mean, probably tw like for me, 2007, maybe 2008. Um, and somehow that pain gets minimized. So today's episode is going to be a little more emotional, but also a little funny. Because honestly, if we don't laugh, we might cry. And some of us already have cried in Dollar General parking lot probably five times this week. Just kidding. Um rarely go there, PSA. But um, I think friendship breakups hurt differently because friendships are built on comfort. You don't usually have to impress your friends, you're ugly around them if you want to be. You send voice messages sounding like you smoked 14 packs of cigarettes, you show up emotionally disheveled, and you tell them things you don't even tell relationships sometimes, and then one day it changes. And honestly, sometimes there's not even a huge bite. That's just the worst part of it all. Sometimes people just drift. You go from talking every single day to reacting to each other's Instagram stories with the heart emoji every six months, and somehow social media makes it even weirder because now you still see each other. You know, when they cut their hair, you know, when they go to Texas Roadhouse, you know they got a new best friend named Ashley who suddenly comments, love you, bestie, under every post. And you're over there like, oh, so this is personal. But seriously, friendship grief is real, especially when you lose someone you thought would be there during every stage of your life. The older I get, the more I realize some friendships just don't end well because someone is either evil or you know, sometimes it's low maintenance too. Sometimes you just drift apart, sometimes people can change, life changes a lot of people, honestly, and pain can change people too. Sometimes people outgrow each other, and that is just okay, and that's a hard pill to swallow because history makes us feel obligated to hold on to people forever. But that's also where history and compatibility are not always the same thing. And we can also talk about how awkward friendship fallouts are. At least relationships normally have a clear ending or some kind of closure, but friendships not really. Sometimes nobody says anything, y'all just kind of slowly just stop talking. The memes stop, the random phone calls stop, the guess what happened messages stop, and one day you just realize, wow, I haven't talked to this person in God knows how long. And then your brain does this fun little thing where it decides to replay every memory at 2 a.m. Like, thank you, brain. Exactly what I needed while trying to sleep. And honestly, I think that's what hurts the most is mourning the version of yourself that existed with them as well. Because every friendship holds a different version of you. There are friends that knew you before motherhood, friends that knew you before trauma, friends that knew the loud, carefree version of you, and losing them can feel like losing evidence that that version of you even existed. But that's also the thing that about friendships, honestly, is when they end, sometimes they can teach us more than relationships ever could. They teach us boundaries, they teach us communication, they teach us that not everybody is meant to stay forever. And honestly, some friendships ending is necessary because sometimes we keep people around simply because we've known them just for a long time. Meanwhile, the friendship has been draining you for years. And listen, if every time you leave a conversation with someone and you feel anxious, exhausted, judged, or emotionally heavy, that's not a safe relationship or a friendship. And I've also learned that adulthood changes friendships, expectations a lot. When you're younger, friendships survive off of proximity. You saw each other every day, life was easier, now everybody's stressed, healing, parenting, working, surviving mentally unstable before noon. And maintaining friendships actually takes intention, and not every friendship survives adulthood, honestly. That doesn't always make either person bad either, though, but I do think there's a difference between outgrowing people and abandoning your people. And sometimes people deserve conversations instead of silence. But honestly, that's also where closure matters, communication matters, and kindness also matters. And if you're somebody grieving a relationship or a friendship right now, I just want you to know it's okay to miss people and still know they're not meant for your life. Both things can exist, and you can love someone deeply and still recognize that this friendship no longer holds value or is healthy for you. And honestly, some people are only meant to walk with us through certain chapters or as people say, certain seasons. But I promise this too, not every friendship after heartbreak will fail. There are still genuine people out there, people who stay, people who communicate, and people who don't make you question your worth. And sometimes losing the wrong friendship makes room for healthier ones. Because I'm not gonna lie, I have lost a lot of friends, guys, um, over the years since I was younger, through high school, middle school, elementary, um, you know, most of the people I kept friends with, but there's few that I didn't. And even now and to this day, we talk, but most of the time there's only one friend that I have that literally is my ride or die, and I've known her since third grade, and we don't stay together just because of how long we've known each other. But it's just the relationship we communicate, we love each other. She's literally like my sister. She knows that if I need something, she does it, if she needs something, I do it. If we go out to restaurants or go out to eat, sometimes she pays for me, I pay for her the next time. Like it takes 50-50 sometimes, and I mean, sometimes there is like a 40-30 or 60-30, you know, like relationships aren't always gonna be 50-50 in some moments when people are going through things, and that's okay, but just remember there, like, like I said, there's a difference between abandoning your people and I guess you would say needing space for a little bit or just going through life. We all deserve our time as people, or you know, just as human beings, like we deserve our time to take a break, relax after work, do things that we enjoy. And you know, in the previous episode, I talked about a loss that I endured, and I will highly like speak on this. Ever since I've lost that person, I literally have no desire to keep friendships that no longer are beneficial to me, and that's not things that they can give me, that's the effort. Um, if I don't see that that person like wants anything to do with me, that's what I mean. If I see people like, you know, try to make a little effort, even if it's just their I don't have to hang out with someone all the time, but it's about just knowing that you're there, and if you're not there, like especially losing someone that you love and none of your friends show up for you, or um some of them. Honestly, I had a really a lot of people that came in for me, and I'm very grateful for my situation, but it's really sad because there was a few people I expected to not expected them to like give me the world because I feel like that's selfish, but there was people that knew this person in my life, knew how close they were to me, knew how much I loved this person, and not once said a word to me, still has not said a word to me, and honestly, it's really sad because you can be there for your friends as much as they have pain and the things that they go through, and sometimes they'll just never show up for you, and that's okay, and that's where another part of this goes. Sometimes people just grow apart. That doesn't mean you have to stick around for someone who only has time for themselves, and that doesn't mean they're a bad person, that just means you grew apart. And honestly, I just wanted to speak on that because it's not something a lot of people talk about. Um, all I hear normally is about relationships, and sometimes friendships are just as bad, and sometimes the breakups are even worse, and you know, so if you're listening to this while grieving a friendship, overthinking a fallout, or silently missing somebody you no longer talk to, just know you're not dramatic for hurting over it or even feeling those emotions. Friendship breakups are real, and honestly, sometimes they really do hurt worse than relationships. Thank you guys for hanging out though with me during today's little tea talk. Make sure to follow Deadly Tea Podcast wherever you listen. And if you enjoyed this episode, even just a little bit, share it with somebody who's probably also pretending they don't care while stalking somebody else's Instagram story. Okay, guys. But to loo later, alligators.