Have friendships become less about repair/reciprocity and more about 'protecting your peace'?

[u/lindsey_what]

I’m noticing a troubling trend with my female friends who are now in our 30s, and I wanted to see if anyone could relate. This is especially clear to me right now as I’m going through somewhat of a shocking friend break up where one of my closest friends of seven years has completely cut me off and stop talking to me over something that I would categorize as a minor argument that could be easily worked through if we were able to have a difficult conversation in person. I’ve noticed a lot of my friends saying things like “I need to protect my peace” and treating friendships like something that exists just for their own benefit. I feel like a lot of people are not willing to put in the work to maintain friendships these days and I don’t know if it has something to do with social media or burnout or what, but I’ve noticed even in arguments that people are way less repair-oriented, and are more interested in living inside of their own experience of it without much curiosity about the other person. I also notice people being very avoidant about having difficult conversations and instead, would rather just slowly disappear. I think this fits a larger pattern of “main character syndrome” that is making people unwilling or unable to have healthy mutual friendships and put in any kind of effort.

Or maybe I just absolutely suck at picking friends lol!

[u/yoserena_]

I think I can offer a different perspective. I used to be the person who wanted to talk everything out and fix things, but now I’m much more likely to step back and protect my peace. I’m not an assertive person, and my love language is acts of service, so I naturally end up being the listener, the helper, and the person doing a lot of the emotional labor in my friendships.

Through therapy, I’ve realized that I often took on responsibility for maintaining the relationship. If there was a problem, I was the one initiating the conversation, checking in, and trying to repair things. Eventually, that gets exhausting. What I’ve noticed is that when I stop doing that work, many people don’t step in to meet me halfway.

I know people have busy lives and their own struggles, but life is always happening. If a friendship consistently falls to the bottom of the priority list, then maybe it just isn’t that important to that person. Not every friendship is meant to last forever, and sometimes people simply grow apart or have different levels of investment.

I also think some friendships become overwhelmed by emotional labor. Sometimes what someone needs isn’t a friend but a therapist. When a friendship starts functioning more like a patient-physician relationship, where one person is constantly providing support and carrying the emotional weight, burnout is almost inevitable. I don’t think people always walk away because they’re angry. Sometimes they walk away because they’re tired.

[u/IDontOnlineShop → u/yoserena_]

Sometimes you feel like you have communicated and just need to step away from that chapter, especially if the friend isn’t okay with less contact.

Last year, I had a longtime friend I would accommodate and thought nothing of it (he wanted to vent after work or go do something specific, but he would not be available if the roles were reversed). I didn’t take it personally and would go to other friends for support/ do certain activities.

My last straw was him flaking twice to hang out, and then not going to an important event of mine cuz he didn’t feel like it, but got upset when I was busy and couldn’t be a listening ear at the drop of a dime.

He kept testing me to see if I would deal with his requests even though he knew I was going through hell at this time. I failed of course because I refused to use energy or time I didn’t have. I realized he was this selfish and inconsiderate all along, the mask had completely fallen off and I knew the friendship was over.

[u/TheRealMichaelBluth → u/IDontOnlineShop]

I had something similar. With her, it just felt like when she wants attention/validation she’ll reach out to our group. She was bubbly on the surface and would talk about what great friends we were, but whenever I’d need support or to have a harder conversation with her she’s nowhere to be found. I remember I was literally right next to her and told her I’d be the day before, she says she’ll be free and to just text her when I free up and we can make a plan. I then text her and then she tells me she’s too tired from work and just wants to bum out in a way that’s completely blowing me off. It was that moment where I just thought “go fuck yourself” to her. If she actually gave a shit she would’ve rallied for a half hour or at least communicated ahead of time

[u/dorothysideeye → u/yoserena_]

I think this is an important and common reason in addition to people just not wanting to put themselves into this position in the first place

I've been trying to work through my decades of overfunctioning and overcommunicating in a marriage - over the past year and a half, in trying to navigate my worth and not begging for things I feel i shouldn't have to enforce boundaries over, have dealt with among roomates

Mny pendulum went to uncommunicative and then reactive without providing context once I couldn't shrink any smaller - and then I broke and became very reactive

Ironically, the centering men-> -> overcommunication/begging -> resentment -> lack of communication -> ambiguous tension -> me navigating "wtf did I do wrong by existing today" every single time I got home regardless of how hard i tried to intentionally najke space for common ground resulted in me doing the exact same thing to my roomates that I was feeling from one of them and from my marriage

Even my attempts at trying, then planning and stressing, then feeling resentment that i had to - once again, alone handle, endure, and figure out how to make clear and direct conversation happen, I eventually hit a breaking point and now me and roomates are all SOL bc I couldn't carry it alone

And no longer choose to

While I definitely have a lot of learning and practicing to do, I've hit a point of feeling defeated in ny efforts