'I was confused, happy, angry and sad.' The complex grief of breaking up with your best friend.

When I was 18, I went through my first breakup. 

It was all the things you expect a breakup to be: Painful. Confusing. Life-altering. 

What I wasn’t prepared for was that it would be a friendship breakup, not a romantic one. 

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Before the breakup. 

I hadn’t known life without her since I was five years old. 

She was funny and charming. I was silly and reliable. 

Our bond worked in ways that not even we could fully understand. 

Our dynamic was effortless to the point that we didn’t need words to understand what the other was thinking or feeling. 

We had an unspoken loyalty to love and protect each other in ways I can only imagine sisters could. 

She was my person. And I was hers. 

Image: Supplied.

We were absolutely inseparable, and at some point, I began to slowly lose who I was as an individual because being in our duo felt safer than having to figure out life on my own. 

It’s obvious to me now that I was a textbook example of someone who was co-dependent. 

It got to the point where I struggled to have new friendships, interests or experiences outside of her because I didn’t think it was possible I could do any of it without her. 

And truthfully, I didn’t want to. 

Until I was forced to. 

How it ended.

After 13 years, the friendship started to feel different to me. 

I couldn’t see myself reflected in her the way I used to. 

Our differences began to outweigh our similarities and we couldn’t relate to each other anymore.  

There wasn’t one big screaming match or an essay-long text message argument that led to the breakup but we both felt the painful slowdown of our friendship. 

We went from messaging each other about everything every day to only interacting when we were in a group chat. 

We stopped having time for each other and we started spending more time with the other people in our lives. 

She had her first boyfriend, and I was very, very single. 

Our lifestyles had changed, and it was devastatingly clear our priorities didn’t match up anymore. 

There was never a conscious decision from either of us to stop being friends but when neither of us tried to get our old dynamic back, our friendship breakup was inevitable. 

At some point, we simply allowed the spark to fade out until it felt like we were strangers to each other. 

After the breakup. 

Going straight into uni and having to make new friends without the comfort of having my best friend of 13 years by my side was scary and overwhelming. 

But, it was something I needed to do. 

I needed to know if I could do it all on my own. I needed to know if people liked me for me, not just as an extension of her. 

In that first-year post-friendship breakup, I learnt more about myself than I had in my entire life. 

For every day I felt the immeasurable heartache about what I’d lost, I was also forced to confront feelings I’d suppressed for years. 

Yes, I was letting go of a rare type of friendship that some people don’t ever get to experience in their lifetime, but I couldn’t deny that I wanted to be my own person.

In that first year alone, I pushed myself so far out of my comfort zone, my high school self wouldn’t even recognise me. I worked through my anxiety. I took complete ownership of who I wanted to be and what I wanted my life to look like. 

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I still cared for her, and like any breakup, there was a long and exhausting grieving period. 

I would go back and forth between missing her place in my life and feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t step into my confidence sooner.

I’d reflect on the dynamics of friendships around me and feel part of the picture was incomplete without her in it. 

I’d go through major milestones in my life and feel the pang of knowing I couldn’t share the news with her. 

I was confused, happy, angry and sad. All at the same time. Especially when I thought of how she was doing without me. 

Even though I’d finally gained confidence in who I was, I never wanted it to seem like I was thriving without her. 

It was a hard truth to swallow knowing that I needed to lose her to find out who I had the potential of being.

And after two years and becoming exactly the person I wanted to be, I let the idea of having her back in my life enter my mind. 

Rekindling the friendship.

We were a few months into our third year of not being friends when I received a text message from her. 

My grandmother had just passed away, someone she had known growing up, and she was sending her condolences. 

Without hesitation, I texted back, and we started sharing stories about all the memories we’d shared with my grandmother. 

It was a wholesome conversation and the perfect way to sense whether we were both wanting the same thing. 

Our friendship now. 

I knew part of me was desperate to have her back in my life, but I also didn’t want to revert back into the person I was before. Plus, I had no idea how she felt on her end, so I left the ball in her court. 

She asked to catch up the next day. 

Just like our breakup, the rebuilding of our friendship took time. 

We certainly didn’t rush to buy each other friendship bracelets, and we definitely didn’t force ourselves to recreate our old dynamic. 

Image: Supplied.

What we did do, was be honest. About everything. 

We spoke about the way we felt when we stopped being friends, what we gained from the time apart and how much we value having this new version of our friendship now. 

It’s been four years since that text message and we’re both so appreciative of how everything turned out. 

When we catch up now, we usually end up reflecting on our friendship breakup. 

We’ve laughed about it, cried about it, and she even came up with the idea of me writing this article from one of those very conversations - but in the end, we always arrive at the same conclusion. Neither of us regrets the breakup. 

It was an inevitable chapter in our story together and we’re even more grateful for each other now because of it. 

Feature image: Supplied.

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