A wise friend once said, ‘friendships happen for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.‘

As I navigate friendships in my 40s, over the hurdles of parenthood and marriage, I often think of this. As friends come and go, I can’t help but wonder what it is that makes some last, some disappear and some explode in our faces.

Friendship shouldn’t feel like walking on eggshells.

Life can be hard, and relationships will have difficult moments, but at their core, friendships should feel safe. They should lift us up more than they wear us down. They should feel easy, even when life is hard.

Is it the hard friendships that don’t last? Are the difficult interactions and painful requests, clues that these friendships are not good for us?

You should never leave an interaction feeling bad about yourself. That I am sure of.

It’s taken me well into my forties to find my ‘lifetime friends’. After spending what feels like forever, feeling slightly out of place, regularly wondering, “when was I going to feel at home?” to find them.

Finally with the confidence to say no, in a small country town in Australia, I’ve found my lifetime friends. Although we no longer live in the same suburb, some on the opposite side of the world, we still laugh, cry and everything in between together.

I would drop everything to support them, and them for me. I know it’s true ‘friendship’ love, because when I don’t reply instantly to a message, they don’t get mad. They just seem to get it. Knowing we’re all in the trenches of parenthood together – and it’s bloody hard to reply to text messages and work out what’s for dinner at the same time – with or without little people hanging off you.

The replaying of conversations in my head, that once dominated my brain, has all but gone. Perhaps this has come from the confidence age brings or because these friendships are healthy and I can finally relax.

But not all friends are created equal – then there was Charlotte.

Charlotte is the kind of beautiful that meant 10 years ago life was really easy for her. Her drinks were paid for and doors held open. Everyone wanted to be around her, and it was easy to see why. Charlotte was a lot of fun. She was also fiercely loyal, if someone was hurting, she was hurting too. It’s an incredible attribute in a friend, however it was sometimes hard to match. Often resulting in her disappointment.

Our relationship felt different to the others from the beginning. She was harder work but somehow worth it. She complained on girls weekends away about the accommodation, the wine, the people. Her standards were higher than ours and she made sure we knew. I often wondered why she was friends with us as we so often seemed to let her down.

We all accepted this behaviour and actually quite loved her for it. Her big personality filled the room. On nights out she was the first one on the dance floor and last one home. Always keen to party on and always ensuring we all knew she had the biggest hangover the next day.

I did love our friendship, but often feared catching her on a bad day or saying the wrong thing. She seemed to love confrontation, all in the name of standing up for herself and what she believed was right. Surely sometimes you just have to let things go, just for the sake of some peace.

She would regularly be annoyed by others in our group. As she relayed their wrongdoings I would catch myself wondering how she’d described me to others. I knew I was definitely not exempt.

You never quite knew what you were going to get and that was all part of the thrill. Why else did I keep coming back for more?

Then one day someone called her out on her attitude and everything came crashing down. Every argument has three sides – yours, mine and the truth. No one likes being held accountable for their bad behaviour, and so very quickly it became her and us.

Just like that Charlotte was gone.

I tried half-heartedly to see her, to make the effort. But if I’m honest I relished in the comfort of knowing she wouldn’t be there on nights out. No second guessing who would sleep where on the weekends away. No sly comments about my thinning hair or more direct statements about my inadequate make-up application. Everything just felt easier.

My ego protected me from looking too closely at my own behaviour. After all, you’ll always be the villain in someone’s story.

Without intention I allowed the time between catch ups to increase, until it felt inappropriate to reach out. We were no longer friends, our season was over.

But, was it worth it? Life is definitely easier, but I miss my friend.

Why do we stay in toxic friendships?

Why do we put up with toxic people for so long? And how do they see themselves? I have no doubt she feels let down by me. I did not fight for her, or our friendship. But neither did she. she chose to be offended by the way it played out. We both simply let it slide away.

I wonder if she saw our friendship as toxic too. Perhaps, in her version of events, everyone else let her down. Maybe I was the difficult friend. After all I went along with everything, even the bits I didn’t agree with. Never speaking out when things got tense or pushing back in the same way she did. I simply rolled over and then secretly shared my frustrations about her to others. I so many ways I was no better than her.

Was I part of the problem?

Is that why friendships end? Because we don’t share the same standards? Because we’re unable to hold ourselves accountable for the behaviour we’re so quick to judge in others? Was Charlotte simply more honest than the rest of us? Not necessarily about right and wrong, but about the things she didn’t like. That’s something I’ve rarely been able to do in my own friendships.

And just like that, my friendship with Charlotte moved categories. It’s no longer a friendship I see as lasting only for a season. Instead, I think it happened for a reason.
Charlotte taught me that friendship isn’t just about finding people who make life easier. It’s also about understanding the parts of ourselves we’d rather not examine too closely.

Perhaps that was the lesson I needed to learn most.