When Friends Abandon You During Grief: Why It Happens and How to Cope
It’s been three months since the funeral, and your phone never rings or lights up with a new text message. You’re on Instagram and you see your friend group out to lunch, and you didn’t get invited. You run into a friend at the store, but they pretend they don’t see you. Your best couple friends mention they just got back from a trip you had planned together, and you find out they went with different friends.
Sadly, these are all actual scenarios that clients have shared with me. It’s a grief we don’t talk about very much — no one warns you, but it happens often. It’s shockingly painful to experience having our friends pull away or abandon us while we are grieving. It adds an extra layer of pain to our grief. When it happens, we feel even more alone and like something must be wrong with us or we’re suddenly too much. But, I’m here to tell you, there’s nothing wrong with you. And, you’re not alone. This happens all too often, and it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how ill-equipped our society is to handle other people’s pain.
The Real Reasons Friends Pull Away
If you asked most people, “Would you abandon your friend if they were grieving?”, most of us would say, “No, of course not!” So, why does this happen so often despite it being obvious to most of us that this isn’t good friendship?
Now, just to be clear, I’m going to give some answers as to why this happens. This doesn’t mean that I’m excusing it or making it seem like it’s okay if there’s a reason behind it. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s definitely not okay. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are some reasons why people often pull away.
The first reason is that your loss scares them. You all of a sudden, whether they realize it or not, represent their greatest fear. They don’t want to imagine what it is like to be in your shoes, so they avoid the reminder that they easily could be. They may or may not realize this is what they are doing.
The second reason is that they are emotionally overwhelmed. They love you and care about you so much, but they don’t know what to say or do to help. They may feel like they have to or want to fix it for you, but knowing they are powerless to do anything to change what’s happened, they don’t do anything at all. They may want to make a big gesture, but can’t think of anything meaningful enough. They feel ashamed of that, and then avoid you because they know they should have shown up better.
A third reason is that sometimes friendships aren’t as deep as you think. Maybe someone is a great friend for going to lunch or playing pickleball, but on their end, the friendship was casual enough that they don’t feel compelled to support you through anything serious.
Another reason could be limited emotional capacity. This sounds similar to number 2, but is a bit different. Perhaps you have a good friend who is also grieving, has a newborn, is caring for a spouse or aging parents, or is supporting a child through a difficult chapter. In a different season of life, this friend may have been a great support, but in this current season, they can’t take on anything else.
And finally, another reason friends might abandon you when you need them the most is that they are uncomfortable with the intensity of emotion that grief brings. We are not taught a lot about grief in our society. And we are absolutely not taught a lot about how to support someone who is going through it. They may lack the emotional intelligence needed to cope with the intense emotions that grief can bring. If their parents had them go to their room every time they were upset, and they were not taught how to handle strong emotions, and haven’t experienced grief themselves yet, witnessing your grief can feel foreign and uncomfortable.
Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but it might give you some insight into why people choose to step away when we need them the most.
Grieving Two Losses At Once
The loss of friendship during grief is a legitimate secondary loss. You’re not being dramatic for feeling the weight of two losses. Grief is cumulative, and the addition of a secondary loss isn’t just wrapped up in the initial grief event. It’s a separate thing, and only adds to your pain.
Statistics show that for most grieving people, support tends to fade away after three months when people’s awareness fades and they return to their regular routines. The problem is, for people who are grieving, there’s nothing about it being three months that makes us need support less. In fact, for some people, they may just be beginning to feel the full weight of their loss as the shock wears off and they begin to absorb the gravity and reality of their loss.
Surviving Friendship Loss During Grief
Immediate strategies for coping with the loss of your friend while you’re grieving can include:
Acknowledging that it has nothing to do with you or your worth as a friend. It’s about your former friend’s capacity to deal with emotional challenges and step up for you.
Focus on the friends who stayed. It’s so easy to focus on the hurt from the friend who left, but when we concentrate on that, we may be missing people who have been there for us and choose to stay. And these people may not be someone you considered your closest friend in the past, but they’re there for you now, and that’s no small thing.
Set realistic expectations. Your friends are not trained grief counselors (unless they actually are). They may not know what you need or how to give it to you. They may show up sloppily or not in the way you need. But when people are making an effort to show they care, even if it’s not as consistent or intense as you’d like, give them the benefit of the doubt.
Some longer-term ideas might be:
Find new support systems to help you cope with your grief. This could be a therapist, grief specialist, or grief support group. Oftentimes people find friendship with someone who has been through a loss themselves (like in a support group) and understands what it’s like and how friends fade away when you need them most.
You may need to work with a counselor, coach, or spiritual leader who can guide you toward forgiveness of your friend. This doesn’t mean deciding that abandoning you was okay. It means letting go of the pain, so you don’t have to carry it around. Remember the old phrase that resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Work toward forgiveness for you and your benefit, not necessarily for your former friend’s benefit.
Build boundaries to protect your energy. This will look unique for every person and every friendship. This could be saying no when the friend reaches out in a year and acts like nothing happened. This could be unfollowing someone on social media so you don’t have to see what is happening in their life without you.
Consider professional help. Just because your friend is not trained in grief support doesn’t mean you can’t find someone who is. (Hello, that’s me!) Receiving professional support can help you learn tools for dealing with your grief, and also help you process the loss of your friendship. If you are interested in learning more about what that might look like, schedule a complimentary consultation call here.
While it’s incredibly painful and often demoralizing to have friends abandon you when you are grieving, always remember that it says way more about your former friend than it does about you. Grief can make us compassionate and empathetic in ways that we couldn’t be before our loss. You’ll know how to better love and support the people in your life when they go through loss. New and deeper friendships can often emerge from people you encounter in the depths of your loss.
If you are struggling with the betrayal of losing a friendship when you’re grieving, please know that it’s sadly very common. You didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t deserve it. You aren’t unworthy. It’s not a you thing, it’s a grief thing. If you need help believing that and sorting out those thoughts and feelings, please don’t hesitate to reach out for professional support. Hope and healing can be part of your story, too.
