Have you ever felt that maintaining friendships as an adult is more challenging than it was during childhood and adolescence? Between busy work schedules, family commitments, and evolving hobbies, it can feel impossible to find the time and energy to FaceTime an old roommate or schedule a long overdue girl’s weekend.
To be frank, maintaining, and nurturing friendships in adulthood is straight up hard! While social connections are vital to our well-being, offering support, joy, and a sense of belonging, adult responsibilities introduce complexities that make these connections more challenging than the good ole’ days. Understanding these challenges and finding strategies to manage them can help you maintain meaningful connections as your life evolves. So, if you feel disconnected from your best friend, and are trying to figure out why, keep on reading!
The Shift in Adult Friendships
Adult life is marked by numerous transitions that can affect friendships, including:
- Career Shifts: New jobs or career changes may alter your schedule and priorities, making it harder to stay in touch with old friends.
- Family Dynamics: Marriage, parenting, or caregiving responsibilities can change how you spend your time and energy.
- Relocation: Moving to a new location often means leaving behind your friend group and having to build new connections.
Understanding these dynamics is the first step in adapting to and maintaining your friendships through adulthood.
Common Challenges in Adult Friendships
1. Scheduling Conflicts: One of the most significant obstacles in adult friendships is the demanding nature of life! Juggling all our commitments often leaves little room for spontaneous interaction, not to mention how difficult it is to coordinate schedules with friends who have their own busy life. This can feel impossible.
2. Changing Interests and Values: As people grow and evolve, so do their interests and values. This might just be the hardest pill to swallow in relation to friendships and can at times create distance and tension between friends who once shared common goals and experiences. Have you ever struggled with connecting with friends you have not talked with since high school or college? Perhaps your only commonality was growing up in the same town or studying the same major. Changes in hobbies, career paths, or lifestyle choices can lead to differing interests, making it harder to find that common ground that was once so easy. Moreover, differences in personal values or life priorities can strain friendships if not addressed openly and empathetically. People change, and that is okay!
3. Geographical Relocations: Relocating to a new city or even a new neighborhood can impact friendships, often leading to feelings of isolation or disconnection from old friends. Physical distance can complicate communication and reduce the frequency of in-person interactions. If you are experiencing this, you may be used to having Facetime or phone call check-ins.
4. Emotional and Social Expectations: Friendships come with emotional and social expectations that can sometimes lead to misunderstandings or conflicts. Differences in how often friends are expected to communicate or support each other can lead to frustration or feelings of neglect. Unfortunately, some conflict within friendships can be difficult to resolve, and often requires effort from both parties.
Strategies for Managing Adult Friendships
Okay, so we have discussed the challenges of managing adult friendships, now how do we maintain them?
- Prioritize Communication: Open and honest communication is necessary for maintaining healthy friendships, especially when dealing with busy schedules and evolving stages of life. It may be helpful to set clear expectations with friends regarding how often you want to catch up on the phone or in person. Being on the same page is important to ensure that the needs of the friendship are being met with the reality of different lifestyles.
- Embrace Flexibility: Flexibility in how you connect with friends, especially those who do not live in close proximity, can help increase connection. Have a Face-Time dinner date or send weekly updates in a group chat!
- Quality Interactions: Focusing on the quality of your interactions can make time with friends more meaningful, even if they are less frequent. For example, if you cannot make a birthday dinner, perhaps you plan a yearly get together to celebrate both your birthdays and other milestones.
- Adapt to Change: Acceptance and adaptation are important to maintaining friendships through adulthood. While it is difficult and even sad, understanding and accepting that your friendships will look different in adulthood is helpful in adapting to change.
Seeking Professional Support
If managing friendships is causing significant stress or impacting your mental health, accessing therapy may help. A therapist can help you navigate feelings of isolation, disconnection, or frustrated related to friendships, offering strategies to cope and improve social connections. Additionally, therapy can assist in developing effective communication, boundary setting and conflict resolution skills, which can help in navigating challenges in differences in friendships.
By prioritizing communication, embracing flexibility, focusing on quality interactions, adapting to change, and seeking support when needed, you can build and maintain meaningful connections in adulthood. Reach out to Rebound Total Health today to learn more about how you can navigate life’s transitions, increase connection, and cope with the changes in adulthood!
Additional Resources
Shrink Chicks Podcast: Navigating Changing, Long-Term Friendships (S4, Episode 49). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2F3QLGWL8k
Teach Me How To Adult Podcast: Episode 49: How to Navigate Friendships as an adult https://www.teachmehowtoadult.ca/episodes/navigatefriendships