‘I’ve lost three friendships in four years. Is it me?’
Any friendship breakdown can be painful and confusing. But for Christina, when three of her close friendships broke down in a relatively short period of time, she was left thinking, ‘Is it me?’
Over the last few months, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour has been exploring the joys and difficulties of female friendship in a series called Forever Friends? When a friendship goes wrong, can you fix it, and should you try?
A listener, who we’re calling Christina, contacted us about losing three long-standing friendships in the last four years. This is only her side of the story, she acknowledges that, but it's made her ask herself some big questions.
Read on to find out more about Christina’s story, which she told to our reporter Jo Morris.
‘It made me stop and think: Was it me?’
When you lose friendships, ‘it's a question of: Are you really who you think you are?” says 67-year-old Christina. “Are you this lovely, friendly, jolly person? Or are you a bit of a cow? And if one, two, three or four people start going, ‘You're a cow’, then maybe you are. And that is what I did to myself from losing the friendships.
"It did make me question myself. It made me stop and think: Was it me? And does it happen to other people other than me?”
Christina says her first friendship breakdown came four years ago, followed by the second two years ago and the third in July 2022. “Every two years, I’m dropping a friend,” jokes Christina. But she admits that the friendship breakdowns “floored her”.
So, when Woman’s Hour aired a call-out for friendship stories, Christina says she thought, “Ah, maybe here’s some way I can find out what’s gone wrong. Did I handle it in the best way possible?”
‘I got an absolutely shrieking diatribe about not going to her son’s wedding’
According to Christina, the first close friendship broke down when she got together with her now husband. “If I go to friend number one, she was the first person we invited to the house. She was very angry with me because we were talking about various things that we had planned for the spring and the summer, things that my then partner had organised and that I was then being included in on because I had moved in with him.
I had gone cold inside, because I thought, ‘Who are you?’Christina
“I got an absolute shrieking diatribe about not going to her son's wedding. And I just went, ‘What would you like me to do? Would you like me to apologise for finding a partner, moving in, going on holidays with him and being unable to come out for three weeks for your son's wedding?’ So she said, ‘Yes’, and I said, ‘I apologise. Would you like another cup of tea?’ But I had gone cold inside, because I thought, ‘Who are you?’”
With close friendship number two, Christina says the problems came when she rented out her former home to her goddaughter - her close friend’s daughter.
“Huge mistake. My friend got in touch with me and said, ‘This has fundamentally changed our friendship. And I don't want to discuss it’. And I said, ‘Well, maybe we should discuss it’. ‘No, I'm not discussing it’, she said. And that was the end of that.”
‘I should have known better’
Asked if she thinks she’s someone who often says the wrong thing, or puts her foot in it, Christina says, “Not often, I hope, but sometimes I go, ‘Woops!’ Not in a mean way. I speak my mind.”
I've got maybe another 20 years, if I'm lucky ahead of me. I've got a second chance at good friendships.Christina
With broken friendship number three, Christina admits that she said something “unfortunate”.
“I said something to her son-in-law at an event over a year ago, which she picked up on two weeks before she pulled the plug on our friendship. An unfortunate comment about his appearance, which I should have known better. There was a huge amount of banter going on. I've known them for years. You know you say things to your friends’ kids, you josh about with them. You've known them since they were small people.”
Christina says she didn’t realise she had put her foot in it until later on.
“I went home and thought that was a lovely day”, says Christina. “It never dawned on me.
“Maybe that's my problem, that it didn't dawn on me. I am no saint. No one is. But that one floored me. They all floored me. You can't spend your life censoring what your thoughts are. But you try.”
According to Christina, at the heart of this friendship break-up was “Me getting my stuff together. Me sorting my life out. I was no longer the divorced, three-job, single-parent, stressed-out-running-around-like-a-lunatic-running-from-one-penny-to-the-next woman. I looked fantastic. I mean, seriously, fantastic. Maybe some people had a problem dealing with that.”
‘Don’t take your friends for granted’
Following the past four years, Christina says she’s been made to think hard about friendship.
“I have two or three other girlfriends who I'm closer to over the past few years. And I count myself very fortunate to have been given new friendships, which will be treasured maybe a little bit more than the old ones.
“I would say to people, ‘Don't take your friends for granted. Go back and look at your friendships and examine them’.
“I've got maybe another 20 years, if I'm lucky, ahead of me. I've got different friendships now. I've got a second chance at good friendships. Isn't that wonderful?”
You can listen to Christina's story in full on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds – it's the Woman’s Hour episode from 6 January. You can hear the other stories in Woman’s Hour’s Forever Friends? series by searching for Forever Friends on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds. Join the conversation on and @bbcwomanshour.
