No one really talks about friendship breakups. Not the quiet kind — the ones that fade, unravel, and leave you wondering what went wrong. There are no ceremonies for closure, no sympathetic “how are you holding up” messages, no clean labels for grief. You just stop being each other’s person.

They had been friends for more than half their lives. The kind of friends who finished each other’s sentences, laughed until their stomachs hurt, cried into wine glasses, shared inside jokes that made no sense to anyone else. Their bond had once been a fortress — #unshakable, necessary, sacred. But like many things that begin as safety, it gradually became something else.

Their friendship had turned into co-dependency — at first disguised as loyalty. They spoke every day, shared every update, every small victory and disappointment. But somewhere along the way, support had morphed into expectation. One felt left behind, the other suffocated by the weight of being leaned on.

It wasn’t always this way.

They had both started out in similar worlds — ambitious, bright, driven women navigating the chaos of early adulthood together. They’d cheered each other through heartbreaks, job interviews, relocations, and reinventions. But time, as it does, began to shape their paths differently.

One got married. Then came the baby — a son who became her sun. Her life shifted to a domestic rhythm, her heart full but her days structured around another’s needs. The other friend stayed single — free, glamorous, magnetic, immersed in her corporate life, living the kind of razzle-dazzle existence that her friend could only observe from the sidelines.

Neither envied the other exactly — but they compared. Quietly, unconsciously, relentlessly.

The married one sometimes longed for the spontaneity she’d lost, the laughter over cocktails, the impulsive weekends. The single one resented the sudden distance, the prioritisation of “family time,” the messages left unanswered. Both were right, and both were wrong.

Their friendship became a dance of overcompensation — a string of forced brunches, performative enthusiasm, and unspoken tension. One chased after relevance; the other chased after space. Each tried, in their own way, to keep the friendship alive, but the truth was already written in the silence between them.

They had outgrown the version of each other that had once fit so perfectly.

When they finally called time on their friendship, it was almost polite. No shouting, no betrayal, just a slow, mutual letting go. One day, a message went unanswered. The next, neither reached out. There was no big fallout — only the quiet understanding that love, even platonic love, does not always last forever.

And perhaps that was the hardest part — realising that even when two people share a cot, there is no guarantee that the love will be lifelong.

They both grieved differently. The single one threw herself into her work and new friendships that didn’t require as much emotional translation. The married one told herself that life was too busy for constant communication. But sometimes, late at night, she caught herself scrolling through old messages and photos — two smiling faces frozen in a time when they thought nothing could come between them.

It’s strange how much we minimise friendship grief. Society has scripts for romantic heartbreak — sad songs, tears, chocolate, therapy. But when a friendship ends, there’s no script. No permission to mourn. Yet the ache can feel the same. The loss of your chosen witness — the person who knew the unfiltered version of you — can feel like a kind of death.

Still, perhaps the breakup was an act of grace, not failure. Sometimes, life moves us in different directions — culture, careers, families, values, even hobbies, pulling us apart. And that’s okay. Because what once saved you can also, eventually, stifle you. The love doesn’t vanish; it simply changes shape.

The untold truth is that not all endings are betrayals. Some are natural conclusions. Some are necessary for growth. And some — though silent and uncelebrated — are as sacred as beginnings.

And perhaps this is the #Unshakable truth: friendship, like love, has seasons. Some last a lifetime, others only a chapter. But each one leaves an imprint — a reminder that connection, no matter how fleeting, was once real and enough.

‘See’ you next week.

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