Keeping and nurturing lifelong friendships takes effort.
By Kathy McCoy Ph.D.
Musing over the life of his late partner of 43 years, my longtime friend Chuck expressed sadness that David hadn’t been able to sustain friendships with some wonderful people who had loved him dearly. “It’s so sad,” he said. “He just couldn’t or wouldn’t maintain friendships. All of our friends were my friends.”
Chuck has a talent for making and keeping friends – all of whom have been with him in person or in spirit in the wake of David’s death from a stroke in September. These friends go back to Chuck’s childhood and adolescence, through college and medical school and a variety of workplaces.
His friendship with me stretches back nearly 50 years through shared professional triumphs and a long-ago romance that ended when he finally came out as gay at the age of 30. We have shared loving mutual support through decades of life’s ups and downs. All of his friends have been treasured through the years, perhaps never more than now. “In this very difficult time for me, I’m so grateful to be surrounded by people I love who know me well,” he said. “There’s no substitute for a dear old friend, is there?”
There isn’t. Lifetime friendships are precious, not to be taken for granted, and are not necessarily easy. Reviewing our own experiences, Chuck and I agreed on that. Lasting relationships of any kind take effort and loving commitment. Many sweet and promising friendships fall by the wayside as our lives evolve. What are the secrets of building a friendship that can last a lifetime?
1. Reciprocity. Friendships that last are not transactional. Yes, you do favors, keep secrets, dry tears, just listen when there’s nothing to be said. But these kindnesses go both ways as needed, each of you willing and able to give as well as benefit from the relationship.
2. Making room for growth and change. Whether the relationship begins in childhood or adolescence, in young adulthood or later, friendships that last can weather change.
Dear old friends, don’t let life transitions or lifestyle differences tear them apart. Through marriage and children, geographic moves, divorce, religious awakenings or disillusionment, and differences in career trajectories or differing socio-economic status, friendships can endure if friends hold each other close emotionally.
With lasting friendships, we don’t expect each other to stay frozen in time. We may have written “Don’t ever change!” in our high school yearbooks, but friends for life will tolerate and even celebrate one another’s changes over a lifetime.
3. Finding connections beyond the initial attraction. We make friends in so many eras and circumstances of our lives. The relationships that endure are the ones that transcend their origins, whether this is in school, at a workplace, or church or because our children are friends.
My client Judy complained recently about not having friends now that her two kids are grown and away at college. “All of my friends were the parents of their grade-school and high-school friends,” she said sadly. “Now that our kids have left the nest, our friendships have faded, too.”
That doesn’t have to happen. If, as these friendships happen, you find other things in common besides kids, an employer, or an alma mater, you can grow as friends quite beyond what first brought you together.
My friendship with Georgia started in a college dorm when I discovered that, despite her family’s affluence, they were every bit as dysfunctional as my own financially challenged family. Over time, our connection as college friends has become less important than the personal qualities we value in each other: resilience, telling it like it is, caring deeply, seeking creative solutions to challenges, and laughing between times of pain as we grow through life with its inevitable losses and sweet surprises.
4. Giving greater weight to what you share than to your differences. This is especially important at a time of great political, philosophical, and moral divides in this country. If you approach your differences with mutual respect and keep your shared history and feelings for each other in the foreground, you can maintain a friendship.
My dear friend Mary and I have our political differences. We both make concessions for these while enjoying the many things we do have in common. Our commitment to focusing on what we share instead of how we differ was, perhaps, best expressed by her late husband, John during the last Christmas season the three of us shared several years ago.
John, who was suffering from dementia, showed me a catalogue he had been reading and jokingly threatened to give me a politically oriented gag gift for Christmas. I laughed: “Oh, John! I thought you had forgotten my political leanings.”
He smiled. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “But it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?” No, it doesn’t. Mary and I agree that there is so much we share beyond politics and how much we would miss if we allowed our differences in that one area to come between us.
5. A commitment to maintaining the friendship across the miles. It takes just a few minutes to write and send a text, an email, or a warm snail mail note or card. We can hear the voice of a beloved friend on the phone or do a virtual visit via Facetime or Zoom. Doing some of the things you’ve always done together – whether it is celebrating birthdays virtually or in person or keeping up with each other’s growing families, or simply sharing tears or laughter about life’s ups and downs – can maintain warm ties through the decades. Making the effort to keep in touch can make a major difference in both of your lives.
6. Tolerance of time lapses. There are times when you don’t hear from a dear old friend for a while. Life gets busy. Depression may lead to a period of isolation. The birth of a child or the end of a marriage might take most of his or her emotional energy for a time. Instead of getting angry or shaming your friend for his or her silence or shrugging and pulling away, show that you care by keeping in touch or keeping a respectful distance if that’s what your friend prefers for a time.
When his partner/husband David passed away recently, my friend Chuck sent an email to his extended family and dear old friends asking people to please not call him for a while. He said he loved us but asked that we communicate by email in the immediate aftermath of his devastating life transition. We all honored that and welcomed his phone calls as he began to feel like reconnecting.
Andrea and I, friends for more than 50 years, live many miles apart – she’s in Boston while I’m in Arizona. We both work full-time and have busy lives. Months may pass between our conversations. But when we do connect, it’s as if we talked yesterday. We recently hung out electronically for three hours, thoroughly enjoying our time together.
7. Openness to new old friendships. New old friends can bring special pleasure to your life. This may be someone with whom you were once close but lost touch. Or it may be someone from your past who wasn’t a friend then but could be one now. Remember that person you never bothered to get to know in high school or at a long-ago workplace? Or even someone you didn’t like for reasons you can’t quite remember?
Giving friendship a second chance can be immensely rewarding. You can discover new old friends at reunions, shared activities, or by chance – or by Googling.
I recently reconnected with two co-workers from 50 years ago, thanks to their Google searches. Sally was a close friend who fell out of touch with me during a crisis 40 years ago. When her daughter recently found me online and brought us back together, the years apart melted away. The fun, the ease, and the caring were all still there, and we’ve vowed never to lose touch again! The other co-worker Mary-Anne and I never got to know each other despite working together for five years. She found me via Google, too, and sent a sweet email. And I have discovered, in our exchanges since, that she is a wonderful person, a great new old friend that I feel blessed to have a second chance to know.
A year before my 50th college reunion, Northwestern sent me a list of classmates to contact. One of them was Maria, someone I had disliked intensely when we were classmates. And thus began my improbable correspondence with Maria. When she responded warmly to my initial email urging her to attend the reunion the next year, I struggled to remember why I had disliked her so much back in the day. Maybe it was because we both had a crush on a guy named Tim.
Tim, oblivious to our rivalry for his affections, married someone else entirely but maintained lifelong relationships with both of us. Belatedly, in emails and on the phone, Maria and I built a loving friendship, finally getting to know, appreciate and thoroughly enjoy each other. At the reunion, we fell into each other’s arms in tears, much to the delight of Tim, who spent that lovely, memorable day with us.
When Maria died unexpectedly eight months later, her husband invited both Tim and me to speak at her memorial service. He asked me to focus on the friendship Maria and I both treasured late in life after our rocky start all those years ago, emphasizing the joy of embracing love and friendship however and whenever it blesses our lives.
Kathy McCoy, Ph.D. is psychotherapist, journalist, and speaker and the author of books including We Don’t Talk Anymore: Healing After Parents and Their Adult Children Become Estranged.
Originally published at Psychology Today