You’re looking at your phone, and you open a photo album from a few years back—only to notice, right away, a familiar face. It stings to recognize this particular old friend: you were once so close to each other, but now you no longer speak. At all. Thinking back on this loss hurts more than you expected, and you have an impulse to mention it to someone, so you tap out your feelings in a text—but before you send it, you hesitate. Why should this bother you so much? It wasn’t an actual romantic “breakup,” and no one died or was lost forever. Is it really as big a deal as your feelings suggest?

Be advised: You’re not alone in this experience. The end of a friendship always comes with a psychological or emotional cost. According to the “conceptual model” of friendship loss in adulthood—created in 2022 by Vieth et al.—the end of a friendship can hit just as hard as other types of relational loss (like a divorce or a death in the family). Yet while the importance of romantic breakups or losses via end of life is well recognized, not as much research or discussion has been afforded to breakups of close friendships. As they develop and while they last, these strong connections can affect one’s psychological wellness just as powerfully as grief or love. William K. Rawlins, in his books Friendship Matters (1992) and The Compass of Friendship (2008), argues this, delineating the ways in which friendship helps each of us to develop (and, at times, redevelop) our individual identities.

Friendships decline or die in different ways. Sometimes, if........

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