Yes, You Lose Friends After Loss… But Something Else Happens Too

Take heart—you won’t be alone forever.

Photo by John Diez from Pexels

In the fall of 2020, I led a workshop on life after loss. One attendee, Cathy, was grieving a recent breakup. But she was mourning—as so many grieving people do—more than one loss alongside of her romantic split. “The biggest loss,” she said. “Is the loss of my friend circle. When Maggie and I called off our engagement, everyone I spent time with, everyone I would’ve considered a support system left with her. I have no one to lean on. Of course I’m grieving the fact that she and I aren’t together any more, but the biggest loss, I feel, is the loss of my friends.”

Since I started doing grief work in 2016, I’ve led a number of workshops on the pain of broken friendships in the aftermath of loss. While friends are often touted as the more stable, more lasting “family we choose,” it’s surprising how many friendships change or abruptly end when one friend in the relationship experiences a devastating loss.

Whether our friends are directly connected to our loss, as Cathy’s friends were in the breakup of her engagement, or witnesses to our grief, it’s normal for us to assume they’ll stand by as we put our…