Friends Forever?
Relationships In Flux
Hi (No) Wonder-ers,
Not to put too fine a point on it (say I'm the only bee in your bonnet!) I've been thinking a great deal lately about friendships, relationships, and family - and how our values affect the dynamic and longevity of these.
The Girl Scouts have a catchy jingle that goes something like:
"Make new friends, but keep the old...
One is silver and the other's gold."
That part about "keeping the old," though. No mention about an earnest, ongoing reassessment about whether "the old" is worth keeping or whether "the old" continues to align with our values. I am not the same person I was 20 years ago, and neither are you. So why would we expect every one of our core values to stay the same? Why would we expect a friendship that started decades ago - or, for that matter, a family relationship that started in our childhood - to automatically continue being congruent with our values?
(Sorry Mom, I really tried hard not to split that infinitive there!)
In evidence-based medicine, we try to offer patients the best of what's available with the information available to us at the time. If a particular medication, technology, or intervention has been shown to give the best possible outcome, then we offer it. But that doesn't stop us from continuing to gather information, nor does it stop us from changing our approach when that information shows that a different approach may be more in line with the treatment goals. When shockwave lithotripsy, flexible fiber-optic ureteroscopes, and high-power Holmium lasers became available, and when these technologies offered improved outcomes compared to open kidney stone surgery, we largely abandoned the latter. Because we continue to gather information, assess our data, and refine our technique accordingly, we have come a long way from the medieval barber-surgeons who routinely removed patients' bladder stones by cutting through the taint.
A similar process-improvement paradigm can apply to our relationships. We are not, nor should we be, static individuals. We are constantly growing, adapting to ever-changing circumstances around us, learning new information, and changing ourselves accordingly. We may have friendships and family relationships that served us well earlier in life. We may have pleasant, nostalgic memories of those relationships and people. But just because those relationships were consistent with our values at that time, doesn't mean that they still are or will continue to be. Just because we chose to associate with one person at one time in our lives with the information we had at that time, doesn't automatically mean we'd continue to associate with that person based on the information we have now.
To be sure, it's entirely possible that we may still be on the same wavelength values-wise as our grade school BFF. But neither you nor your grade school BFF are the same person you were back then, and it's unreasonable to expect either of you to be. We also learn, through listening and observation of people's actions, insight into people's values. Such insight, once learned, can't be unlearned - and can change a relationship trajectory forever. Or even end it altogether.
These values differences, revealed over the course of time and new information, can sometimes become irreconcilable. This leaves a difficult dilemma: (1) compromise our current self to shoehorn into a relationship that no longer fits us, or (2) acknowledge that the relationship no longer fits, and act accordingly.
I have had to end some close friendships that trace back to high school, undergrad, medical school, and residency because of differences in our moral values. Whether the moral difference had always been and I'm merely just now learning about it, or whether we simply grew apart... it's hard to say. Either way, the morality difference is an unbridgeable divide.
Do I miss those friendships? Sure. But the previous versions of ourselves who entered those friendships no longer exist. We may still have love and nostalgia going for us, but love and nostalgia are not enough to keep a relationship together sustainably. So I allow myself to grieve and move on. We had a good run.
Of course, when the relationship in question is a marriage with children, pets, finances, property, logistical considerations, and possible safety concerns on the line... turning the page on a relationship is much easier said than done, and may even require a multidisciplinary, professionally-planned exit strategy.
But if you're a fully grown, financially independent adult who's looking for permission to skip awkward holiday dinners with your bigoted members of your birth family? Well, consider this it.
It's perfectly OK to protect your peace by ending relationships that no longer align with your values... good, even. There are over 8 million people in the world, and life is too short to "make fetch happen" with people who align and conduct themselves in a manner antithetical to your values - no matter how long you've known one another, how many memories you have, or how much genetic material you share.
Onward and Upward,
Merrit