Some friendships deteriorate over time, others go through a rough patch, and then gets restored. But how do you know if your friendship is worth reviving? What’s the first step? In this episode, we got one of the questions from our Shot of Sanity Community sent to us by Bianca Tan.

Falling Out & Saving A Relationship

Nobody has a really concrete answer as to how but a lot of us have been through it, experiencing falling out of friendship.

Aaron revealed about his past relationships and how his best friends have been dishonest with him on this matter. As he looked back, he then realized things. “If I would have held my pride, I wouldn’t have just lost the girlfriends that have past, but would have also lost two pillars in my life that I hold more than just a simple act at that time”, Aaron stressed.

**How do you know if the friendship is worth saving?**

○ **Pride has to be one of the biggest factors to consider** when in terms of rebuilding: whether to forgive, give a second chance or forget the person in your life. **Ask yourself; is your pride more important than this person?**
○ The situation. What exactly happened in this friendship? **Break down the details and process what happened before**, how you dealt with it and how you should be dealing with it now.

But sometimes there are red flags. There are just friends that we have to cut off which doesn’t have anything to do with pride.

Joyce shared an example of this when she had to cut off her friendship with a college friend. She admitted how she wasn’t able to jive with her anymore in doing some things that she wanted for her to try. Knowing her moral standards, she left her a last message saying that she cared a lot for her and she just didn’t want her to be on that path.

“If the person that you’re in a relationship with, whether it be romantic or not, you have to always choose the right thing. If that person is leading you to a dangerous path or asking you to forgo your moral standards just so you could jive, you have to think twice about that. ”

— Joyce Pring

Life Path Comes in the Way

When people have to cut off someone in their lives, it’s mainly because of two things: there is an event/something that happened that causes you to no longer become friends or where you veer away in terms of the path you are going.

In an instant break of friendship, mostly, this is where pride comes in. Sometimes, our pride overtakes us and we can’t overlook what was done. While on the latter reason, when life is the one who already made way to separate the friendship, then this kind is really hard to fix. Life itself was taking you guys apart. You can’t really fix that. If you can, you’re just hoping that your life path will cross again. (AA)

We have to accept sometimes that we outgrow other people and other people outgrow us. That really happens in life. That’s why friendships are also hard work. If you want to care for, love and grow with someone, you have to make an effort. Be there for them. Message them. Forgo discomforts for your friendship. (JP)

What’s the first step in rebuilding?

Clear the air. What is stopping you from being friends again? If you want to really rebuild that friendship, the biggest chunk of it is that you have to talk things through and actually address them. You can’t sugarcoat or sweep it under the rug. Don’t lie about how you feel about it. (JP)

Both sides have to take responsibility. Be apologetic. Take the pride down. Treat it as new friendship.

One of the worst things that we can do when we are rebuilding friendship is to immediately expect it to be like the friendship it was before the incident. To prevent falling out or deteriorating friendship is really communication. You got to communication the big things as much as the tiny ones. You have to always remember that the person you are in this friendship is someone that you will do life with. Find people who you trust that will always have your back no matter what. (JP)

Choose the right friends. Don’t choose just for clout or because they’re “just fun”. The characters of 5 or 10 people we spend most of the time with, those will become who we are. So we have to choose wisely. Life is too short to be surrounded by people who don’t care about us and don’t want to build a life-long friendship with us, right?