Refriending a Midlife Friendship: Can You Go Back?

When a deep connection derails, do you walk—or try again? One woman shares the raw truth of finding her way back.

I fell for Martine not at first sight, but at first sound.

Her accent? Parisian. Her laugh? Rumbly.

Waiting for a seminar to start, I eavesdropped shamelessly as the woman behind me told her seatmate she was a journalist and also a poet (ahem, like me). I couldn’t resist turning around to join the conversation. Just as the workshop leader entered the room, I scribbled down my email and passed it to the intriguing stranger.

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Three months later, it was over.

It’s not like Martine did me wrong—she didn’t plagiarize my work or try to seduce my husband. But one afternoon, over coffee at my place, we dipped into politics, and that struck at the core of my values. The more she defended her position, the more it felt like getting punched in the gut. In that instant, I went from adoring her to abhorring her.

After circling verbally for a while, she left. That’s when I realized I was crying.

Why are Midlife Female Friendships So Friggin’ Fraught?

True, Martine and I really didn’t know each other well, but if you think long-term friendships are immune to such clashes, think again. My cousin Reba recently fell out with an old college pal over something as silly as where to eat lunch after a museum outing. “She got on a commuter train hungry, and I went home to leftovers,” Reba told me. “We haven’t communicated since—and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“Platonic relationships can be as deep as romantic ones, but our culture doesn’t give them the same value,” Julie Flakstad, founder and host of The Midlife Truth Project, pointed out to me. “So while we have ample tools for handling romantic problems, we’re at a loss when a friendship fractures.”

This is especially crappy in middle age, when family and careers can be in flux, making friendships more important than ever. But ironically, at midlife, we’ve earned a certain intolerance to putting up with people. As Reba admitted about her sorority sister, “She was always fussy, and that day I’d simply had enough of her whining.”

An inconsequential spat over restaurant preferences may soon be forgiven and forgotten; that’s not so easy when it comes to core ideological differences. “As we age, we become more discerning; we want quality over quantity,” Flakstad said. “We choose to surround ourselves with those we can be our authentic selves with.”

Not long after the incident, Martine texted: “I was saddened to be rejected so strongly for my opinion. I was really hoping I had made a new friend on solid, healthy ground.”

Yeah, b*tch, me too, I told myself.

Then, after a kind yet curt text reply, I started telling others. Part of me wanted to grab my best friend, Paula, who happens to be the leader of the workshop where Martine and I first met, and go, “Omigod, that Frenchwoman…” but I squashed that gossipy impulse. Instead, I vented to three far-flung friends I figured would never meet Martine. All were supportive yet failed to comfort me. Perhaps because I was seeking a hollow sort of validation. Like, how could I care for someone who didn’t share my belief system? Right? Right?

Weighing the Weirdness

Any wonder I was a mess over Martine? On one hand, there were all the things I enjoyed about her—her lively intelligence, her candor when regaling me with tales of her misspent youth (some that mirrored mine), her cool casual style of scuffed boots and lipstick deemed “too dark” for women our age. Plus, I’m a sucker for talent, and Martine had it in droves. On the other hand, I truly felt betrayed by her beliefs. How dare she not think and feel the way I do!

So why did I find myself missing Martine? I realized her initial allure was based on fantasy, this exotic creature that I imagined her to be. Inevitably infatuation is a balloon bound to pop. Then I recalled some details she’d shared about her traumatic childhood—the reality that shaped this complicated human being—and pondered the possibility of accepting Martine for the quirky, gifted, vulnerable woman she was. All relationships involve give and take. Could I maintain the strength of my convictions and also have this interesting person in my life?

The Friendship Fix

There are various ways to initiate relationship repair: an articulate snail-mail letter or maybe a concise exploratory text. An idea Flakstad likes is to forward something that made you think of the friend—a meme, an article, even a cartoon.

When it’s time to talk through tough stuff, Flakstad suggested taking a walk together. The constant eye contact of sitting across from someone can be uncomfortable; strolling shoulder to shoulder, preferably in a natural, neutral setting, can ease tension.

When you get to the crux of the matter, frame everything with love, like, “I really care about our friendship, but I’m struggling with (insert the issue here) and I hope we can figure out how to navigate this because you mean so much to me.”

All good advice, but as it turned out, I didn’t do any of those things. At the screening of a film featuring local creatives, I paused in the foyer of the auditorium to grab a coffee and scan for a seat—and guess who came in right behind me?

“Martine!”

My immediate instinct was to hug her, and I did. Fortunately I didn’t have a hot beverage in my hand. We sat together, whispering comments during the movie, and today we’re … yes, we’re friends. She is who she is—all that she is.

We go to events, hit estate sales, turn each other on to books and stream-worthy TV. We talk, just not about everything. What’s nice about avoiding our sticking point is that our hang-ups don’t devolve into the misery-fests my conversations with like-minded people often do.

I think of “it” not as the elephant in the room but as a sleeping grizzly bear. Should it wake up growling one day? I’m prepared to take that chance.