Behaviours that can damage your friendship
Friendships, like bridges, crumble when trust is broken, communication fades, and hearts drift apart.
Friendships are very treasured and precious relationships that can bring comfort, happiness, and solace. However, just like any relationship, friendships need both parties to keep them alive and healthy. Some behaviour ruins the trust and relationship convenience that keeps friendship close. Here is a list of several behaviors that can harm your friendship:
1. Lack of Communication
Communication is the backbone of any relationship. Failure to communicate openly often leads to misunderstandings and gives room for resentment. Difficult conversations usually arise when issues crop up, and avoiding these or even ignoring your friend's feelings may cause distance and mistrust. Honest communication demands that you be honest, an attentive listener who goes about his work by resolving conflicts without bottling up emotions.
2. Taking Your Friend for Granted
One tends to take his/her friend for granted as he/she believes that the friend will always be there. Not showing gratitude for their support, time, or sacrifices that they make makes them feel worthless in that friendship. At times, one should remind them in appreciation about efforts put into that friendship.
3. Unreliability
Consistency breeds trust, so even if you do mean well, failure to follow through, repeated cancellations of plans, being perpetually late, or consistently not keeping promises creates frustration. As your friend perceives that they cannot count on you, disappointment breeds with a blow to the fabric of your relationship.
4. Failure to Respect Boundaries
Boundaries are key to all relationships, including friendships. Crossing them is either an invasion of personal space or over-demand of time and attention, which causes discomfort. When the boundaries and personal space of a friend are respected, there will always be mutual respect with emotional safety.
5. Jealousy and Competition
While competition may spice up someone, constant comparison, jealousy, or trying to outshine your friend will hurt your friendship. Friends should celebrate the successes in each other instead of competing for attention or gains. A helpful attitude builds trust and positivism in their relationship.
6. Gossiping Behind Their Back
This implies that when you go and share your friend's secrets or speak negatively about him/her behind his/her back, you are breaking that trust. Gossiping can do irremediable damage, leaving the other person hurt and betrayed. Always speak of your friends with respect even in their absence.
7. Becoming Too Critical
Constructive criticism is useful, but constant pointing out of flaws or criticizing your friend creates an atmosphere that is extremely toxic. Of course, you do not want to be that friend who frequently criticizes his buddy, making life unpleasant for both.
8. Selfishness
Two-way street: Friendship involves mutual respect. If one person is always taking without giving, it becomes an imbalance. Continuously placing your needs before your friend's or unwillingness to make compromises can make the other person feel ignored or unappreciated.
9. Lack of Support
Being unsupportive when things go wrong can really stress a friendship. Friends must be each other's emotional anchor and must be supportive in the good and not-so-good times. If you are going to unavailable during your friend's tough moments or will not place yourself in their shoes to understand their feelings, this will weaken the connection.
10. Holding Grudges
Friendships can disagree and conflict. Having a grudge rather than working out the issue creates emotional distance. Not being willing to forgive and hold onto resentment prevents any kind of growth or healing in the friendship. Forgiveness is the key to strong, unbreakable bonds.
Conclusion
Healthy friendship demands a lot of effort on both sides. Stop the damaging behaviors, practice empathy, trust, and communication, and you will have friendships that time won't be able to melt away. It is little acts of kindness, respect, and understanding that eventually consolidate any relationship.
