Why The End of a Friendship Can Shatter You in Ways Romance Never Could

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We know how to grieve when a romance ends. There are breakup playlists, comfort foods, and a cultural script for heartbreak.

But when the loss is a friend who once felt like your soulmate, there’s usually silence. No rituals. No shared language. No space to hold the grief that follows.

For Emmanuella Ewurabena Turkson, the friendship was effortless.

“We talked every day. Short messages, long calls, late-night voice notes about everything and nothing,” Turkson said. “There was no need for small talk. Conversations flowed easily because we were wired the same way—eager, curious and chasing clarity. I did not have to explain my ambition or my restlessness. They just got it.”

It felt like finding a soulmate without romance.

“He felt like a soulmate because we moved the same way. Thought the same. Wanted the same things. There was ease in how we connected, no masks,” Turkson said.

Then the rhythm ended.

“He started pulling away. Excuses piled up. Every call felt rushed, like he could not wait to hang up,” Turkson said. “I kept showing up. He did not. At some point, it stopped feeling mutual. I did not want to admit it, but it felt like I was being replaced.”

The silence that followed stung harder than any fight.

“I knew I was a good friend. I showed up when no one else did. I gave everything. So I kept asking why? What did I do wrong? The silence gave no answers. That is what made it worse. Knowing I was not the problem, but still feeling like I was.”

Romantic grief is one of the most dramatized forms of pain in our culture. Entire film plots revolve around the unraveling that follows a breakup and the journey back to wholeness. 

Bestselling novels treat heartbreak as a defining rite of passage. The music industry thrives on it, with countless ballads dedicated to stories of abandonment, betrayal or longing. Reality television leans heavily on breakup narratives because they guarantee emotional investment from viewers. 

Beyond entertainment, self-help shelves and digital spaces are filled with guides, podcasts and therapy scripts that promise to help people navigate the end of a relationship. Online forums overflow with strangers offering comfort and solidarity. Romantic heartbreak is consistently framed as an ordeal worthy of attention and care. 

Platonic grief often receives less recognition. When friendships fall apart, there are no hit songs written to capture the silence that follows. Films and television shows might touch on fallouts, but they are usually treated as side plots, not the central story. 

Bookstores are not stocked with guides on how to heal after losing a best friend, even though the loss can be just as shattering as a breakup. Advice columns skim over it, often suggesting people should simply move on or replace the friendship quickly. 

Friends may sympathize for a moment, but there are no flowers, no rituals of mourning, no socially accepted language for the emptiness that comes from losing someone who knew your history. Platonic heartbreak is often brushed aside as if it is less legitimate, coming with nothing but pressure to move on quietly.

Psychologist Joy Harden Bradford reflected on this in her essay, The Wounds of Sisterhood: Black Women, Grief and the Loss of Adult Friendships featured in Therapy for Black Girls, writing that “such bonds are so precious and needed throughout a woman’s lifetime.” 

Turkson describes her grief as heartbreak without social permission.

“It felt similar in one key way. It left me asking a lot of whys. Why was I not preferred? Why did they not stay? Why did they not fight for it? That part mirrors heartbreak. Not the romance, just the rejection. The confusion. The silence after giving everything you had.”

Platonic grief is “one of the most misunderstood kinds of pain,” because society ranks losses by labels. Divorce earns sympathy, breakups get songs, but losing someone who carried your secrets or built your routines is treated like a footnote.

Bradford, in her essay in Therapy For Black Girls, urges validation: “Resist blocking, numbing or diminishing your emotions. Know your feelings about the loss are valid and deserve to be explored.”

Turkson says bluntly, “Society tends to put romance at the top of the emotional hierarchy. There are songs, movies and rituals built around romantic heartbreak. But losing a best friend? 

Someone who knew your mind, your rhythms and your in-between moments? That is treated like a footnote. Quiet. Invisible. And yet it hurt just as much, maybe even more. No one sees it coming. No warning. Just you, mourning someone who is still alive.”

The loss carved itself into Turkson’s daily life.

“I have other friends, ones who treat me better. But something did shift. I am not as open anymore. Not as easygoing. Now you have to earn my friendship. It is valuable. I will protect it.”

The wound made her cautious with trust.

“That door used to swing open without hesitation. Now it stays closed until I am sure. Losing him taught me that not everyone who feels familiar is safe.”

Even grieving became a survival strategy.

“I do not believe in silent grieving. Holding it in makes it worse. So I let it out, conversations with people I trusted. Saying it out loud made it real, and somehow, less heavy. Talking was my therapy. And I prayed. First, for myself, because I needed peace. Then for him, because bitterness drags you down.”

Bradford reminds us in her essay that accepting the end of a friendship does not erase grief:

“To accept the end of a friendship doesn’t mean that you like or prefer this outcome. Acknowledging the loss doesn’t diminish how you feel about it either. Still, accepting the relationship’s status is fundamental for healing, as acceptance allows you to identify how to live with this loss now that it is a reality. As you acknowledge the end, you can work to create a solution to live anew without the friendship.” 

Turkson reframed the loss as clarity.

“It taught me to know my value and stand on it. Not everyone deserves access. Some people will only use what you give. Now I know when to walk away. And I do not wait too long to do it.”

The silence around platonic grief isolates people like Turkson, and it reshapes how we all connect. Without cultural acknowledgment, people often underestimate what is at stake in sustaining friendships.

“If we normalized friendship grief, people would stop treating friendships like background noise. They would stop assuming these bonds can survive on autopilot,” Turkson said. “We would start being intentional, checking in, showing up and putting effort into the people who hold space in our lives. When you understand that losing a friend hurts, you realize how important it is to nurture what you have before it is gone.”

Experts argue that naming grief could lead to healthier adult connections. Healing from the loss of a best friend requires the same honesty, accountability and effort we demand in romance.

For Turkson, loss became a teacher.

“Losing a close friend changes how you see connection. It reminds you that even the people who feel the safest can still walk away. That is a hard truth, but it is also a clarifying one. It teaches you to hold space for people, but not build your identity around them. To love fully, but not lose yourself in the process. Because sometimes the lesson is not necessarily in the friendship. It is in the leaving. In who you become once they are gone.”

She refuses bitterness.

“Do not beg to stay where you are not wanted. If someone is willing to let you go, let them. It hurts, but it saves you from proving your worth to someone who has already decided. And do not let it make you bitter. Wiser, yes. More careful, absolutely. But not bitter. Your ability to love deeply is not the problem. Their inability to hold it is.”

Friendship breakups are not footnotes. They are ruptures that rewrite how you move through the world. Friendship heartbreak feels like heartbreak without playlists, grief without rituals.

Turkson wants us to confront this cultural failure: love is bigger than romance. Soulmates can be platonic. And when we lose them, our grief deserves to be named, mourned and remembered.