The Breakup Nobody Talks About: Why Losing Your Best Friend Hurts More Than Losing a Partner

Nobody brings you ice cream when your best friend breaks up with you. There are no rituals, no sympathy cards, no space to grieve. Yet research shows your brain processes platonic rejection through the exact same neural pathways as romantic heartbreak. So why do we pretend it hurts less?

This week on Inside OUT, Jojo gets MESy with the breakup nobody talks about. After an overwhelming response from listeners, she dives deep into why friendship endings can cut deeper than romantic ones, the real reasons friendships fall apart, how to know when it is truly time to walk away, and what to do when there is no closure. She shares her own three major friendship breakups and the hard truths she had to face about codependency, abandonment, and choosing herself.

We break it down mentally: where are you blocking honesty about where a friendship really stands? Emotionally: have you actually let yourself grieve? And spiritually: can you trust that every ending is shaping the life you are meant to lead?

If you have ever lost a friend and quietly carried that pain alone, this episode is for you. And it might be for someone you love too. Send it to them.

Thank you for listening! Don't forget to follow along on social media @_insideout.podcast, rate and review. And Join the MESy Mailing List for exclusive content, insights on what is coming up and more! 

Transcript

Jojo (00:07.918)
Welcome to the Inside OUT Podcast. I'm your host Jojo, and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That is mental, emotional, and spiritual. Let's get into it.

Jojo (00:27.15)
Mental, emotional, and spiritual. You guys, we're talking about friendship this week. And we're gonna break it down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually because I think this topic was only supposed to be like a like a kind of like a throwback to a previous episode that I had way back when when I first started Inside Out. And then I wanted to talk about breaking up with friends and starting over. But an overwhelming amount of you reached out to me personally, responded to my polls that I was putting on social media.

And just kind of gave me like your two cents. And I thought it was very interesting. So I wanted to kind of dive deeper because what the overall sort of understanding about when a friendship ends and why we don't talk about it and why it's the one breakup that, you know, with romantic relationships, people rally around us. They give you space to grieve. But when it comes to the platonic friendships, for some reason.

It's not treated the same. And arguably, platonic breakups can be some of the toughest because when you go through a romantic relationship breakup, you have your support system to rally around you, to go through all the ups and downs with, to go through those grieving processes. And what happens when you break up with your best friend? That one person that you call when you have a work issue, a relationship issue, a whatever issue in your life.

That's your support system. And now that's gone. Now I think a lot of us sort of glaze over that. And that's why I don't want to glaze over it. And that's why I want to get messy. And that's why I want to break into it. So I want to read a message that was sent to me because I think this sort of like very much encapsulates this whole idea. And they said, honestly, looking back, it's the best thing that ever happened to me in a lot of cases.

It opens you up for new friendships that are more fulfilling in ways you never thought. And sometimes you just kind of outgrow people or they outgrow you. A wise person once told me that water seeks its own level. So when your level changes, people around you change. And it's really just making room for the new stuff.

Jojo (02:48.116)
Yeah. I read that and I was like, And it's so true with like water meets water. Like it's not gonna just like not go like it goes to the level that the water is. And I think that's such a powerful way and perception shift to like look at people in our lives or people that are no longer in our lives. And I was doing some more research on this because I thought it really deserved its own sort of part.

And I found a couple articles, but one was science of the people.com. And it's a whole article called The 12 Steps to Get Over a Friendship Breakup Effectively. And this was published December 3rd of 2025. So it is a little bit older, but I thought we could just go through some of these points because I think it sort of drives home the bigger point and the the perception shift and also acuity and awareness that like this is happening. So

I mentioned that I've gone through three major breakups in my life. And I'm talking about friendship breakups. Now, some of them I didn't have closure, some of them I don't really know whose fault was what, or if there is fault to like put blame on. But I will say maybe it is outgrowing people. But I want to start with this article. So why friendship breakups hurt more than romantic ones?

When most people think about heartbreak, they picture romantic relationships ending. But friendship breakups sometimes hit us harder. According to psychologist Marissa G. Franco, PhD and author of Platonic, how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. She says friendship breakups are just as painful as romantic breakups, but we don't have the same rituals or language to process them. Because likely we don't see them coming, unlike romantic relationships. We kind of have this.

Compatibility radar, right? Society sort of dismisses our pain. When we lose a romantic partner, people rally around us. They bring us ice cream, they validate our feelings, they give us space to grieve. But when a friendship ends, you're kind of more expected to just move on. And research shows that social rejection activates that same neural pathway, whether it's romantic or platonic. And

Jojo (05:17.814)
Your your brain can't distinguish the difference.

Something I mentioned before is you lose your support system. While romantic relationship breakups really hurt, you typically have friends to lean on, like I said. When you lose a close friend, you you lose the people that normally help you through this kind of loss, which is horrible. And typically, with a friendship breakup, from what I've noticed from my own.

History in my own life is there's no closure. There are statistics out there that 68% of US adults have reported that they've ended a friendship, while 52% say that someone has ended a friendship with them. And that's really tough because in this era, only 49% of Americans are reporting having three or fewer close friends. So each of those friendship losses.

They hit way, way harder. Now we can go through the same stages of grief, right? The stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But this these stages aren't linear. We all know that. But you have to agree with this kind of breakup because it deserves the same kind of respect as any other breakup.

Now, people are probably wondering, well, like, why did your friendship end? What's going on? Or maybe you're in a situation having lost a friend, being like, I don't know why they left. So let me walk through some of these points and see if anything kind of triggers something in you or rings any sort of bells. So maybe some of your reasons include your interests have changed, your values, maybe you've moved, maybe you've gotten married.

Jojo (07:04.152)
Political views are such a big one as well, or religious views. Some could be misunderstandings. A big one is a breach of trust. Another one is maybe one person feels unsupported. Maybe your friend is clashing with your partner or another friend.

Maybe there's an attraction between a partner and a friend. Kind of a big issue there. Maybe there's some abusive behavior happening. It could just be different stages of life, like having kids, career changes, retirement, you know, whatever stage of life you're in. Like I mentioned before, outgrowing someone. This is a big one, I think, and I think I can definitely relate to this unbalanced effort in maintaining the relationship.

Or toxic patterns that become unsustainable, like codependency. Now, with all of those, those are pretty big reasons for friendships to end. And I think those are very valid. For instance, it's definitely time to end a friendship if one of your boundaries keeps being violated. Like you've explained to them what bothers you or hurts you, and yet they keep doing it.

Good reason to end something. The relationship is one-sided. Like you're the one always reaching out, planning, investing emotional energy, bringing them into your world, et cetera, et cetera. And there's not reciprocation. They drain you. This is this is a big one that I don't think people really have voiced out loud much, but you spend time together and then you just feel exhausted by the end of it rather than energized.

Maybe some of you have had the realization that your friendships have ended because they're toxic to your growth. Like when you share good news with them, they minimize it. And when you set goals, they discourage you or they try to, you know, make you feel bad about it.

Jojo (09:16.578)
Broken trust is definitely something. Betrayal is never something that you should put up with. If you have to walk on eggshells, like you can't be yourself around this person, that's a good reason to end a friendship. Or they just completely refuse to acknowledge problems. And you've tried to j like really address the issues, but they shut it down, or you know, there's victimization or gaslighting or blame. Length of time of a friendship, whether it's been

Five minutes, five years, five days, 10,000 years. Length doesn't equal quality. We all know that saying quality over quantity. We don't want a bunch of friends. That's not like the real way the world runs. We want a quality relationship. And a toxic 10-year friendship isn't better than.

One healthy one year long relationship. So ask yourself if you're in this part of your life where maybe a relationship has ended or you need to end a friendship or whatever it is, ask yourself: is this a misunderstanding? Has there been betrayal? Have you taken the steps to actually try to talk to this person? Is this a toxic person in general? Are they just repeatedly hurting me and crossing my boundaries?

Do I feel judged or belittled by them? Does my friend hold me back or help me become a better person? If there's a disagreement, can we overcome it? Or will it just, you know, cause more harm in the long term? Now, again, this can always apply to a romantic relationship, but I'm not using that lens today. Even though if you're listening to this and you're like, I can't relate, maybe you need to shift your lens for yourself for this conversation. But

This is specifically and particularly about platonic relationships. Now there's the closure part. Finding closure is very helpful sometimes. Because maybe you feel like you can't move on, you can't trust anyone, you're waiting for them to come back into your life. You feel guilty, you're carrying blame for the friendship and like ending. An overwhelming number of you also commented and answered the poll as shame.

Jojo (11:37.13)
was the number one reason that we don't talk about relationships or friendships ending. And I keep saying relationships ending, I mean friendships, but you n you understand the the structure of this conversation. So you know like what world we're in. Another thing is abandonment. Big, big, big, big one. Losing a friend, bringing up abandonment is such a real feeling.

I've gone through that so many times, and it's actually translated into other areas of my life because I haven't been able to deal with it specifically until I did deal with it. Now, if you don't deal with the abandonment, that's a whole nother route. However, it needs maybe just like accepting that you feel abandoned is really important. So let's say you don't have closure. Let's unpack that for a second. The number one thing.

That you can do for yourself, with yourself, by yourself, in order to get closure is take a piece of paper, write at the top of it, like what do I need to let go, or maybe even write them a letter and burn it. It's like my favorite thing to do. Just get everything out of your head, clear it from your system, and give it over. This one I think is really important. When you go through any sort of separation.

A social media detox, you know, some people could find that petty or have like a problem with it or like think whatever they want to think about it. But sometimes it's the way to move on. It's the way to find healing. You need distance. And sometimes that needs to be you alter the places you go, even if it's just temporary, or with social media, sometimes them popping up on your daily feed or them just constantly knowing what you're doing in your life.

That isn't productive at all. It's not petty to unfollow someone or remove someone from your social media. It's just not. It's protective because watching their life continue without you while you're still hurting only prolongs your pain. And also, if you have mutual friends or a shared community, getting distance from someone is complicated.

Jojo (14:03.896)
So

You need to withdraw. You need to find the line. You need to not cross it. And sometimes you just need to avoid that person altogether. And if you have a mutual community, a simple sentence, if they ask about, you know, where's so and so or how's so and so, all you have to say is, you know, we just aren't close anymore. That's it. It's simple, it's four words. And it's uncomplicated.

Now, if you're on the side of you've done a friend dirty, or you know, you've kind of screwed over someone, obviously clean up your side of the road. Or adults, we need to take care and take responsibility for our actions. But if not, if you're really in that like murky, what happened? It's not really a clear like, this is the reason they slept with my boyfriend or whatever, then.

You kind of need to let go of the shame and guilt and blame on yourself that you're holding on to, because that's not going to release anything or really help you, you know, get over anything. Another important thing is nurturing new bonds. When you end a friendship or a friendship is ended with you, you can carry all of this pain into the new one, or you can cultivate and become.

The friend that you wish you had. Meaning, not to yourself. I'm not saying be your best friend, be your own best friend. I mean, yes, that too. Treat yourself the way you want others to treat you. That is actually a very, you know, clear thing that we should all be doing anyway. But don't wait for other people to show up the way that you want them to show up. Show up for them the way you want.

Jojo (16:05.592)
To be reflected back to the way you want them to mirror to reflect back to you, to show up for you. Now, obviously, trust and building a friendship takes time. But if you are consistent, if you are vulnerable and you are positive with these people, you are going to naturally set a foundation of a healthy relationship that can grow. But if you're just

Kind of tit for tat, waiting to see what they're gonna do. Are they gonna invite me here? Are we gonna start laying the groundwork on your own side of the street and let them meet you halfway? Let them lay the other side of the street, but show up as the friend that you want.

And continue to do that, not just with one person, but build your network, build your community. Because by doing that, you're not gonna fill this void. Start pouring yourself into your interests, into your hobbies, into your career, into your partner, into your travel, into whatever lights your soul on fire, build that. Because wallowing or just living in shame and regret.

And what if I did this? And what if I could have done that? That's not gonna help you move through or move on or heal. And going back to that quote that my friend sent me about the water, you don't even know if that friend that you broke up with it was actually meant to be in your life. People are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Again, quality over quantity.

All of these like quotes and like catchphrases, while they're all good and fine, they actually have a deeper meaning. And I'm not just saying them to be clickbaity or catchy. I'm saying them because it's true. Sometimes some people are just here to teach us a lesson. And maybe unfortunately, that was that best friend. When I went through this breakup, this recent one, I just started completely reshaping my reality in a way that is unrecognizable. And

Jojo (18:18.476)
I actually did have a conversation with this person at one point, and they were asking me specific questions about my life and my partner and all the things. And I remember just sitting back, reflecting, and being like, wow, so much has happened. And you used to know the inside of my brain, like as if you had a front row seat to every thought that like went across my brain.

And now you have no idea. So starting to reopen that and explain all that, there's just so much that has been missed. And I realized in that moment that I don't know if a friendship is really salvageable at that same level that we had before. I mean, we were like inseparable in a lot of ways. But because I'd started to build my life in a way that really suited me and my desires, and not really taking into account how they felt.

or what they would think, or if they were gonna be left behind, or feel unwanted, or unloved, or whatever, you know, me elevating and growing and transforming and changing and evolving was doing, I had to really be selfish and consider only if this was good for me or not. Because if I really was only going to be taking them into account, I realized I was back in a codependent cycle, which was one of the cycles I was trying to break.

Now, rebuilding your self-worth starts inside. It starts with what matters to me, how I show up for myself. Am I really living for me or am I living for a facade, a social media following, a pretentious? There's so many things that can be pretentious about, you know, friendships and unreal expectations and just like showiness rather than like the vulnerability.

And the reality of a true deep connection. But I had to get real with myself immediately. No, I'm not saying that this is any less painful because of these steps that I had to take. But it just, I think there's just a bigger picture as to why, rather than there's a breakup, make new friends, move on with your life. I think the

Jojo (20:44.854)
The problem with friendship is it doesn't have a contract. There's no blood ties or a set way to break up or fix things, like in a family or a romantic relationship. You stay in a friendship because you want to, and the other person wants to stay too. And there's a freedom in that that makes this this friendship feel so stable. But it's also on the flip side of that same coin.

Fragility, because nothing actually keeps it in place unless both parties continue to choose that over and over again. I think it's also really important to acknowledge that not all friendships operate the same way. You know, some people think you're gonna be together in the same space, life, lifestyle, city, job.

Together forever, but problems start to arise when you start to choose differently. Get married, have kids, move away. Now, there are the friendships, of course, that stand the test of time that evolve and change and grow with you as you evolve and change and grow and change locations and uproot your life and you know meet new people and they don't feel replaced. There's all these things.

But that has to be built on communication vulnerability. Because if you don't keep that dialogue open and show up for these people in the same way, it's the same way but different. It has to be an evolved way, not in a I have my claws in you and I'm gonna control you kinda way.

But there has to be that level of communication so that there is evolution. I mean, that's any relationship, you guys. Like seriously. So I want to get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Mentally. Where are you blocking yourself when it comes to being honest about where you stand with your best friend or a friendship that has ended? I will answer that for you.

Jojo (23:00.802)
Recently I was really breaking down because I started to realize wow, like this friendship is no longer. And that's painful because we were so close. But I was looking at the relationship through rose colored spectacles, not through the reality of what it really had been of the past few years and how that had made me feel.

I think that's natural though, with like any real breakup, like you start to not really consider the full picture and you only look at the good stuff. And then, you know, you hindsight, everything was like so good, and you really missed that person. And like maybe they're back in your life, and you're like, this ended for a reason. I forgot. So where are you blocking that emotionally? Have you grieved? Have you

Processed the ending? And if not, can you let yourself? Can you cry? Can you write a letter? Can you take responsibility emotionally for maybe the part that you played in it? Or can you just grieve the heartbreak of losing someone who didn't choose you? The rejection. And spiritually, can you realize that every ending

Every shift, every turn, every water meeting water at different levels is actually shaping the life that you're meant to lead, rather than keeping you stuck in a life that you're not.

Rejection ha sucks. I mean it's horrible.

Jojo (24:51.542)
As I mentioned, the three breakups that I had in my life were really tough. One was in my teens, one was in my twenties, and one's now my thirties. So that reality and acceptance and level of maturity and understanding and like acuity and all of it.

It's my own work. It's not their fault. It never was their fault. You know, I'm not gonna like pass blame on anything. There was so much growth and, you know, hindrances and problems. But when people don't want to be in your life anymore, and if you've reached out to them a million times and they just don't respond, take the hint. Cause sometimes it's setting you free.

To do something completely different, to let go of something that was never meant to be yours, or to make you look inward and really decide, was this the friendship that it was all chalked up to be in my head? And also to that same point, do you really want to be with someone who's not gonna answer you? Do you want that person in your life? Is that a good friend who's gonna like do you really want that person back when they're not responding to you?

Jojo (26:09.28)
Again, romantic relationship, not about this, but do you want to be with the person that you have to chase or the person that chooses you? It's it's a it's a dual, mutually beneficial relationship when two people choose each other and actively keep choosing each other. And I think that's the most beautiful thing about friendship. You get to keep choosing each other every single day and work through all the monotony and crazy of life.

Alright, you guys. Whew. That was a that was a lot. But I I really think this is one to acknowledge and look at deeply. So thank you for coming on this journey with me. And you guys know where to find me at underscore insideout.podcast. The substack is there. I would love for you guys to subscribe. Weekly email reminders go out when an episode drops every Wednesday. And

Let's just sit back and take a second. Let's take a deep breath.

Jojo (27:14.07)
Is there anyone that you think you should send this episode to? Anyone at all?

Good. Send it to them. Alright, have a great week guys. Bye.