Be.coming With Each Other, Part two: Being in Friendship Through Change
About a 6-minute read, just right for a cozy corner moment ◡̈
Find the TL;DR at the bottom!
In Part One, we explored why friendships matter and how they support belonging, regulation, and emotional steadiness over time. In this part, we slow down into what it can look like to stay with friendships as they change.
Friendships don’t stay static. They shift alongside our lives, our capacities, our health, our grief, our joy, and our seasons. Being in friendship through change isn’t about managing those shifts or getting them right. It’s about learning how to remain connected while allowing the relationship to move.
Friendship Lives in Seasons
Friendships move through seasons just like other meaningful relationships. Sometimes they feel close and woven into daily life. Other times they feel quieter, slower, or shaped by distance, timing, or changing needs.
These shifts aren’t signs that something has gone wrong. More often, they reflect the natural ebb and flow of two lives unfolding alongside one another. When friendships have room to acknowledge these changes, they tend to feel steadier and easier to stay inside of, even when they don’t look the same as they once did.
What often creates strain isn’t change itself, but uncertainty about what the change means. When shifts go unnamed, people may quietly wonder how to interpret distance, reduced contact, or changes in energy. Staying oriented to one another helps reduce that ambiguity and supports trust over time.
Staying Oriented Instead of Guessing
Orientation in friendship is less about defining the relationship and more about staying connected to how it’s being experienced. It’s a way of checking whether you’re still on the same page, even if that page says things feel different right now.
When orientation is missing, people often fill in the gaps with assumptions. Distance can get personalized. Silence can feel loaded. Small changes can take on more meaning than they need to.
Research on close relationships consistently shows that when people feel uncertain about how they’re being perceived or where they stand, stress and insecurity increase, even in relationships that still hold care and goodwill (Reis et al., 2017; Overall et al., 2022). Orientation helps reduce that ambiguity by creating shared understanding rather than leaving meaning to guesswork.
Being oriented to one another doesn’t require constant conversation. Sometimes it’s a brief check-in, a moment of naming, or a shared acknowledgment that life is full right now. That clarity can bring relief and make it easier to enjoy the friendship as it is, rather than worrying about what it might mean.
Care, Support, and How It Lands
Care is one of the ways friendships stay nourishing over time, but care doesn’t land the same way for everyone or in every season. What feels supportive during one chapter of life may feel overwhelming or mismatched in another.
Friendships often feel more sustainable when there’s room to notice how care is experienced. Some people feel supported through listening and presence. Others appreciate practical help, humor, distraction, or gentle check-ins. None of these are better or worse. They’re simply different ways of being with one another.
When care is aligned with what actually feels helpful, friendships tend to feel more balanced and less draining. This alignment supports co-regulation by helping both people feel settled rather than overextended or misunderstood.
Repair as a Way Back to Connection
Repair doesn’t mean conflict or confrontation. It simply means finding your way back to connection after a moment of misattunement.
Research on attachment and close relationships suggests that what strengthens bonds over time isn’t the absence of rupture, but the experience of repair and responsiveness when something feels off (Johnson, 2019; Overall et al., 2022). When relationships show that they can recover, trust tends to deepen.
When repair feels possible, friendships often feel lighter and safer. People are more willing to stay present, to name something tender, or to trust that a wobble doesn’t threaten the bond. Repair supports resilience by reinforcing that connection can stretch, respond, and recover.
Naming Care, Appreciation, and Meaning
Friendships aren’t only shaped by what gets repaired or navigated. They’re also shaped by what gets named and appreciated.
Research on perceived responsiveness shows that feeling seen, valued, and understood by another person plays a key role in closeness and relational security over time (Reis et al., 2017). Studies on appreciation and gratitude in close relationships suggest that naming what we value in one another strengthens connection, trust, and emotional warmth, often more than unspoken goodwill alone (Algoe, 2019).
These moments don’t need to be big or formal. Often, they’re quiet acknowledgments that deepen a sense of being chosen. Over time, naming care and appreciation helps friendships feel more secure and less reliant on assumption, allowing meaning to live in the relationship itself rather than only in what’s implied.
Thriving in Friendships
Friendships thrive when there’s room for joy, play, and shared enjoyment alongside care and support. Playfulness, humor, and shared language are not extras. They’re part of what keeps relationships flexible and alive.
When friendships feel secure enough to hold change, there’s often more space for ease and delight. Laughter comes more freely. Presence feels less effortful. Being together feels like a place to land rather than something to manage.
These moments matter just as much as the harder conversations. They’re part of what makes friendship sustaining over time.
In the Be.coming
Being in friendship through change means allowing the relationship to keep unfolding.
It means staying connected not only when things feel clear and close, but also when they feel quieter, slower, or different than before. It means making room for care, repair, appreciation, and joy to coexist.
In Part Three, we’ll gently shift into questions you might use to support this kind of connection. Not as a script or checklist, but as invitations. Ways of opening conversation, reducing guesswork, and staying with one another as friendships continue to grow and change.
This, too, is part of the becoming.
For Those That Need The TL;DR
Friendship changes
Friendships move through seasons, reflecting the realities of two lives unfolding. Change itself isn’t the problem. Uncertainty about what change means often is.
Orientation over guessing
Staying oriented to one another helps reduce assumption and supports trust. Shared understanding can bring relief, even when things feel different.
Care and support
Care lands best when it aligns with what actually feels supportive in the moment. Noticing how care is experienced helps friendships feel more sustainable.
Repair and resilience
Repair is about finding your way back to connection after misattunement. When repair feels possible, friendships tend to feel safer and lighter.
Appreciation and play
Naming care, appreciation, and shared meaning strengthens connection. Joy and play are part of what keeps friendships alive.
The be.coming
Being in friendship through change is an ongoing process of staying connected as life unfolds. This is where the real work and beauty of friendship live.
References
Algoe, S. B. (2019). Positive interpersonal processes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(2), 183–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419827272
Johnson, S. M. (2019). Attachment theory in practice. Guilford Press.
Overall, N. C., Pietromonaco, P. R., & Simpson, J. A. (2022). Buffering and spillover of adult attachment insecurity in close relationships. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, 101–111. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00011-1
Reis, H. T., Clark, M. S., & Holmes, J. G. (2017). Perceived partner responsiveness as an organizing construct in the study of intimacy and closeness. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616682564
Thoits, P. A. (2018). Mechanisms linking social ties and support to physical and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 59(4), 467–485.https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146518798698
Gentle Reminder
This blog is meant to be educational and it is not a replacement for therapy or professional care. If something here stirs big feelings, I encourage you to bring it to a trusted therapist or support in your community. You do not have to sort through it all alone.
