Friendship Fatigue
It’s a place you can find yourself time and again, after giving of yourself to a deficit. It’s weariness from doing more than our fair share of the work making a relationship work.
In navigating through this phase, we’ll need clarity; these questions should help.
Is this temporary?
Life is in phases, and this feeling of exhaustion from an unequal distribution of the effort relationships demand can be temporary. It helps if you know that a friend being “bedridden” is a case that is progressing and there are expectations that they would be discharged sooner rather than later, rather than a terminal illness that would constantly need the support you give without commensurate reciprocation.
It helps that we prepare our minds for what’s ahead as against just going with the flow, and living in a false hope that in times to come you would be able to lean on them in some way or form.
Is it a case of you not being ‘rated’?
Sometimes, friendship fatigue is a result of not having a factual evaluation of who we are to people. It’s what happens when you see someone as a best friend and a priority, and they see you as one of their numerous friends. Does your best friend consider you a best friend? Again this can be a temporary situation as people can come to a realisation that you’ve been there with them through it all and decide to value you for the worth you bring; but the big question remains, “How long are you willing to wait?”
It’s the other relationships that feel it.
If for any reason one of a person’s two feet isn’t carrying its fair share of a person’s weight, that body would adapt to resting that weight on the other feet without asking if it can bear it up. Running on empty emotional tanks from being drained from relationships we are trying our best to keep tells on other friendships. We have to as quickly as we notice decide if we are going to let this relationship cost us more relationships or if we’ll cut our losses on this one.
If we choose to go on with this imbalance we must know that there needs to be a refilling of this deficit from our relationship with others. I recommend drawing strength and love from our relationship with God and the love and strength his words infuse in us without fail or exhaustion.
When Proverbs 4: 23 said, “Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life” it wasn’t only speaking of the nature of the content we let in us, but the volume as well.
Hope this helps your relationships; present and future.
This is beautiful 😍
Interesting
Great friendship post!
This is inspiring💯💯🔥
Does your best friend consider you a best friend too? Very important question.
Thank you for sharing your gift with us🙌🙌🥰
Interdependence, Symbiosis, Reciprocity… Bottom line is know each other’s limit.
Thanks for sharing.
A lot can cause exhaustion. I perfectly agree with you, when one person in the friendship does all the reaching out. when there is a realization that you’re giving 100% and they are giving 10.
It may probably just be because you realize they never really open up to you and you probably have to hear about all their big wins or failures from someone else, yet you both talk every day.
It’s in the consistency of how they show they value you when you’re alone or with others.
Most times we want people in our lives at all costs and it’s even more emotionally draining when we value people so much we term them friends and worst best friends without even realizing we are the ones forcing the connection thereby causing ourselves fatigue.
People need to understand simple appreciation and move on with their lives. Take important things from them and resist the urge to want to cling to them. Time and time again benefit from yourselves but still be conscious about your emotions.
In plain terms, nobody get time again. Try to be simple with people. That way you will have lesser people stress to deal with . Family should be enough.
“Friendship fatigue” I’m glad you talked about this.
I’ve always said that people should learn to match energies; if a friend is giving you 50% give them 50% too so that you don’t hurt yourself (from putting too much effort) ‘cos if a friend values the friendship they’d put in as much work that you put in (I’ve come to realize this).
So I think energies should just be reciprocated and everyone will be alright 🙂
Thanks for sharing 🔥👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Thanks for sharing sir.
God bless you
Know your stand in the lives of people you consider friends.
Thanks for sharing 👏