Forgiveness in Friendship

You may say, “Of course I understand,” but inside you’re seething, angry, hurt, carrying a grudge that might even be the reason the friendship is waning or even ending.

Forgiveness in those situations is certainly possible but that’s asking a lot. I’m suggesting, for starters, that you begin forgiving yourself, or your friend for the little annoyances that can eat away at a friendship. I’m referring to things like the phone call that doesn’t get returned right away. It turns out your friend was out of town and didn’t remember to tell you. Or the birthday that’s missed this year. Your friend is preoccupied with lots of career and personal challenges and it literally slipped her mind. Letting too much time pass between phone calls or get togethers. You, or your friend, are just plain overwhelmed by everyone and everything you have to do. Fitting in your friendship just doesn’t seem feasible for now.

If you are lucky enough to have a close or best friend that goes back to your schooldays or even your childhood, you are fortunate indeed. That friendship is what I call a “nostalgic” friendship and you have to cut those nostalgic friends the most slack because they have known you in a way that no one else could ever know you again. They knew you at five or ten or in your teen years. Even the newer friends you meet at work or through your Mom activities. Those are newer friends but they are there for you at another time in your life when you needed them, and they needed you.


Friendship requires that two people who are equally committed to making their unique and powerful relationship last. It is based on trust, honesty, mutual liking, and sometimes even shared activities, but most of all shared values. One of those shared values that will take you very far with each and every friendship, including the friendship with yourself, is recognizing and agreeing on the value of forgiveness. That doesn’t mean you let a friend walk all over you if they are mistreating you or ignoring you to a point that is unacceptable. But the next time you want to criticize or express your condemnation at your friend because she let you down, at least try to find out just what was going on in her life that was behind her actions and see if you can forgive her.