Friendship expert Rhaina C helps Michelle navigate evolving a deep friendship from grad school to current life phase, discussing challenges of distance, redefining relationships, importance of outside friendships for healthy marriage, and reviving connections through shared experiences.
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Quick takeaways
Explicit conversations are crucial to define friendship expectations and address issues.
Embracing the potential awkwardness of honest conversations about friendships allows for growth and reshaping relationships.
Deep dives
Key Point 1: Evolving Friendships as Life Changes
Friendships naturally evolve as people change, move, and go through different life phases. The challenge is to breathe new life into old friendships and navigate the changes that come with it.
Key Point 2: The Importance of Explicit Conversations
Having explicit conversations about friendships is crucial for understanding each other's needs and expectations. It allows friends to address issues, define the fullest version of their friendship, and build intentional structures to support it.
Key Point 3: Navigating Changes in Friendship Dynamics
Entering new life phases, such as becoming parents or being part of an extended family unit, can affect friendships. Different identities and roles may require recontextualization and communication. Openness, acceptance, and supporting each other's journeys become essential.
Key Point 4: Embracing Awkwardness and Resilient Friendships
Embracing the potential awkwardness of honest conversations about friendships is essential. Friendships can evolve and be reconfigured like a collage, allowing for growth and new dimensions. Friend breakups are more common than often believed, and reshaping friendships can lead to more fulfilling relationships.
In part two of our series on friendship, we’re looking at how to revitalize a relationship that began in a previous phase of life.
Michelle and Blair became fast friends in grad school. That bond survived graduation, marriages, and even a cross-country move. They now live just a short drive from one another—but things have never felt so distant. Michelle wants to know how to evolve their friendship to be more compatible with the present day. On today’s episode, Courtney Martin brings on Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Rhaina will help Michelle—and all of us—prepare for a daunting conversation.
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How To’s executive producer is Derek John. Joel Meyer is our senior editor/producer. The show is produced by Rosemary Belson and Kevin Bendis.
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