Coping With Ghosting

When Best Friends Become Strangers: Understanding Female Friendship Estrangement

• Gretta Perlmutter, MA, Certified Post Betrayal Transformation® Coach • Season 1 • Episode 88

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When women end a friendship, the heartbreak can be devastating, yet we rarely talk about how hard it is to grieve somebody who is still alive.  Susan Shapiro Barash joins Gretta to explore the complex world of female friendship estrangement based on her groundbreaking research interviewing 150 diverse women. Her new book, "Estranged: How Strained Female Friendships Are Mended or Ended," challenges the lifelong "best friends forever" narrative that has left countless women feeling down when their closest friendships crumble. From the faithless friend who betrays your trust to the green-eyed friend consumed by jealousy, Barash identifies different types of toxic friendships that lead women to the painful decision of ending relationships they once cherished.  Whether you've been ghosted or betrayed by a friend, are healing from a friendship breakup, or seeking to build healthier connections, this episode offers compassionate guidance for navigating one of life's most under-discussed transitions. 

Connect With Gretta

❤️‍🩹Free & Private Facebook Support Group | Instagram | YouTube | copingwithghosting.com

Host Gretta Perlmutter, MA, a Certified Post Betrayal Transformation® Coach, delivers evidence-based strategies for turning personal betrayal into a powerful catalyst for growth and healing.

Connect With Susan Shapiro Barash 

Read Susan's Book: Estranged: How Strained Female Friendships Are Mended or Ended | Susan's Website

Susan Shapiro Barash has written more than a dozen nonfiction books, including Tripping the Prom Queen, Toxic Friends, and You’re Grounded Forever, but First Let’s Go Shopping. For more than 20 years, she taught gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College and has guest taught creative nonfiction at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Her fiction is published under her pen name, Susannah Marren.

Music: "Ghosted" by Gustavo Zaiah

Disclaimer: This information is designed to mentor and guide you to cope with Ghosting by cultivating a positive mindset and implementing self-care practices. It is for educational purposes only; it solely provides self-help tools. Coping With Ghosting does not provide health care or psychological therapy services and does not diagnose or treat any physical or mental ailment of the mind or body. The content is not a substitute for therapy or any advice given by a licensed psychologist or other licensed or registered professionals.

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Note to All Listeners: Ghosting is defined as: The practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication (Oxford Languages). When you leave an abusive situation without saying "goodbye," it's not ghosting, it's "self-protection." When you quietly exit a relationship after a boundary has been violated, it's not ghosting, it's "self-respect."

Gretta:

Welcome to Coping with Ghosting, the podcast that provides hope, healing and understanding for anyone who's been ghosted, betrayed or left behind. I'm your host, Gretta, and today I'm joined by Susan Shapiro Barash, author of the new book Estranged how Strained Female Friendships Are Mended or Ended. Susan has written over a dozen nonfiction books and for 20 years she taught gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College. Susan has also guest taught creative nonfiction at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Her fiction is published under the pen name Susanna Marin. Susan has been featured in outlets including the New York Times, elle and Good Morning America, and several of her titles have been optioned by Lifetime and HBO, which I think is just so cool. Thank you for joining me today.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Hi Gretta, Thanks for having me on.

Gretta:

It's my pleasure. So your book explores a topic that's rarely talked about estrangement in female friendships. Why do you think this type of heartbreak got so little attention, especially compared to romantic betrayal?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Because in a patriarchal culture, we're taught to be good girls and pleasers and to depend on our best friends forever. So the societal message is that these friendships are our safety net, that they're filled with trust and that when all else fails, we have our female friends, when in fact that's not exactly what happens.

Gretta:

Yes, I remember when I was growing up and joined the Girl Scouts we had to sing this little song make new friends and keep the old ones One is silver and the other is gold. So that has been kind of burnt into me since I was a little kid.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

You know we say what could we do without our female friends, when in fact a lot goes wrong. And you're right that romantic relationships and the schisms that happen with that, that is much more understood and really societally accepted. So for years, if women didn't have a healthy best friend or close friend, and this book, where I interviewed 150 women from 20 to 80s all across the country, very diverse in terms of age and race and ethnicity and level of education and religion, from big cities to suburbs to rural areas what was really told to all of us at every stage of our lives is that these friends will get you through and that the history of these friendships even if you're 20, maybe you grew up together, maybe your mothers were best friends but that somehow this bond is the one that is unbreakable. And women felt like they were failing when they ended up breaking up with a very close female friend.

Gretta:

It's really hard to have a friendship end. I get it.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

So, yeah, it makes sense, it's very painful and it's very disappointing, and a lot of women said they felt very lonely afterwards, as if they were really put in a very difficult situation, because so many of these friendships are part of a group, so you're very close and, as I was saying, this book is only about the closest female friends. It's not about a good acquaintance, you know, or someone you go to Pilates with, but this is someone where all of the secrets are shared and all of the longings are realized.

Gretta:

Yeah, In the book you identify a few types of unhealthy friendships, from the faithless friend to the green eyed friend. Can you tell me about this?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Yeah, so seven chapters. Each one of the chapters is a type of friend and I identified those friends and created the chapters based on my research and listening to this, you know, just for a group of women to describe what was going on. So the faithless friend is really one where we are very close and then something gets between us. So often it is a new friend who one of you is bringing in, or it's a love interest, and somehow that triad instead of a dyad no longer works and women say that they now feel all this tension in the friendship.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

The green-eyed friend is pretty self-explanatory. I mean, we know what jealousy is. We read the fairy tales, we read Snow White, we read Cinderella. We understand that jealousy which of course exists still today and is partly our nature and partly the nurturing of our culture that tells us that there's not enough pie or a limited goods situation going on for women and that makes it very difficult. So there's this like magical theft. You know, if she gets it, I won't have it and because of that we can be very jealous of even our closest friends. Yeah.

Gretta:

And that's, I think, when people begin to steal the husband, steal the boyfriend, that kind of thing.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

That brings us to another chapter in the book, the thieving friend. So that's really, really bad news. Those stories are very dire, but it happens. It happens more than we think, where we you know these women, young women said someone would steal a fiance, seduce a husband, seduce even an old boyfriend, but it still meant something to the friend, it still felt like a trespass. And then, of course, ideas. You know, women are very good friends in the workplace. One says you know, here's what I'm pitching tomorrow at the meeting and instead she takes it. You see a lot of that. Remember Working Girl, the classic film from decades ago, where you know that's exactly what happens and that is a real betrayal.

Gretta:

It is a betrayal and then these women continue to stay in the friendship instead of leaving, and so why do you think that is?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

I found in my research that it happens because the risk is greater than the reward. The risk of leaving is harder for women to handle than the reward of being set free from this very, very suboptimal friendship. So you risk losing the other friends in the group, you risk being alone for a lot of what you did together, you risk her wrath and you feel as if this is really kind of old school, this sense of shame and failure, that at the one relationship, if life is a pie for women, this big slice of pie is not going well. When everyone else is going, you know, swimmingly moving along with their best friends, it's very hard to swallow. But that Gretta is really changing and what I'm seeing is this newfound confidence and power in a stranger, in women, saying you know what? I've had enough.

Gretta:

And that's a brave act to end a friendship Totally.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Really brave, and the person who instigates it is called the estranger, and the person who is pushed to the side is called the estranger. But what's to me pretty curious is that today, both the estranger and even the estranger feel, they both feel a great sense of relief. Not that it isn't painful, not that you can't grieve a lost friendship or one that's ended, but that there's also a kind of soaring afterward, a kind of soaring afterward.

Gretta:

I've experienced this I'm relating to what you're saying because I think I had ignored the signs that the friendship was over and I just continued it out of loyalty.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

There's a lot of that. A lot of women say the rationale is mostly loyalty. We knew each other going on. We were in the same choir as kids. Our mothers are friends. We were college roommates. We ended up in grad school together. We share all the same thoughts and beliefs. Of course, I do have a chapter on those who no longer share the same values, but the rationale for staying is often about what you've shared instead of facing that that is no longer the status quo the status quo?

Gretta:

Yeah, it's really hard. So what are the signs that a friendship still has the potential to heal and grow versus signals that it's probably healthier to move on?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Well, if it's really an egregious behavior that triggers the end stealing, thieving or where your values are so separate that you can't find a common ground anymore and that's really happened these last two elections vaccine different approaches to life that used to be tolerated. Oh, you're like that. I'm like this now become like a line in the sand. So when it's so painful, when you find that the friend is canceling all the time and she disrespects you in front of others, when she lies to you, women of all ages say, oh, my friend said she couldn't meet me and then I ran into her at the mall with her new friends. Or, you know, she said she was too sick to go out and then I ran into her at the mall with her new friends. Or, you know, she said she was too sick to go out and then I ran into her in a restaurant with all these other people.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

So you know, when it's really just such an offensive situation, it's easier to leave for most women. But when you're still equivocating, could we sit down and talk? Could we negotiate? Could she understand that I feel left out Because now she has a husband and kids and I have neither. I'm fine, I'm single, I'm fine, but she doesn't remember my life and I don't understand her new life and she's never available. When that happens, then I think you really can try and have a talk, knowing what's really happened. You can't disregard how the tension and upsets have started.

Gretta:

Absolutely. There's a season and a reason why somebody may be more emotionally unavailable for you. Like you just said, having kids, having a baby, that kind of thing that's a huge life upheaval. So, giving your friend grace and space as she manages and negotiates and figures out her new life, and also being there as a support, while realizing maybe you need to get support from a different source because your friend is not really going to be able to be fully present for you Not really available anymore.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

So the question, the really salient point, is do you have so much that you share and so many feelings that you could supersede this, or do you need to have a friend who only reflects your experience? Right, Because if that's the case, then it's really hard when you grow apart because of your experience. Right, Because if that's the case, then it's really hard when you grow apart because of life experience. And it happens with women of all ages. I mean, I spoke with women who were over 50 or 60 who said you know, I moved to this new town, I just started a part-time job and you know the women are very clannish. Or my old friends don't understand. Or a woman who ends up divorced and then all her married friends dump her, but the divorced group doesn't really have room for another divorce. So they're all different ways to not be included, and women really want inclusion.

Gretta:

Yeah, that's really hard, especially when in a divorce, there's a group of friends that will stay with one party. So then you just feel like your arm has been cut off, like you've lost this whole group of friends and you're ostracized and it's just so. That is really hard.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

It's really difficult and women often feel judged.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Of course we are judged all the time in this you know, very, very patriarchal culture, so women feel judged and they and that really makes it harder, even within a circle of women. So I have a chapter where women talked about feeling disrespected and judged rather than treated fairly by their friends. And even though that's not a big blow up like stealing the idea at work or, you know, sleeping with your best friend's boyfriend it's still pretty loaded and not a comfortable space when you're looking to be very safe in these friendships.

Gretta:

Right. So if somebody is in an unhealthy friendship, how would you suggest that they go about ending it with dignity? Like? What words would you recommend they say? What are the steps?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Yes, it just doesn't. Romantic relationships, but for these friendships it's hard, many of the women said, even though they understood why they couldn't be with a friend anymore. They could not have that very serious conversation, or it became really, really volatile if they had it, and so the best thing to do is to just slowly fade or ghost. And that's because they found no other recourse but were determined to leave. It has a lot to do with the female psyche. You know that we tend to really not want the drama, and there can be a lot of drama in these friendships.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

One of the interviewees in the book told me that she and her friend, after lots of situations where it was clear that they no longer believed in the same things or wanted the same goals for themselves women in their 30s that they finally had a phone call where they said you know, I don't think we should be friends anymore, having been so close, and both sides agree. So it was sort of like an amicable divorce. But our culture doesn't really look at female friendships as precarious or as filled with betrayal. And yet we know it. So we know it from real life, we know it from celebrities, we know it from literature, and yet we're always so astonished. When it's happening to us, we hold the bar very high. When it's happening to us, we hold the bar very high Women do with their female friends.

Gretta:

So if you wanted to end a female friendship today, what would you do? What would you say? What are the words you would use For me?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

personally. Yeah, having researched the whole book. Yes, I think I would try this, but I wouldn't be so confident it would work. I would say this is a really tough conversation, but I think I owe it to you to say that this friendship is no longer what it was and actually evokes pain for both of us and it would be best if we just took a break or acknowledge that maybe we are on separate paths. But I would really be a little anxious about doing it. But I would do it if I had come to that point in a friendship.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Oh, you know what I wanted to tell you that in this book I was very lucky to get per chapter a she said, she said story, so I get both sides for a longer story than the shorter pieces and some of those friendships were healed and some are over and the women really both sides, really talk about how it felt for them, the estranger and the estranging. I also wanted to have one sister story per chapter and the reason I devised that, even though you know friendship estrangement is very different in terms of the situation than family estrangement. There's been much more written about that and I looked at all of that Family estrangement is we understand the genesis. We're not choosing our family. They are our family, assigned to us. We're born into these families, whereas with female friendships, part of the reason why the expectation is so high is that we choose our friends. We are selecting the friendship. It's not like a sister.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

However, the reason I told my editor I wanted to have a sister story per chapter is because so many of the friends, the interviewees, used this phrase. She was like a sister to me and she was my best friend and my sister. And then years ago I had done a book on sisters called Sisters Devoted or Divided, a book on sisters called Sisters Devoted or Divided, and in that book the women who were very close to their sister or sisters maybe there was a family of three or more they were very, very comfortable with the friendship aspect of their sister relation, you know, their sister being with their sisters, and they would say my sister is both my best friend and my sister, and so when that breaks apart it has a lot of disappointment. So I wanted to look at those stories too.

Gretta:

Thank you for including that. Oh, and I have the book here. Everybody go get it. It's great, Really, really good book. So in here you talk about estrangement as a radical act of self-preservation. Can you share what that means to you?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

This is not an easy decision and it's very hard to face that. Your friend, that you and it takes two to to tango so that the relationship is no longer working and that you're feeling some very negative vibes and that she must. If you're feeling this way we all know this she must be feeling that way. So it's it's self-preserving, because by the time we're there we've really been hurt, disappointed. There is often a betrayal, a lie, a lack of trust, as we said before, very different values, a lot of criticism. All of this has happened, and so it's radical because it hasn't really been owned before. And now women in the.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

So what happened with this book is seven years ago my mother died and I thought a lot, having written 13 previous nonfiction books about how women are positioned in society. So I'd written a book on female rivalry that you mentioned, called Tripping the Pram Queen, and I'd written a book on mothers and daughters, called You're Grounded Forever, but First let's Go Shopping, and I'd written a book on three different studies on the role of wife in contemporary American society and mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law and sisters. So I was really surprised and I thought you know in with all my research, I have heard in times of great sorrow or great happiness. I've heard women reacting to how their friends treated them. There's a lot of that in the book. So I wanted to write this book and I started the research.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

But I was under contract to write novels that I read under my pen name, susanna Merritt. So I was writing the Palm Beach novels and then during COVID, I thought a lot more about our friends and what it meant to be not with them and we all took a look at who they were and who are we in these diets. And then, two years ago, I started to write this book for publication. To really go back to it. By then the world had changed so much that I was hearing a lot more women not regretting or second-guessing estrangement, but feeling so strong about it, very confident in their choices to estrange and their ability to do it despite that. You have to think long and hard about. So that really is kind of new, a new trend.

Gretta:

It's a positive sign that women are putting their peace of mind first, because it's so uncomfortable to end these friendships. It's great that they're wanting to do something about it and realizing that it's time to move forward.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

I agree with you, and yet we seek new friends right away. I mean, friendship is so important. I looked at a lot of research on what an unhealthy. So the book has the interviews and then it has references to pop culture and, like we said, to film and series and you know, for instance, sex in the city. It's a good one, right? They were like fictive family and I look at that in the book. You know, when you create a family of friends by choice, rather than the family you're assigned to and born into, what would you say to somebody who's listening right now, who's just been ghosted?

Gretta:

they're feeling broken because one of their besties is now suddenly vanished.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

It's a really good time to self-reflect and say I wonder what I brought to this friendship and what I didn't. And who is she? And, like my preface in the book is titled has she Changed or have I? So ask yourself who's changed and try to get past the initial heartbreak of it and imagine how you'll be on the other side, which is very much like a romantic relationship. That's what I would say to be self-reflective and to also understand who the friend is, what she's going through and then how you'll reclaim yourself. And I just want to go back to one thing I didn't finish before and that was when I said I looked at studies. There's a very famous UCLA study on female friendship that said that you know, with healthy friendships it like helps us in everyone and then it's so significantly, significantly affects women. So that's the good news about the good friendships. But then think about it If the friendship is really troubling and has real problems, what that does to us.

Gretta:

It could hurt our mind, our bodies, our hearts. It's just insomnia, it's the stress response. I've been in friendships where I felt like I was walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around specific issues. It was really hard to be in them and it was liberating when I got out.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Exactly, and the whole idea of a really healthy female, very close friend is that you don't need to walk on angels and that you don't have to really measure your words and weigh what you're saying, but that it's just so comfortable in an authentic way For sure.

Gretta:

And for anyone watching or listening who wants to learn more about friendships in general and why people ghost. I do have another episode called Friendship Ghosting with Dr Daryl Appleton, which I highly recommend because it pairs beautifully with our conversation that we're having today.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Ghosting is very, very uneasy for some women when they're ghosted. The estranged feels very shaken by the ghost. I just heard the surprise and how unexpected it was that the person just disappears.

Gretta:

Yeah, All the feels that come out when we're ghosted. It's the uncertainty, the confusion, the questioning of the relationship. How long did this person not want to be in my life for? Was what she even said real? The shock, the feelings of I'm not worth her time. She didn't even bother to give me a proper end to this relationship. She didn't even bother to give me a proper end to this relationship. There's a lot of different negative self-talk that can happen after being ghosted and I'm really glad that my podcast addresses why this isn't personal, why the person who ended a relationship with ghosting is a person who's either unable or unwilling to end a relationship with mature communication, and it really reflects on them and where they're at, and it says nothing about the person who's been ghosted.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

And we really owe the friend an explanation in most cases. And yet so many of the women just chose to sort of move away, distance themselves, ice, you know, ghosting and icing the person.

Gretta:

I agree it's awful. So how can we cultivate healthier female friendships?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

moving forward, we should really reflect on what happened. I mean, it's almost. You know, when women look for a romantic partner they have almost a checklist and they really need to listen up to see if the person is the way they expect and hope that that person will be. And it's not so dissimilar from a new friend, where you need to learn about her and her life and her attitudes and her worldview and she yours. So to have a new friend is to be authentic yourself and to hope that she is, and to understand that these friendships have so much meaning for us that you can't just choose a friend and hope it will fit, but to explore the relationship just as a romantic relationship, to see if it works.

Gretta:

That's a great insight. Is there anything else you'd like to share about what we discussed today?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Just that. I'm really impressed with how women are now really in charge of these decisions. It doesn't make it easier, but it makes it really more productive personally, and how there can be decades that go by with some friends. I mean older women and younger women can just report in and say you know, after three years in college together, I say enough. So just hearing it.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

And then young women, younger women, not college age, but 30s, 40s really looking at who they are and who their friend is, and there are women who will say to you, were they on your show, they'd say well, we picked up where we left off, even if we haven't spoken in four years, haven't seen each other in five. And others will say you know, there's a real reason we're not together anymore. And others will say you know there's a real reason we're not together anymore. And when I got in touch again, or she got in touch, I remembered and I revisited it and I know that I'm better off now. I hear you hey, ghosting. I mean when I heard about your podcast and my publisher told me I said said great, because ghosting is really a whole topic and I have a big section in the book about it, because one of the women, as she said. She said, um, I remember she's and now they're well, I don't want to give the book away, but they were able.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Second chance. Second chances are always interesting after estrangement, as well as the clean break that lasts. But she said poof, my friend disappeared. And that's a really, as you were saying, it's such an unsettling, haunting feeling where you second guess everything you did. And what conclusion do you come to? You know? I mean, how can it be obvious to you when there's no information coming from the other person?

Gretta:

Right. My conclusion is I'm so sorry for their loss.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Right, I take myself with me wherever I go. All of that, it's true, but women will continue to value and seek out important friendships and in this new pedagogy, this new way of thinking, women will be able to leave the ones that are really not good for them. That's good.

Gretta:

So how can listeners connect with you and read your new book?

Susan Shapiro Barash:

Well, you can get the book on Amazon or bookshoporg or Powell's, and I love to hear from people on my website, which is susanshapirobarishcom.

Gretta:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing all of your wisdom. It's been incredible. Thank you for having me.

Susan Shapiro Barash:

As I said, the podcast is really important.

Gretta:

Yeah. So if you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button on YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a comment and a rating. And if you want some extra healing guidance, follow my Instagram at copingwithghosting. You can sign up for my coaching, and I have a free and private Facebook support group called Coping with Ghosting as well, and it's a great space filled with kind people. Finally, remember when you're ghosted, you have more time to connect with yourself and people who have stellar communication skills. You deserve the best.