How your Friendships may change when your Beliefs and Opinions change

There have been a lot of changes in my life and I think to a certain extent, such changes happen in everybody’s life. The result is that your opinion may be fully different from the one you had before – and different from the people whom you previously shared same opinions with. What happens if those people are the close people in your life? When those around you have different ideas of life than you do?

I believe it is very common among family members that this happens. You love the people that you are related to by blood. Maybe you grew up with them or you enjoyed the most important celebrations of the years with them. They are close – but you cannot really talk about the things that really move you because they have just a very different opinion that doesn’t match yours at all.

What if you are in this situation with friends? This happens mostly with long-time friends, whom you got to know at a time when you still were of one opinion, when you were at school for example, still forming an opinion or when you were just simply still thinking something different. Over time, your opinions have changed away from each other.

In such situations you have the wish to meet these people because of the love that you have for them and you are looking forward to the meeting – but then there is not that charm of the great conversations that you could have with someone of your mind. You like to see them but when you are together for a longer time, you lack a topic to talk about. The weather, what is going on in your lives, the lives of people you know, maybe politics. That’s about it. You cannot really talk about the things that move you because you are just too different.

You thus create a system to talk to each other once a week or meet once a month. This is the effort that you do to keep your relation – but there is not that joy that you have with people with whom you can share what is deep inside your heart.

This is not the kind of friend where you go to when you need a shoulder to cry on. You just won’t feel sharing with particularly this person. Why? Because deep in your heart, you both think that the other one is wrong. That’s why you changed your belief or opinion in the first place, because you thought that it was wrong. And that’s why the other one did not change – because he believes that this change is wrong. You may not say that openly but that is the reality of your heart. In a situation when you are looking for emotional support, you would not go to someone who thinks you are wrong, would you? That’s how this person won’t ask you and you won’t ask him or her when you really need someone to hold you, let you cry or share your deepest sorrows.

So how to deal with such a friend? I will explain you my ideas about this question tomorrow.