How Friendship Needs Change Over Time

While the need for social support makes its presence known from earliest infancy, the value of friendships and our friendship behaviors shift over the course of women’s lives. Social identities also may change dramatically throughout the lifespan depending on our unique maturational paths. While there is really no single right way to “do friendships,” there are some relational behavior similarities across age groups, although individual variations exist.

Friendships that Define You: Growing into Adulthood

This period of life is perhaps the most intensely friendship-oriented of a woman’s life and the relationships developed during this period are essential for healthy social development. Not only does being part of a friendship group provide social support and belonging, it also provides the “mirror” needed to see one’s own identity more clearly. These friendships play an integral role in the shaping of a young woman’s individual identity. Peer groups provide the reference points by which we paradoxically establish our individuality by faithfully embodying the norms of friends, for good or bad. Strong friendships provide social support, acceptance, and belonging; ideally, friends are able to help ground us during this tumultuous period of development. During these years, our friends truly do define who we are—or at least who we think we want to be at this time in our lives.

Friendships that Make You: The Family/Career Years

During the next phase of life, women take on increasingly significant responsibilities in multiple domains including relational, community, and professional roles. These years can be filled with opportunities to move up the ladder, across the country, and into new organizations. Being able to craft connections with people at the places where you are headed, once you arrive, and where you want to go next, are often more valued skills than hanging onto relationships you’ve outgrown.

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There’s a saying, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” Research has shown that women who develop strong friendships and social connections are more likely to succeed in their careers (Yang et al., 2019). Being connected to the “right person” isn’t as important as being connected to people who are “right” for you. When you’re trying to network your way to the top, you seldom take time to build authentic relationships with the people you’re hoping will help you climb the ladder. However, “true blue” friends are what we need.

Friends allow us to be vulnerable with one another. They let us ask dumb questions and give us the answers we need. They don’t gloat when you fail or try to make you feel worse. They give you the honest truth when you ask for it and do it gently when kid gloves are needed. Strong friendships are essential throughout life, but the strong friendships we have during these years can make or break our ability to manage all of the responsibilities we might carry—from career to community to relational to familial to parental roles.

Friendships that Sustain You: The Midlife Years

During the middle years, we are ready to explore and integrate aspects of our psyche that had been obscured from awareness during our earlier years. We also do a fair amount of self-reflecting and taking stock. Many women are able to reclaim more personal time. The formerly heavy investment in the raising of a family or solidifying a career is ebbing and women are able to shift their priorities to fit their changing needs. While external circumstances differ, the inner development typical of this period will be ongoing.

With this shift, significant transitions in social relationships often occur. Prior friendships built on instrumental assistance needs, such as carpooling or band/athletic parent groups, may have run their course. Taking up new pastimes, letting go of old responsibilities, and having more freedom to spend time as they see fit provide opportunities to edit social relationships. Existing friendships may deepen during this time, as authenticity is easier to offer, and self-judgment often decreases with age. Tolerance for one’s own flaws grows, as it does for the imperfections of friends, if the imperfection is irrelevant to the relationship.

The types of individuals we feel comfortable “letting in” to our lives shifts with maturity. Some may open arms widely, seeking ways to give back to communities, others may draw in their friendscapes a little tighter as personal priorities can now overshadow others’ demands for the first time in decades. Friendscapes cultivated during life’s middle third may greatly influence the well-being we experience as we enter the final phase of our lives; these friendships are those that can sustain us moving forward.

Friendships that Embrace You as You Are: Older Adulthood

Entering the final third of life can include upheavals across the board—social, professional, geographical, personal, and even familial. There are often multiple losses in these years, so it’s no wonder that having a social support network in place is essential to emotional and physical well-being in older adulthood.

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We undergo the greatest amount of transition during the final third of life and we need friends who love us no matter how we “show up." Luckily, with friendship circles, size doesn’t matter. Whether a woman has just one good friend or hundreds, positive relationships will positively influence health and welfare. And if one of those friends is considered a best friend, a woman enjoys a little added natural protection against emotional depression and compromised well-being. Whether facing high-stress or low-stress events, good friends will be there to sustain us and help us cope with the ups and downs of life.