How to manage friendships and keep healthy boundaries

When it comes to friendships, it takes two to tango. Both parties have to put in the effort to build a healthy relationship and if there is no commitment, sometimes it ends.

Bobby Ombiro narrated to Wananchi Reporting his experience with friendships:

Strangers turned into friends and with time, some friends turned into strangers. I had this tight connection with a friend I met in campus. We also had two other friends, we called ourselves 'unbreakable'. 

 We were all ambitious and wanted to live a lavish lifestyle hence the desire to have money, we decided to combine money and start a thrifting business, having an extra income in campus would really be great. 

We went to buy the clothes we wanted to sell and we were happy to kick off the business. But we never forgot to live life to the fullest, we could go out together, we were present during significant days of each others lives, this friendship was close to my heart. 

With time I began to feel left out, they would organise parties without involving me but I convinced myself that we are grown and we are evolving. This was very unusual of them and anytime I told them that I would like us to talk about it, they would say they were busy and that's something that girls do and not men. 

That really broke my heart and I began to question myself. Was it my looks? Or the way I speak? This really damaged my self-esteem.

I talked about it to one of my friends and that was when he told me that they had planned to proceed with the business without me, all along I had been the fool since I invested in people who did not even care about me. 

It now dawned on me that the people I called friends did not even acknowledge me. I realised that you can't mix friendship with business even with people that you trust, this betrayal was beyond me, I decided to isolate myself for a while and restructure my friend group, I had to categorise them according to our common interests, I learnt to also be secretive. 

To avoid situations where you feel betrayed and bitter in friendships, it’s important to learn how to manage them in a healthy way. Here are some ways to do so:

01) Always show up when your friends need you and it is convenient for you. 

02) Show appreciation and gratitude rather than taking things for granted. 

03) Choose compassion over cynicism. 

04) Do not over commit and know your place in their lives. 

05) Be genuine and authentic.

06) Deal with issues to avoid keeping grudges and piling up anger. 

07) Create and capitalize on  time together. 

08) Be reliable and dependable.