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Do you ever feel---as the years pass---that you seem to be hemorrhaging friends? Maybe the language is a bit overly-dramatic but most women of a certain age begin to notice that many once-friends, even very close ones, begin to slowly slip out of their lives---sometimes for no apparent reason.

I was pleased to be interviewed by Sally Koslow, who wrote an excellent article on this very topic that appears in the September 2010 issue of More Magazine. 

 

Friends Interrupted highlights some of the reasons why middle-age friendships are so vulnerable to change. It also offers some creative approaches for stemming the flow. Koslow is the author of three novels; the latest is With Friends Like These. 

Sally writes:

I'm a born-again shy person, not the type to buzz through life in a swarm of friends or even a tight group of beloved Ya-Yas. And yet I thought I'd mastered friendship. At my 30th and 40th birthday parties, a satisfying number of warm, wonderful women shared my cake. This seemed providential, given that research tells us friendship may be as essential to good health as not weighing 400 pounds. The Harvard Nurses' Health Study is one of many bodies of research showing that the more buddies we have, the less likely we are to become ill as we age. So I feel all the more freaked out that lately I've noticed friendships becoming harder to start and harder to sustain.

You'd think that as fully vested adults, we'd have this thing down. But no. I keep hearing women lament that relationships they once considered indestructible have become casualties of various life assaults: divorce, widowhood, relocation, the empty nest, workplace bitch-slaps, health problems, glaring schadenfreude or, the most common reason of all, a simple drifting apart. Irene S. Levine, professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine and author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, claims that "the large majority of friendships are not forever." Say it ain't so, Irene! But the available evidence supports her conclusion...

 

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

 

You may wish to read this prior post on The Friendship Blog that offers some additional tips for resolving a friendship deficit.

So often friends don't know exactly what to say, especially when it feels like a friendship is hanging on by a thread. Personal Notes: How to Write From the Heart for Any Occasion by author and etiquette expert Sandra E. Lamb, provides helpful advice for writing notes for social situations where the rules of etiquette aren't quite clear. Admittedly, messages intended to apologize or to forgive are among the hardest to write.

 

"Most women I know can nurse a grudge until it grows a beard," says Lamb. "Even when it fractures a friendship, we often still cling to a grievance. It's a talent we have."

 

"Why do we embrace our anger when we feel wronged? Maybe because--for a brief season--it makes us feel warmly righteous. But my experience is that the feeling quickly turns cold, leaving me feeling isolated," she adds.

 

Friendships are precious, and worth a bit of restoration work when they suffer a bump of disagreement or offense. Take a peek at the delightful little video that Sandy put together; it may provide some help or inspiration. In her book, Personal Notes, she outlines some of the steps to apologizing and forgiving.

Becoming an older mother is never easy---physically or emotionally---especially if there's no logical father-to-be on the horizon. Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood (Little Brown, 2010) is an incredibly wise, witty and powerful memoir written by three brave and accomplished women who had the desire to be mothers---each one, on her own terms.

 

On their shared journey to becoming mothers, they forged an incredible sisterhood that speaks to the importance of friendship in women's lives and shows how empowering friends can be. May I briefly introduce you to the authors---my new BFFs---Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones and Pam Ferdinand?

 

How old were you when you gave birth for the first time?----And what lessons have you learned as an older mother?

PAM

I was 41 when I gave birth to Emma, and I'm still learning the lessons of being an older mother. So far, I have found the downsides are that I definitely don't have the energy I once had in my 20s and 30s, and that my daughter will not know her great-grandparents, as I did. Nor will she likely have an extended amount of time with her grandparents and Mark and I (though we hope to stick around for a long while.) The upside is that I fully lived and worked, understand myself more now than I did as a young woman, and am having a new wonderful adventure at an unexpected stage of life. I don't take anything about motherhood or my daughter, or my relationship with Mark, for granted.

 

CAREY

I was 41 when I had Liliana and 43 when I had Tully. I second all that Pam said: I feel tremendously lucky that I had the chance to fulfill my career dreams, which involved extensive travel and sometimes 24/7 work, before having a child. And I feel tremendously lucky to have my children and husband. My only regret is that, now that I know what being a mother is like, I risked missing it by waiting so long. If I had it to do over again, I would start trying earlier. Also, this is a little strange, but as a mother well into middle age, I'm deeply aware of my own mortality, and that helps keep me focused on how I most want to spend my time: with my children. I still work, but I'm far less likely to worship what one friend calls The Bitch Goddess of Success.

 

BETH

I was 41 when my son was born and all the cliches are true: I'm more tired, I have less time to take care of myself, I fear that I'll be gone before I could be a grandmother (and my body's never been the same). But, as with Pam and Carey, I lived a life before I had my son, and I'm comfortable with who I am. I have friends who had children in their 20's or younger, and they're trying to figure themselves out now, in their 40's and 50's. I feel like I might move slower than twenty years ago (I'm certain), but I'm more patient, and I'm far more settled, literally and figuratively, than I would've been if I'd had children during my first marriage or earlier. I'm very okay with how it all turned out, and for me, that's a lesson, too.

 

What effect have your friendships had on your desire  to become a mother?

CAREY

I like to think that I served as a kind of single-mother mentor for Beth and Pam, and a single-mother friend of mine named Sally had filled that role for me earlier on. It is a huge decision to become a single mother, and it helped enormously to be allowed in to the life of a woman who had already made that decision, a woman whom I deeply admired. She showed me that it was possible, and though demanding, deeply wonderful.

 

PAM

I always wanted to have a child. But Beth and Carey encouraged me to become a mother before it was too late and showed me it was possible even if our lives had not gone according to plan. I could see their joy as mothers, and we wanted love and happiness for each other as much as we wanted it for ourselves.

 

BETH

It's easier to do anything - hang-glide, ice climb, have a child alone - if you've seen someone else do it first, and seen them thrive (or merely survive, when necessary). I met Carey when her daughter was a baby, and I have many friends and family who are single mothers. I believed I could be a good mother, even if I had to go it alone. Carey was not only doing it successfully but she had the vials to make it possible for me, and offering them was a huge gift for a new friendship. Pam had introduced me to Carey, and she was on the same road as me. Knowing you're not alone is extremely powerful. I didn't end up as a single mother, but having friends who encouraged me in the direction of motherhood, by whatever means necessary, was a great motivation.

 

What effect has marriage and motherhood had on your close friendships

BETH

Fortunately, second-time-around, I married a man who my friends like. Still, with a family, especially with a young child (my son is five) scheduling my life is harder, and being spontaneous - which I loved - is mostly out the window. No more driving off into the sunset alone or with a girlfriend. But my friends have always been, and will always be, an intrinsic and core part of who I am. Phil understands that, and isn't jealous of my friends and the time I spend with them (or at least I don't think he is). Motherhood has made me less available on a moment's notice, but even my single friends have confirmed that I haven't been lost to them, that I remain the same person I was for the majority of my life.

 

PAM

Time, of course, impacts all aspects of my life these days, including my relationships. But I try very hard to sustain close friendships from throughout my life, and not all of my close friends are married and/or mothers. (I am not married!)

With some of my women friends, marriage and/or motherhood are not and never were among the primary bonds we share; for a few, it's a source of discomfort or pain because they are still hoping to have one or both of those things, and it's been important for us to communicate openly and honestly about that. Others desire neither marriage or motherhood. And for the close women in my life who are/were married and/or mothers, it's added a new dimension to our friendships in terms of sharing experiences, understanding each other's lives, and spending time together as moms and women in committed relationships.

 

CAREY

I've found that marriage mixes just fine with friendships; motherhood, however, is another matter! It is just so incredibly difficult to find the long blocks of time for talking and adventuring that helped build the basis for my close friendships in the before-children years. We can share outings that include the children, but then the children tend to make conversation difficult. My friendships have survived motherhood, and in some cases -- as I've found with Beth and Pam -- our mothering experiences, the anxieties and the joys, have even deepened the friendships. I've also found some new friends in the parents of my children's friends. But overall? I'd have to say motherhood is a challenge that friendship must overcome.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Carey Goldberg has been the Boston bureau chief of the New York Times, Moscow correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and most recently a health and science reporter at the Boston Globe. She now writes happily at home.

Beth Jones is a freelance writer and educator who has contributed to the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and numerous academic journals. She plans to climb many more frozen waterfalls.

Pamela Ferdinand is an award-winning freelance journalist and former reporter for the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Miami Herald. She remains an incorrigible romantic.

WIN A BOOK

If you would like to know more about the authors and their wishes, send your email address to me at Irene@TheFriendshipBlog or post it in the comment section below.

Put THREE WISHES in the subject line by COB Mother's Day, May 9, and I'll randomly pick one person to win a copy of this impossible-to-put-down book!

 

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Amy Chozick, How Parents Became Cool, describes the parental paradigm shift (as seen on TV) from loving but firm (think: The Brady Bunch) to best friends (think: Pretty Little Liars). We've all heard stories of (and some of us have witnessed up close) moms who are trying so desperately to be cool that they opt for the role of BFFs to their daughters instead of moms. It's an easy line to cross; after all, every woman wants another friend---and moms, especially, want to connect with their teens and tweens and not be thought of as old hags. But can a mother be a daughter's best friend?

 

Apropos of Mother's Day, I asked my colleagues, Linda Perlman Gordon and Susan Morris Shaffer, authors of Too Close for Comfort: Questioning the Intimacy of Today's Mother-Daughter Relationship (Berkley, 2009) to address that question in a guest post. Here is what Gordon and Shaffer had to say:

 

There is an old Chinese proverb that states "One Generation plants the trees; another gets the shade," and this is how it should be with mothers and daughters. The intimate nature of the relationship between a mother and daughter is sometimes confusing. If close, the relationship can simulate friendship through the familiar characteristics of empathy, listening, loyalty, and caring. However, the mother/daughter relationship has unique characteristics that distinguish it from a best friendship. These characteristics include a mother's role as primary emotional caretaker, a lack of reciprocity, and a hierarchy of responsibility. This hierarchy, combined with unconditional love, precludes mothers and daughters from being best friends.

 

Because the essential ingredient for friendship is equality and there is always an imbalance when one person in the twosome is the parent of the other, mothers and daughters naturally can't be best friends. Marina, 27 years old says, "I love spending time with my mom, but I wouldn't consider her my best friend. She's MY MOM. Best friends don't pay for the dress you covet in a trendy clothing store that you wouldn't pay for yourself. Best friends don't pay for your wedding. Best friends don't remind you how they carried you in their body and gave you life, and sometime gas! Best friends don't tell you how wise they are and trump your opinion because they have been alive at least 20 years longer than you. I love my mom, and I want her to remain a mom."

 

This doesn't mean that the mother/daughter relationship can't be very close and satisfying. While some adult relationships are still troubled, many find them to be extremely rewarding. So many moms spoke to us about how happy they are to be finished with the "eye rolling" and look from their adolescent daughters, a look that says, "You must come from a different evolutionary chain than me." Daughters also adopted the famous Mark Twain quote about aging, with some slight alterations, and their feelings about their mothers. Mark Twain said, "When I was a boy (girl) of 14, my father (mother) was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man (woman) around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man (woman) had learned in seven years."

 

This generation of mothers and adult daughters has a lot in common which increases the likelihood of shared companionship. Mothers and daughters have always shared the common experience of being homemakers, responsible for maintaining and passing on family values, traditions, and rituals. Today contemporary mothers and daughters also share the experience of the workforce, technology and lack of a generation gap, which may bring them even closer together.

 

Best friends may or may not continue to be best friends, but for better or worse, the mother and daughter relationship is permanent, even if for some unfortunate reason they aren't' speaking. The mother and child relationship is, therefore, more intimate and more intense than any other. As long as that hierarchy exists, it's not an equal relationship. Daughters should not feel responsible for their mother's emotional well-being. Not that they don't care deeply about their mothers, it's just that they shouldn't be burdened with their mother's well being. As one mother said to her daughter, "I would gladly dive under a bus for you and there is no way that I'm diving under a bus for my friends." Her daughter responded, "And I'd gladly let you dive under the bus to save me!"

 

The mother/daughter relationship is so much more comprehensive than a best friendship. It's a relationship that is not replaceable by any other. This unique bond doesn't mean that when daughters mature they can't assume more responsibilities and give back to their mothers, but it's never equal and it's not supposed to be. Mothers never stop being mothers, which includes frequently wanting to protect their daughters and often feeling responsible for their happiness. Mother always "trumps" friend.

 

BOOK GIVEAWAY 

For a chance to win your own copy of Too Close for Comfort: Questioning the Intimacy of Today's Mother-Daughter Relationship, post your own thoughts below in response to the question: Can a daughter be a mother's best friend? Be sure to include your email address so if you are chosen, I can contact you for your snail mail address.

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, May 11, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends! 

Every Last One (Random House, 2010) is a beautifully written, gripping novel by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and author Anna Quindlen. Told in the first-person, Mary Beth Latham is a mom of three teens, who is married to an ophthalmologist. She works as a part-time landscaper in her small town but is totally devoted to her children. Then the family endures an unimaginable tragedy one New Year's Eve that shatters the routines of their comfortable world, dividing Mary Beth's life into before and after.

 

Quindlen's layered depiction of marriage, home, children and friendship are so authentic that you feel like her characters might be the family next door. What I found most provocative about this haunting story, however, was the author's ability to describe the invisible boundaries and "vows of silence" that characterize our relationships with family and friends. Like many moms, Mary Beth wrestles with when she should "mother' and when she should allow her growing teens to make their own decisions. After the tragedy, Mary Beth says, "Small talk feels too small; big talk too enormous." The book reminds the reader that words unsaid can powerfully affect our lives and relationships.

 

Are there "words unsaid" that have affected a close friendship of yours?

 

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.  

On Thursday evening, I was thrilled to meet and hear Jeffrey Zaslow speak in my area about his three best-selling books, The Last Lecture, The Girls from Ames, and Highest Duty. What a wonderful storyteller he is, in person and in print! If you still haven't read The Girls from Ames, it's now out in paperback so don't miss it. Take a look at my interview with Zaslow that appeared in The Huffington Post when the hardcover edition was published. 

 

 

Dear Martha Stewart,

 

After reading Mariana Pasternak's new telltale book, The Best of Friends: Martha and Me (Harper, 2010), I know how betrayed you must feel. You have to be asking yourself: How could Mariana, who I considered one of my closest friends, betray me like this? Granted, I've only read her side of the story, but here are my unsolicited thoughts on the matter:

 

1) Keep in mind that Mariana's book says more about her than it says about you.

Mariana dishes the dirt on your 20-year friendship, from when you were first neighbors in Westport, to when you became couple-friends with your now ex-husbands, and then became inseparable BFFs---like Oprah and Gayle, Ethel and Lucy, or Paris and Nicole. At every crook in the road, however, Mariana seemed obsessed with building herself up to tear you down.

 

Clearly, Mariana felt like she could never measure up to you because she goes to great lengths to make the case that she was more attractive, more desirable to men, a better mother, more grounded, and more cultured. She even uses double superlatives to describe her education at "highly selective" and "extremely competitive schools."

 

She fills us in on the sybaritic perks she and her daughters enjoyed simply by knowing you. They were given entrée to your world of celebrity, royalty, gardens, yachts, private jets, group vacations, and adventure. They partied with the rich and famous because of their relationship with you.

 

2) As your success grew, the divide between the two of you grew larger.

Like you, Mariana seems like an ambitious woman, by nature. She might have been happier had she been less envious of your wealth, fame, and success. She accuses you of being judgmental and desperate---yet her use of language is scathing. Two gems, among many, from the book: She compares you to the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction and comments that, "The Turkey Hill paradise became the lair of the dragon lady." If these were her feelings all along, I wonder how the relationship lasted as long as it did.

 

Mariana has an odd sense of entitlement, thinking that by virtue of being your friend and hanging on to your coattails, she deserved the same lifestyle as you have. Why else would she repeatedly complain that you asked her to pay her portion of the bill for the lavish and memorable trips you took together?

 

Mariana admits she was ambivalent about her friendship with you for some time. One telling sign: When you separated from your husband, although she didn't tell you, she sided with your ex. When a friend is filled with such ambivalence, she really isn't a true friend; she is a frenemy. Penning the book provided your ex-BFF an opportunity to even the score while making a buck.

 

3) The ending of your friendship isn't as unusual as it appears to be.

Sadly, the majority of friendships---even very good ones---tend to go awry for a variety of reasons. The most common scenario is that two friends just drift apart over time as they grow in different directions. Some friendships are tested by misunderstandings or disappointments, some of which are resolved and others not. But, by far, the most painful kind of breakup is to be betrayed by someone you thought was a close friend. It can be as painful and jolting as being dumped by a boyfriend or lover. The closer the friendship, the harder it is to get over.

 

Unlike divorces, we don't often hear much talk about acrimonious friendships. Perhaps women have accepted the pop myth that friendships are forever and that being unable to sustain a friendship is a sign of personal weakness. Other women are reticent to tell their stories because they think outsiders can't really understand how a once-impenetrable emotional bond could fracture. If they talk at all about their friendship breakups, they talk to therapists behind closed doors.

 

The bond between two female friends is complex, powerful and often inexplicable. Women share emotions and feelings with close friends that they may not even be able to share with a husband or sister. You had to be hurt when Mariana testified against you at your trial. But writing this book and exposing the intimacies of your longstanding friendship so publicly, was a particularly bitter form of betrayal.

 

Mariana suggests the book may be a contribution to the friendship literature. Yet, the book offers few, if any, positive lessons readers can take away about the nuances and strengths of female friendships. Instead, the author provides an excellent case study of betrayal.

 

Martha, I have no doubt that your wounds will heal over time because you have shown such resilience in the past.

 

Signed,
The Friendship Doctor

The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections (Hyperion Voice, 2010) offers straightforward strategies, or "pearls" of wisdom, for resolving relationship conflicts. One gem that particularly resonated with me was: "You can't change them. You can change yourself." Having wasted incalculable time in my own youth trying to change others, I couldn't agree more.

 

Co-authored by Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self-Magazine, and Catherine Birndorf, M.D., a psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, this new book joins the burgeoning genre of happiness literature. The authors cleverly employ a house as a metaphor for a woman's emotional life. As in any house, the rooms (chapters) of this one are interconnected, but, of course, I took an immediate detour into the chapter named the Living Room, which represents the area of women's friendships and social connections.

 

In the Living Room, we're introduced to a number of women whose friendships are "messy" for a variety of reasons. Whether it's the friend who is insatiably needy, self-involved, mistrusting, or jealous, the authors provide insight into the unconscious motivations that impede these women from achieving healthier friendships that can enhance their happiness quotient. The book helps the reader identify and understand the psychological defense mechanisms that often undermine and destroy friendships. By offering readers tools, they can take ownership of their messy rooms and make changes that improve their friendships and their lives.

 

Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

 

To find out more about The Nine Rooms of Happiness or its the authors, click here.

 

 

BOOK GIVEAWAY:

 

You have TWO chances to win a free copy of The Nine Rooms of Happiness, courtesy of Hyperion Voice.

1. Post a comment here telling why you would like to clean up your own messy "living room." Please include your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.

2. Click on this link at Girlfriend Celebrations to catch their exclusive interview with Lucy Danziger and enter the contest there as well. While you're there check out their great ideas for Girls' Nights In and Girls' Nights Out.

Winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. U.S. shipping addresses only, please. Good luck, girlfriends!

Every mother knows how tough middle school friendships can be for young women. Dara Chadwick is a freelance journalist and writer who spent a year chronicling her Weight Loss Diary for Shape Magazine. That experience and her interviews and discussions with her readers led her to reflect on the effect that mothers have on their teen and tween daughters' body image and sense of self. She wrote You'd Be So Pretty If (Da Capo Lifelong, 2009) to help shape her daughter's "future relationship with her body" and that of other young women.

 

An entire chapter (Chapter 7) of this engaging book is focused on "Mean Girls and Frenemies." Since middle school can create many friendship challenges for young girls who are becoming women, I was delighted to talk to Dara about some of her findings.

 

Q. Why do young women focus conversation and gossip on each other's body size and shape?

 

In middle-school, especially, I think it's almost a defense mechanism. Everybody's body is changing, and they're all changing according to their own timetable. Some young adolescents look like grown women, while others still look like little girls. At this age, it's natural to worry and fret and wonder if you're normal. Gossiping is a way to find out.

 

Another characteristic of young adolescence is to not want to be different - to not want to stand out - from your peers in any way. Girls seek reassurance that they're OK and that they're just like everybody else. Finally, for some girls who are truly insecure, gossiping and "body bullying" is a way to assert power and dominance - to secure your place in the pack, so to speak.

 

Q. How do moms and the media contribute to this problem?

 

The media floods girls with enhanced and digitized images of models and of their favorite celebrities. Naturally, these images can cause girls to think that they can and should look like these enhanced images do. It's so important for moms to help girls realize that these images aren't real. In my book, I talk about teaching girls to look at media images the same way they'd look at art in a museum.

 

Sure, an image may be beautiful, but it's just a representation of one photographer or one magazine's idea of what beauty looks like. It's not a real goal that girls can attain with enough effort or self-control. It's also helpful for girls to see the level of re-touching that goes on in magazines. The Dove films at Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty are a great conversation-starter about what's real and what isn't.

 

Q. How can moms help build resilience among their daughters who will face these challenges?

 

It starts with being accepting of and kind to your own body. There's no denying the importance of friends in a young tween or teen's life - peers are a huge influence. But moms shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that they're no longer important. Our daughters are watching us and listening to the things we say about ourselves.

 

The thing that most surprised me in talking to the girls I interviewed for my book was how beautiful they think their moms are. Now, imagine how she feels when she thinks you're beautiful, but you do nothing but put yourself down. Not only is it hurtful, it's also teaching her not to trust her own feelings about what beauty is. Speaking kindly about your own body and treating it well with healthy eating and exercise also gives her permission to do the same for herself. From you, she can learn that it's OK for a woman to like her body. I think it's important to watch the way you talk about other women and girls, too. Snarky comments, criticisms or even compliments based purely on appearance or weight loss send a message to girls.

 

Q. What were some of our own memories of adolescence that you brought to the book?

 

Eighth grade was hands down the worst year of my adolescent life. My daughter is in eighth grade now and it's been fascinating to watch how her experience is unfolding. For me, I was just so uncomfortable in my own skin. I've always had curves and muscles, but I so wanted to be like my friends who had more boyish frames. In retrospect, my discomfort with myself often came across to others as aloofness, and I struggled with that at times.

 

By high school, I'd lost quite a bit of weight and found my niche on the cheerleading squad. But the weight loss didn't bring the body confidence I thought it would. I remember once that on career day, a representative from a modeling agency came in and spoke. There was a girl in my class who was quite tall and very pretty. The representative asked her to walk across the room, which she did with absolute grace and confidence. The representative then asked, in a totally smarmy voice, "Are there any cheerleaders in this room?" All heads turned to me immediately and she asked me to get up and walk across the room, too. I knew I was being made fun of and I remember it as being one of the most uncomfortable body image moments of my life. The outward appearance of cute little cheerleader didn't match the inner feelings. I try to remember that disconnect when I'm talking with adolescent girls.

 

Q. Under what circumstances should moms intervene in an obviously toxic teen friendship?

 

If your daughter is being teased, excluded or "toyed with" for lack of a better term, I think it's important to help her see that the behavior is really about the "friends" who are treating her this way and not about her. One of the best things you can do is help her develop multiple friendship groups so she can see that with her own eyes. If school friends are behaving badly, having other friends at dance class or at basketball who like her and treat her well helps her make that connection.

 

It can also be helpful to talk with her about what might be behind their behavior (for example, are they jealous? Not feeling good about themselves?), but only if it's something she's interested in talking about. Mostly, moms can help by being a sounding board if she needs to talk, by supporting her efforts to develop healthy friendships and by sharing stories of their own adolescences - if she wants to hear them, of course.

Have a friendship question? Ask the Friendship Doctor: Irene@TheFriendshipBlog.com

You may not be able to picture yourself in a relationship like that of Wendy and her college friend Daphne but in the larger-than-life caricatures of two quintessential New Yorkers, novelist Lucinda Rosenfeld captures the essence of many close female friendships.

 

Daphne Uberoff is stunningly beautiful and has all the trappings of material success; Wendy Murman is a struggling magazine writer, with fertility problems and a slacker husband. As the gap between the two women widens, the jealousy and envy that Wendy harbors grows so extreme that it becomes corrosive.

 

I'm So Happy For You (Back Bay Books, 2009) portrays a less than perfect relationship between best friends that falls short of the romanticized notion we usually read about in novels. As often happens in real life, the huge fissures in this friendship are varnished over with the protective glue of shared history and experiences; the predictability of personalities (despite their peccadilloes); and with having friends and acquaintances in common. In such circumstances, no matter how bad or disappointing a relationship becomes, it's hard to let go.

 

In this breezy, light-hearted and engaging read, Rosenfeld aptly drives home the point that when it comes to best friends, these relationships aren't always as they appear to be.

 

 

'Friendship by the Book' is an occasional series of posts on this blog about books that offer friendship lessons. To read other posts in the series, use the search function on the right side of the page.