Most of us don't like breaking up relationships, especially not the platonic types, and even less so ones involving family. And when the breakup happens, it usually happens gradually, regardless of how much emotion and drama is involved. There's something innate in us that keeps us from wanting to break things apart so cleanly, so abruptly. This is perhaps one of the reasons we have such trouble with ending some romantic relationships.
I don't know exactly what the reason is for which we can't just turn around and walk away. I suspect that it has something to do with wanting to keep things we have built. Here I want to speak only about friendships, these so-called platonic relationships. Consider that you've spent a year with someone. You've spent time with them, interacted with them, grown to care about them, all these interactions nurture a connection between you and that person, a connection we often label as friendship.
But trouble always happen between people, and your first instinct, being so angry, is to stop talking to that person. If you're more mature, you might know somewhere in the back of your head that once the emotion passes, you can talk to that person, assuming the same thought goes through that person. Usually, you find some way of talking and give each other the attention. Or, you don't talk; you just go on with your lives and leave the problem unresolved. Or deeper, you don't even let the other person know that he has done you wrong. But it doesn't matter which is the case. At one point you will have to confront that person when it seems so impossible to be with that person. You are pushing each others' buttons so precisely, so frequently. But that's just one example of how things may simply not work anymore.
It doesn't have to be this way, but the longer you wait, the more likely it will happen, an impasse. I am speaking about this case of the impasse. You are friends, but you can't find a way to get out. And yet, that deep-seated desire in most of us to keep what we've built becomes louder. However, at the same time, the desire to quit also becomes louder. There's invariably an internal struggle inside you whose intensity is proportional to how strong this connection is. And the stronger it is, the harder it is for you to just cut it clean, turn around, and move on.
Isn't that the most rational thing to do? The perspective is that you've built something and you will keep it, as if it were some sort of precious tool that you should be proud of and would be useful to you in the future. However, friendships aren't tools, aren't prizes won, aren't trophies for display. They are a kind of experience. Every moment of friendship starts and ends with the moment in question, and if you were to simply turn around and not look back, you may not have the person with you anymore because you've expelled her from your life, but still you have the memory, the experience, and whatever lessons you've decided to bring along for the future. So I argue that it's irrational to keep a friendship for the sake of a product you want to keep.
There are very few people in the world who can throw away old stuff of sentimental values only. They aren't able to allow memories to be some abstract but realistic entity in their minds; they need objects to embody these memories. It's almost always true that if we, perhaps by force, throw away things we really don't need on any practical level but only on an emotional level, we don't miss them later, and yet should the memories they embody be re-invoked, those memories often feel even sweeter.
To keep a friend even when you've hit an impasse needs to have better reasons, and these reasons are quite rare and specific to each case. But for most people, in most cases, there are no reasons once an impasse has arrived. It's not unusual we reach this point. We are usually very different people, and our connection usually doesn't span beyond a year or two before we realize we've learned to push each others' buttons more than we can help each other remove them.
People, of course, abandon their friendships all the time, especially when we are younger. But you don't do it cleanly, and the older you get, to less clean you make things. While that internal struggle happens, you are simply dragging out the inevitable. You have the option between diving into the cold water or slowly moving in, even though, in the back of your mind, you know that the plunge isn't any worse than the slow torture.
There's also the idea that a clean cut is considered insensitive. In what way is it insensitive? Only in the way that no one else dares to do it, at least not most people. A clean cut seems to totally betray the love that has been nurtured between you and your friend. A clean cut seems worse than what enemies could do. And sometimes it is interpreted as childish, but if you ask someone how that is childish, they can't really give you a good answer. It's childish only if what you really want is to reconnect with that person and throwing a tantrum and threatening a clean cut is just a scheme for just that: reconnection. If you do this for the sake of your own sanity, the sanity of this human being you still love but can't stand being with or listen to any longer, than that is the right thing to do.
The difficulty is, like with breaking up a romantic relationship, that in almost all cases, there is still plenty of love in the friendship. And the love constantly makes you wonder if you're doing the right thing, if there wasn't a way to avoid pushing each others' buttons.
But it's important to remember that friendships aren't little trophies for collection, aren't stamps to be put in an album that you show off to someone. They are experiences that you should cherish, memories that would brighten your day in the future. And if you make a small mistake out of many right decisions, and that you later find yourself regretting losing that friend, life had been going on all the while, and your regret speaks more about some other parts of your life than about that loss. By then you should be cherishing the current experience with the current friends you have. Otherwise, you will just end up with a lot of friends, which means your buttons are being pushed constantly.
