Caring Connections - Estranged: How Strained Female Friendships are Mended or Ended

 Husbands, partners, and jobs come and go, but close friendships are our bedrock. Until they’re not. What happens when these bonds sabotage instead of support? Who among us has the courage to walk away? And how can we protect ourselves from further heartbreak?

In her provocative new book, “Estranged: How Strained Female Friendships are Mended or Ended,” (Meridian Editions) well-known gender expert and bestseller Susan Shapiro Barash takes a deep dive into the complexities of female friendships. By peeling back the societal narrative that our friendships are meant to last forever, she uncovers a more nuanced reality: the closest bonds do falter. Through groundbreaking research and 150 interviews with women aged 20 to 80, Barash reveals an emerging trend — estrangement among female friends.

Examples of unhealthy friendships: 

1. The Faithless Friend: Always there until a third party drives a wedge between you. 
2. The Wayward Friend: Drawn to questionable or dangerous behavior. 
3. The Green-Eyed Friend: Jealous and secretly rooting for your failure. 
4. The Thieving Friend: Betrays you by stealing your ideas, opportunities, relationships. 
5. The Disparaging Friend: Tears you down with relentless criticism disguised as “honesty.”

She uncovered how these suboptimal friendships can impact mental health, why women avoid conflict even in damaging relationships, the emotional trauma of cutting ties with a friend and estrangement as a radical yet necessary act of self-preservation.

Barash sheds light on estrangement—both for the “estranger” who walks away and the “estrangee” who is left behind. She challenges women to reimagine their friendships and take the bold step of letting go when necessary. This cutting-edge book offers an empowering path forward: learning to prioritize self-worth, stability and authenticity over loyalty to friendships that no longer serve us.

I had a chance to learn more in this interview.

Why did you write this book?

I kept hearing about unhappy female friendships and knew that we all had experienced this. I wanted to investigate further. As with my previous nonfiction titles, I interviewed a diverse group of women across the country to hear their stories. I realized a new trend, that women are  changing, ‘waking up’ to the fact that they don’t need to remain in unrewarding friendships.

Why is it important for women to recognize harmful "friendships?" 

These harmful friendships create stress and anxiety. Historically women have remained in such relationships, fearful and hesitant to make a clean break. If we can’t own that these are not the right friends for us, we get stuck. If we own the problems in the friendship, we can be set free and move on to positive bonds.

How can women remove themselves from relationships that aren't healthy?

For some women there is a frank discussion with their friend,  others distance themselves, others ghost the friend rather than have a confrontation. There is the behavior of the estranged - the friend who initiates the break up and the estrangee - the one who is at the receiving end. 

What can women do to make sure they are building up strong, healthy relationships?

Women of all ages need to understand why they are invested in the friendship and to ask themselves salient questions. Why am I with this friend, what is the give and take, how respectful are we of each other, can we trust each other? 

Barash has written several nonfiction books, including Tripping the Prom Queen, and A Passion for More: Affairs that Make or Break Us. She taught gender studies at Marymount Manhattan and has guest taught creative nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence’s Writing Institute. She was featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Elle, Marie Claire, and has appeared on TODAY, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC and as a guest on NPR and Sirius. She was a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts, a judge for the International Emmys, and Vice Chair of the Mentoring Committee of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s JFK School of Government.