What’s been your experience when two friends your close to fall out, is it possible to stay friends with both ?

[JennyTals]

There’s no way back for them, gone past the point of reconciliation
you can see both sides
you like them both

isn’t possible to actually remain friends with both ?

It depends on them.
It's possible for you to stay friends with both and ask to be kept out of it and for them not to badmouth each other to you.

But if one or both of them don't accept that then it's out of your hands. If they compete for your time. If one gets snotty when you hang out with the other. If they both want to make plans with you on the same day...

All you can do is tell them you won't be put in the middle and want to be friends with both separately.

Whether that works or not depends if they are able to be mature about it or not.

This happened to me. I tried to stay friends with both. One of them, A, was fine with it, and understood me wanting to stay out of it. The other, B, objected to me staying friends with A and took it as a personal insult.

As far as I was concerned, both A and B had shared responsibility for falling out. Neither of them had done anything outrageous - no betrayals, no racist/sexist/homophobic comments etc. There was no reason for me to fall out with either of them. But in the end, I stopped seeing B because her irritation over my ongoing friendship with A became tiresome. I'm now only friends with A and haven't seen B for a few years. It's a shame, but life's too short to waste on people that petty.

In my experience, no. One pair is always closer in a 3 and they will be the ones who stick together regardless of the fall out.

Agree with Goody above. I have several friends who also used to be friends with each other, and they’re mature enough to recognise that the issue/s that led to them parting ways were just the culmination of a friendship which had run its course rather than anything anyone else could be expected to take a position or objective opinion on. The dynamics are fine and my friendships with the individuals hasn’t changed. I think it can become more difficult if the issue/s which ended the friendship are closer to the bone (i.e. one friend had sex with the other’s husband) where the friend whose husband it was might naturally expect others to take a moral position on it.

Be clear with both friends from the outset that you intend to keep both of them as friends, won’t be acting as a go-between to sneak information about one to the other and in return, don’t want to be treated as the middle-woman.

I would imagine that one or both behaved badly, and then couldn't take responsibility for their actions. That would really put me off someone and would question their morals/ integrity etc. I would probably make a judgement based on the information if I wanted to be friends with either.

IME it wasn’t. We were embedded as a group so when two fell out there was a natural split in the whole group. We did try for a while and it was actually a third person who threw a bomb in the group and said the situation was causing her too much angst and she didn’t want to see any of us anymore and that let to more fallings out and in the end the group split in two permanently. Shame as we had been friends for 25 years.

I was friends with two people who got divorced and I am still friends with them. The ‘injured party’ (in their view but not mine) struggles with this still after 10 years but they’ve not fallen out with me.

It’s tricky at times but I had no appetite to end the friendship. I would not put up with a friend putting pressure on me to not be friends with someone else. That would be a crossed boundary I wouldn’t be prepare to accept. They can fall out with me if necessary.

No, I don't think so unfortunately.

It happened in my group of friends many years ago and we tried to stay friends with both- mainly as the two women involved had known each other for 20+ years, since they were pre-schoolers together at nursery, and we hoped that they would put aside their differences.

What happened was that one of those parties stayed in the friendship group and still is a good friend today. The other gradually withdrew and stopped contacting any of us regularly, then at all, and had already formed a new group of friends from her local area.

Underlying this, though there was a real reason for their fall-out (over living together- classic friendship breaker there) the party who withdrew, who had lived at home the whole time she went to university, felt rather abandoned by the rest of the group going travelling or living elsewhere after university.

Which is fair enough if you want a regular set of local friends to go out with- we couldn't provide this any longer. She has never really seen or spoken to any of us since, though I do follow her on Insta. The rest of us are all still mates even though we live all over the country and met up twice a year.

Yep if you want to stay friends.

At school we were a group of five of us.

Three people feel out. So I had to see people separately and still do 15+ years on. One of them I don’t see though and none of my friends do cuz she was stuck up!

It depends what you mean by "you can see both sides". Do you mean both sides are equally to blame, or the "offence" is minor and the reaction to it is really disproportionate? In that case, I think you can still be friends with both if they're willing to not try and drag you into it constantly.

If one of them has truly wronged the other and your "seeing both sides" is that "Yes X truly hurt Y, but Y should get over it to keep the peace", then no you can't be friends with both sides. Because you're choosing a side by refusing to choose.

I had this once and I found it very difficult. One I still talk to, the other not at all. It really depends in my view at least on how adult they are and how convoluted as friends you used to be.

For instance in my situation friend A was very bitter and kept drawing B into conversations we had despite me not wanting to be a part of it. She would also initiate conversation to try and snoop and find out what B was up to. It all became really tiresome and demonstrated a not so nice side of her character and I withdrew. Friend B behaved like an adult, understood I wanted no part in it and didn't speak at all about A. If she asked what I was up to and I mentioned I'd had lunch with A on Monday, then done some shopping on Tuesday etc. she wouldn't be fazed nor feel aggrieved. It was easier in some ways as we didn't meet up as a 3 all that often, maybe once every few months.

I had this, as in I was in a group of 3 friends and I fell out (sounds like school) with one of the others. To the point we haven't really spoken since.

I've remained great friends with the other friend, she's probably one of my best friends. However I've kept her out of the dispute, only once have we spoken about it but that was because she raised it.

I valued her friendship to know that I needed her to feel she didn't need to take sides. She continues to be friends with us both

Oh nothing major has happened but it’s like they’ve over the years gone off each other

I think it can work if they both don’t try n speak to me about the other as I hate gossiping it just doesn't do any good for anyone