Dealing with a broken friendship can sometimes be as painful as going through a difficult breakup or even a nasty divorce. The severity of the pain is often measured by the length and deepness of the bonds of friendship between two or more people. A friendship can be as strong as any family tie, and can mean just as much (or more) as having a blood relationship with someone. Dealing with the emotional pain of losing someone that close to you can be devastating.

A broken friendship is normally (but not always) the result of some kind of breach in trust. If it is a true friendship, something as simple as moving away will not lessen the bond between people, and something more serious will be required to say the friendship is "broken" or irreparable. These breaches in trust include, but are definitely not limited to: having an intimate relationship with a spouse/significant other of the other party, stealing, causing physical/emotional pain beyond what a heartfelt apology can fix, a lie that causes either emotional, monetary, or familial loss, and much more.

For these breaks, the people involved can experience feelings of depression, guilt, anxiety, and heartbreak, to name a few. It can be a cause of suicidal thoughts, lead to experimentation with drugs/alcohol, and can be a cause for other broken friendships (feelings of unworthiness can lead to intentionally breaking other friendships in order to keep from feeling the hurt again). Some broken friendships can be repaired in time, others will never be repaired. Most will not recover from a serious breach in trust, and even though the pair may still be friends the relationship will not be as close as before the hurt occurred.

Different people will deal with broken friendships in different ways. Some will step up other friendships and become closer to other people to deal with the pain. Others will step back from most of their other friendships and build a wall in order to keep from being hurt again. Counseling, exercise, yoga, meditation, and other forms of religion have each been answers for dealing with the emotional hurt. Still others will deal with the pain in more negative ways: drugs, alcohol, cutting themselves, even suicide.

In cases of physical hurt, sometimes medical attention will have been needed, resulting in doctor bills, rehabilitation (in extreme cases), and even police reports. This kind of a broken friendship is often the easiest to recover from as most of the time the hurt tends

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