Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend

For the first time ever, a self-help guide for women recovering from a break-up with their best friend. An indispensable addition to every woman's library.

Men, jobs, children, personal crises, irreconcilable social gaps. These are just a few of the strange and confusing reasons that may cause a female friendship to end. No matter the cause, the breakup of a female friendship leaves a woman devastated and asking herself difficult questions. Was someone to blame? Is the friendship worth fighting for? How can I prevent this from ever happening again? Even more upsetting is that women suffering from broken friendships often have no one to confide in, while the loss of a romantic partner garners sympathy among peers, discussing the loss of a platonic friend is often impossible without making other friends jealous or uncomfortable.

Written by psychologist Irene Levine, Ph.D., Best Friends Forever is an uplifting and heroically honest book for abandoned friends seeking solace. Dr. Levine draws from the personal testimonials of thousands of women to provide anecdotes and groundbreaking solutions to these complicated situations. Offering tools for personal assessment, case stories, and actionable advice for saving, ending, or re-evaluating a relationship, Levine shows that breakups are sometimes inevitable.

Although the dissolution of female friendships can be difficult, Best Friends Forever teaches women to stop blaming themselves and probing the wounds, and that the sad experience of a broken friendship can make them stronger people, more able to handle relationships with wisdom.

"Levine's first book is a formidable resource for negotiating the ending of women's friendships. The author, a journalist, psychologist and professor at NYU Medical School, affirms that the grief of ending a close friendship can be as potent as that of a dying romantic relationship. But the former rarely garners the same social support as a divorce or romantic breakup. Levine cites studies indicating that women's friendships are more intense than men's, nurtured through shared intimacy and reciprocity. But friendships are not static, she explains — over time, they can wax and wane and end. Levine's seven stages of grief are loosely reminiscent of the Kbler-Ross grief model, but include new elements: 'Self Blame,' 'Embarrassment and Shame' and 'Relief. 'Full of hints for being a consistently thoughtful friend, for resuscitating your closest friendship or knowing when to end it, this book is part etiquette guide, part grief manual. Whether your friendship sputtered because of physical distance or your best friend slept with your boyfriend, Levine deftly assures us that although the pain can be strong, the sorrow will pass. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

For the first time, a guide for women recovering from a breakup with their best friend-an indispensable addition to every woman's library

Men, jobs, children, personal crises, irreconcilable social gaps-these are just a few of the strange and confusing reasons that may cause a female friendship to end. No matter what the circumstances, the breakup of a female friendship leaves a woman devastated and asking herself difficult questions. Was someone to blame? Is the friendship worth fighting for? How can I prevent this from ever happening again?

Psychologist Irene S. Levine, Ph.D., offers this groundbreaking and heroically honest book for abandoned friends seeking solace. Perfect for women of all ages and from all walks of life, Best Friends Forever covers:

Why friendships fall apart

Coping with getting dumped

How to end a friendship that can't be fixed

Moving forward after a traumatizing breakup

Dr. Levine draws from years of research and the personal testimonials of thousands of women to provide anecdotes and solutions to these complicated situations. Full of tools for personal assessment, case stories, and actionable advice for saving, ending, or re-evaluating a relationship, Best Friends Forever is an indispensable addition to every woman's library.