When friends shun you

There are times when a woman may experience changes in life that are so far-reaching that they affect every aspect of their lives.

These changes provide eye-opening opportunities to discover who your true friends really are, or what type of friends you have around you.

When certain things happen in your life, you get the opportunity to discover exactly whether the fiends you have around are the type who will stand by you through hell and high water, or they ones who will drop you at the drop of a hat?

Lose your job and you will immediately lose a large chunk of people you thought were your friends.

After all, they don’t want to be associated with jobless people who will most likely be a nuisance as they keep asking you for money which you believe they are in no position.

Others have fallen ill and during such times, learnt to be friends. Friendship is indeed a valuable gift to have and to give.

One of the most revealing changes that expose the very heart of your friendships is when you lose your spouse through either death or divorce.

Death and divorce are the principal means by which marriages end. Others are desertion and separation. Such endings are often accompanied by many emotions – frustration, disappointment, grief, relief, hope - and sometimes by growth.

This is one area that catches many women unawares – the way their friendships with their fellow womenfolk will be affected immediately they become ‘single’ again.

Some friends will remain loyal, while others will show their true characters and turning away from you because they fear you may be a threat in some way.

These are what we know as fair weather friends. They are only your friends when the going is good and disappear into thin air when you least expect it.

Pretenders

Alicen Wangare, 36, (not her real name) went through a steep learning curve after undergoing an acrimonious divorce four years ago.

Although she got over the pain of losing her husband and marriage, she will never forget what the divorce revealed about her friends.

“If you think all the friends you have are for real, think again. When your situation changes, you will know who you are really dealing with,” she says in retrospect.

Alicen was a successful advertising executive living in a gated community in an upmarket Nairobi suburb with her husband John and two children.

She formed a close-knit circle with three other women in the neighbourhood and over a period of 10 years, they become a clique of families who were as close as sisters.

They did a lot of things together and were in and out of each others’ houses for parties. They were supportive even in times of problems and would rally around whoever among the had the a bereavement or any other issue.