‘I’d lost touch with the people closest to me — here’s the expert advice that helped me to reconnect with friends and family’

When life gets busy, relationships can quietly slip away. Yasmina Floyer explores why it happens and shares expert-backed advice on reconnecting with the people who matter most.

Words: Yasmina Floyer. Images: Shutterstock

After the festive season, many of us find ourselves reflecting on relationships that felt stretched or strained over Christmas — the family tensions, unmet expectations, and friends we didn’t see enough of.

Love is the key ingredient in our meaningful connections, but love alone isn’t always enough to bridge the gaps that form when life gets busy, emotions run high, or misunderstandings linger. If reconnecting with someone you care about feels daunting, you’re not alone. Sometimes, the tether between us and those we love grows heavier with each week or month that passes without contact. But small ruptures don’t have to become permanent silences.

With curiosity, compassion, and a little courage, it’s possible to reach out and rebuild bonds that matter. I have a close friend I’ve known since my teens. We’ve shared all of life’s big milestones, from each other’s weddings to the births of our children. We’ve also shared one another’s grief and hardships.

Some relationships rupture because of a big bust-up, but it wasn’t like this for us. It was a series of small, seemingly innocuous grievances that neither of us addressed. They felt minor, and because we loved each other, we thought they didn’t matter. What I didn’t realise until it was too late was that all these little ruptures, when left unchecked, would become a gaping tear that yawned into silence.

The desire to connect didn’t go away, nor did the love, but my phone felt heavy in my hand whenever I thought about reaching out — growing heavier the longer I left it. Eventually, I decided it was too late. I thought that if my friend wanted to get in touch, they would have.

Understanding distance

I speak to psychosexual relationship therapist Elinor Harvey, who explains that when relationships fall by the wayside, the distance between us gathers a weight of its own. She tells me how common this is — the feeling that perhaps we’ve left it too long to reach out, so the gap between contact grows longer.

I wonder how much fear plays a part in this, because when I reflect on my own situation, fear was a significant factor. Harvey encourages us to be curious about what causes this fear. ‘Is it the fear of rejection? Is it the fear due to a loss of pride, or of worrying that you’ll look lonely or desperate? Really try and explore what it is you are frightened of.’

Reflecting on my own experience, I bring up my fear of conflict. I realise that my desire to avoid conflict was what allowed those small ruptures to build into silence in the first place.

Reaching out to someone volatile

I reframe this and ask about what happens when you want to reach out to someone who’s a little more volatile than you are. Can that affect things? ‘Absolutely,’ Harvey says. ‘When you want to try to repair a relationship with someone you’ve experienced conflict with, perhaps over differing political views or parenting philosophies, you need to look at what is motivating you to repair that relationship.’

She goes on to explain that if we’re in a dynamic with someone we’ve had conflict with, their defences will likely be raised. It’s important, then, to take a gentle, low-expectation approach. ‘Basically, take the pressure off it having to be fixed straight away.’ I really like the sound of this and ask Harvey what a low-expectation approach looks like in practice.

She shares that, to start, we may want to manage our expectations of the outcome. If it’s been a while since we’ve spoken with someone, the first conversation might be tricky. ‘There might be some time to reflect between getting in touch and them responding, so we shouldn’t expect an instant reply.’

What’s important, Harvey explains, is to lead with compassion and curiosity. This encourages us to reach out with openness and gentle vulnerability. ‘Typically, people meet vulnerability with compassion in return — with the exception of those who you know to be abusive or manipulative.’

Embracing vulnerability

Speaking about vulnerability, Harvey tells me of a client who had fallen out with his siblings over something he believed had happened — that they’d been talking about him behind his back. He was sceptical when they reached out with an olive branch but decided to meet. Then, he found out that a lot of what he believed hadn’t been true.

Harvey says that some of the assumptions and beliefs we hold aren’t always fact. ‘Sometimes we might think, “Well, that person’s fine, look at them having their brilliant life over there, and they’re just rubbing it in my face, and they don’t care.” And that’s just our beliefs and our presumptions.

Until we start to rebuild that relationship, going in with curiosity about what’s going on in that person’s life, we don’t know anything for sure.’ Harvey goes on to distinguish between ruptures and breaking points, noting that we’ll likely encounter many natural rupture points — perhaps due to busy parenting, work, distance, or other issues.

‘Ruptures tend to need repairs, and they’re different from breaking points, where you know it’s healthier for you psychologically to walk away and start grieving the end of the relationship.’

Emotional safety and trust

When it comes to meeting or speaking with someone we’ve reached out to, Harvey reminds us to consider how emotionally safe we feel with that person by paying attention to our nervous system. The next thing to consider is trust.

‘It might be that you feel able to broach difficult conversations in an emotionally safe way, but do you trust the relationship with that person yet? Maybe not, but maybe emotional safety is a step towards building up a stronger, trusting bond.’

Harvey reminds us that trust is built brick by brick. When mending relationships, it’s a process. ‘Be aware of what’s going on in yourself — how triggered are you? Are you reacting to this person, or are you reacting to your own stuff? Is this person really being unkind or abandoning or bullying you? Or is there something about their behaviour that’s triggering your own experience of being bullied or abandoned in the past?’

She encourages us to tune into what’s going on for ourselves and figure out how much of our own ‘stuff’ we’re bringing into the relationship, and how to best look after ourselves.

We can also take responsibility and accountability without taking blame. ‘If you look at a relationship with an unhealthy dynamic, where someone might be treating you badly for a long time before you realise it, you can begin to understand that you don’t need to take all the blame or fully take responsibility. And that can be very painful.’

The ‘and’ approach

The reality is that when there’s been a rupture, we can perceive the situation as something broken that we must either fix or walk away from. Harvey says that it doesn’t have to be either/or. Instead, we can embrace ‘and’. ‘You can move towards trying to repair that relationship and forgive yourself for past things that maybe you’re taking responsibility for.’

Sometimes, we seek forgiveness from others, thinking that if the relationship is repaired, we’ll be absolved. ‘We might be seeking external validation or forgiveness from that other person, when what we really need is to forgive ourselves for past mistakes.’ Ultimately, as Harvey tells me, if you’re looking to repair a relationship, there’s no wrong way to reach out.

Being honest with myself, I realised I feared rejection when reaching out to my friend. So, I sent them a message filled with vulnerability and empathy. Compassion relieved both of us of the weight of any expectations, especially since it had been months since we spoke. Hours later, I received a beautiful, vulnerable message in return.

Elinor Harvey is an accredited psychosexual and relationship therapist. She is the founder of The Relationship Therapy Practice, supporting couples and individuals through relationship, intimacy, communication and family difficulties. She is also a divorce consultant, helping couples separate more amicably and runs workshops for organisations.  relationshiptherapypractice.com