The Expert-Backed Guide to Dealing With Fighting Friends

• You can choose to not get involved, or even try mediating between your two friends.
• Make it clear that you won’t take sides; let your friends know that their fighting is stressful for you, and you need some distance until it’s resolved.
• If your friends have just broken up, try to help them get over one another and make sure they know you’re still there for them.

Letting It Be

Tell them that you don't want to be involved in their fight. This works when there is clearly no right or wrong person, like when someone just hates someone else for no reason (which of course happens). It's very important to let them know that you will not take sides and you want nothing to do with the drama, or you could end up "trapped" by a question like "Who is right?" or "Who is your better friend?" where no matter what you do, you come off as mean to at least one person.

Avoid commiserating. This is actually really hard, because the best way to support a friend is usually to nod and say things like "Yeah, that's messed up" and "Wow, they're being such a jerk" when they tell you about things that the other person did to them. However, if you do that with both of them you will end up coming off as insincere and like you're taking both their sides when you should be taking neither. Taking sides will only end to problems in your friendships, and it's best to avoid causing unnecessary trouble.

Try to mediate between the two. If you are an impartial judge, and they both tell you what happened, you should be able to help them solve the problem. This is another really hard thing to do, but if you take sides because you knew one person longer or something it will not really help, and so if when you see it all in perspective you can see who's more wrong or more right, it is very important to call them out on it so that they can help themselves. You may feel like a jerk. That's okay; as long as you are fair and don't try to be a jerk, they will probably respect you more for being wise enough to see through your own emotions and solve the problem. There are some times that you should not use this method, however: If your friend starts to engage in reckless behavior (cutting and other self harm, using drugs or drinking alcohol underage, cutting class or skipping work, breaking the law, doing dirty things with people or trying to commit suicide) you should not do this. Take their side and try to help them either by reminding them that you are there for them and helping them stop cutting/doing drugs/etc, or telling a trusted adult like a caring parent, doctor or guidance counselor. Make sure they feel loved and cared for, before trying to help them solve the problem. It's more important for them to be safe than for them to stop fighting. If the problem continues, you should try a different approach. This one is only good for small problems. Long-term problems and friends who had been dating have different types of problems, which you can find advice for later. For long term fights, see the next two methods.

Disregard the fight altogether. Start by pretending not to care. You might care. Just fake it. When they mention something, take out your phone and start texting. Read a book. Listen to music. Just do something to convey that you don't care at all about what they have to say, and as soon as they're done with that, rejoin the conversation. If you're talking to them alone, and they bring it up, say something along the lines of "I don't really care, please don't get me involved," or something. Soon, you will end up not actually caring. This might prompt your friends to realize that their fight is kind of stupid and not worth working about. However, it depends on the person and some friends might feel betrayed by you or angry, in which case it's best to tell them that you do care about them, just have no interest in the fight.

Separating Yourself

Make it clear that you don't want to take sides. However, you should also make it clear that you don't really care. This method only works on long-term problems that have been going on for a long time and really are very petty. Depending on how hard your two friends are pulling on you, you may want to separate yourself from them personally or from the problem, rather than trying to help them fix it. It's best to let things that last for so long come to their own completion than trying to help fix it, because things like this are only able to be solved by the two competing parties. This particular one is about separating yourself from the other people. This is emotionally very difficult, but it may decrease a lot of the stress in your life. It may be necessary to reevaluate these friendships. If all the discussions are leaving you feeling disappointed and unfulfilled, maybe these relationships aren't healthy for you. Being always ready to rescue the friendship or feeling constantly needed to manage fights and discussions can take a toll on you. In most cases, this should be considered a red flag that there's something wrong.

Tell them that unless they solve the problem, you can't deal with their enmity any more and you need to get away from it. If it is stressful for you, tell them so! Make sure they know exactly what they are doing to you. It's very hard to deal with stuff like this if you're in the middle, and sometimes, if it's been spread out like this, it's harder than even being one of the people causing the problem. Sometimes, the guilt factor alone can speed them to fix it themselves, in which case your friends are good people and you should hang on to them, rather than continuing on. This step takes a while to work, so make sure you tell them both and give them time to work it out or not before continuing.

Create a distance as needed. If the warning step failed, it's time to start separating. The first thing to do is start getting close with some other people. Make new friends, in or out of school. Find people with similar interests to you and people who you feel comfortable being around; choosing friends is hard sometimes but these are a few good tips. Make sure you're not just getting close to spite your other friends. They should be people who you actually enjoy being around or your friendship will feel forced and fake, and you will end up alone and sad after they realize you were using them.

Start to spend time that you would spend with your fighting friends with your new friends. If you want, you can tell them that you don't want to be around them because of how stressful and bad their fight makes you feel and that you need to get away from it. This is called "guilting" and if your friends truly care about you, they will try to end the fight. If they are trying, stop getting away from them and give them time to work it out. Support them as they try, because sometimes if you have been in a fight with someone for years it's actually more comfortable to be in that fight than to end it. This sounds crazy, but status quo is a very easy place to be mentally and it will take your friends some getting used to if they finally start to ease the tensions between them.

Be firm if you really need to. If they still don't try to stop you from leaving, you should realize that they care more about hating someone than they do about keeping a friend who actually cares about them. You deserve better, so you should finally stop talking as much with them. Don't totally cut off communications, but you should definitely not hang out with them any more. Be civil, as that is very important, but don't go out of your way to say hi or anything. Remember, they are not your friend at this point but someone who doesn't care enough about you to try to keep you at least a little happy. (Realize that this step comes like three months after step 3, just to put that into perspective. That's a very long time).

Managing with an Ex-Couple

Make sure they know it's about them, not you. It's clearly not your fault that they broke up. Just make sure they realize that making you choose sides will not help them or you.

Try to help them get over the breakup. They might never be friends again, but they really don't have to be enemies. Set him up with another girl. Watch sad movies and eat too much ice cream while you cheer her up. A lot of the time, they are angry with one another because they're sad that it didn't work out, and the best way to fix that is to get them to cheer up and maybe introduce them to new people.

Failing that, tell them that they have to get over it. Don't let them dwell on the past; it's never good for anyone. You clearly care about yourself and your friends, so you should try to help them deal with it. But, if they won't do their part, you have to let them know that you aren't a crutch, you're a human being and you have your own life to deal with. If you drop everything to help them, you will only make it worse. (It's like if you broke your arm, and after it healed someone still carried all your stuff and wrote for you, you still wouldn't be able to use your arm.) Make sure that they can still take care of themselves.

Make sure they know that you are still there for them even if you aren't a crutch. A rough breakup is hard to deal with and some people need more time to get over it than others, and the length and intensity of their relationship also plays a factor in recovery time. It's important to remember to be nice.