The healing power of sisterhood....navigating female friendships in your 30s.

When you're going through something hard, overwhelming, scary, disappointing, or even embarrassing, your first instinct might be to run and hide to lick your wounds. 

Maybe you get a horrible health diagnosis, you lose your job, you hit a rough patch with your husband, you're facing year 3 of infertility, or you're navigating a painful breakup. Whatever the case may be, hiding and isolation can easily become your best friend. The tendency to not want to share, partly because you don't even know what to say, and partly because you don't want to hear other people's opinions, is real. 

Well, that happened to me…. I was hoping for something, and it didn't go the way I expected, and for like a week, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to run and hide and “deal with it” by myself. Even as a self-proclaimed extrovert, I didn't want to see or talk to anyone. 

I felt embarrassed, sad, vulnerable, confused, overwhelmed, and everything in between, and I felt like if anyone even looked at me, I would be forced to explain myself, and because I didn’t have the words to describe what I was feeling, it felt better to stay away. I also didn’t want to get anyone’s input before I even had time to process it myself, and I didn’t want anyone’s feelings to cloud my own feelings. 

Have you been there before? 

Well, that’s the enemy's tactics….he wants you isolated and in your feelings by yourself so that he can spin more lies with no one to say “hey, hey, hey, that’s not true, don’t give in to the lies”. If I’ve learned one thing, it is that you’re allowed to crash out, but crash out with your sisters. They have a way of bringing you back to reality because I promise you, you’re more likely to go into worst case scenario, which is just not helpful. 

I was crashing out so hard that one of my besties just booked a flight for me on her miles. She literally just said, come here, you need a break. You need to rest and get your mind off everything for a few days. That trip was soooo needed, and I’m so happy that I have a community of women who care deeply about me, despite what the enemy will have me think. 

Other friends, staaaaaaayed on FaceTime with me for hours, helping me process, making me laugh, sharing prayers, hearing me out, and just listening.

Friendship and community can REALLY save your life. It’s unfortunate because I feel like people are often so quick to dash friends away, “cut people off”, not extend grace or just be engulfed in their own pain….trust me i’m not judging. When things hurt, it's easier to isolate and stop speaking because it feels safer, but it’s not always healthier. 

The reality is, it takes a village to raise an adult, and to have your village show up for you, you have to be a villager showing up for them. When I say this, I don’t mean it in a tit for tat way. It’s not a “you showed up for my birthday, so I'll show up for your birthday so that we are even”, that’s not what I'm talking about. I’m talking about showing up earnestly and communicating if and when you can’t because life lifes on a million sometimes. We thank God for the friendships where it’s open enough that people can say, “Omo, I have nothing to give, but I'll come over and sit next to you on your couch while your kids run around”. 

The truth is, friendship and community are sooooooo beautiful and welcoming and healing, but can also be deeply inconvenient and require active effort. Friendship is also a dynamic that can easily become unbalanced based on life’s circumstances…especially female friendships in your 30s. As women, when we go through life transitions, the world subconsciously tells us how we “should” place our friendships, and we often are playing from different invisible scripts. Depending on whether you are single or married, childfree or full of children, working or staying at home with the kids, there are suddenly so many NEW dynamics, and we don’t often talk about them beforehand. 

Some women will assume and think  “oh she’s married now, so give her and her husband their space”, some will think “after she gets married, it's not a big deal, our friendship will remain the same, I'll just be friends with "them” instead of just her. Some married women themselves might say, “I am now married, and I don’t want to have single friends”, or their partners might say that to them. When a woman becomes a mother, that’s a whole other ball game. Some women hang on to their friends, some women completely isolate because postpartum knocks them out, and some others make mom friends. It’s not surprising that when a woman goes through a major life change, her friendships also evolve dramatically. Mothers especially have described post-partum as one of the loneliest seasons of their lives. They are usually alone with their babies, the friends that were there planning baby showers, dropping off baby clothes, sending maternity fashion looks, and yapping about all the changes in the ultrasound are now suddenly quiet, and back to their lives, or only call to see the baby. 

Let’s face it, being a woman in your 30s and navigating friendships is HARD. Everyone is in different stages of life and requires different things, and instead of just open communication, we are all making assumptions based on what we think would work best for US, rather than asking the friend what works best for HER. We assume that when we get married or have a baby or start a business or relocate, our friends will automatically know what to do. We think things like “Oh i’m relocating, and I need help. If my friend were relocating, I would go over to her house to help her pack, so obviously she should come to my house to help me pack, because I’m the one relocating....Duh, that’s common sense, and that seems fair? Right? Welllll who is your friend? Also, why don’t you just ASK for help? Don’t assume she would just automatically know how you need help. So many times, we assume, and then we get our feelings hurt because the assumption was wrong, and instead of clarifying and extending grace, we get even more offended.

Because navigating friendships is tricky, uncomfortable, and sometimes awkward, so many of us just opt out. “If she needs me, she will call me,” while the other person is wondering, “I need help, but she’s not showing up, so I don’t want to burden her”. I’m sorry, but isn’t this evil? Isn’t this the work of the enemy? Just brewing resentment, confusion, and jealousy with women and their community…. it sucks. I can’t lie, I’ve fallen for this MANY times in friendship, and I’ve been on both sides of the equation. I’ve been ghosted by friends, and I’ve overcompensated in other friendships. It’s actually a very hard thing to navigate. What I’ve learned, and I’m still learning, is that the only thing that can help is intentional, kind, and open communication.  

Hey sis, I would love to come to your birthday, but I’m under the weather. Can I call you before the party? 

Hey sis, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with work, and I would love to have a girls' day to just decompress. Are you down? 

Hey sis, I know you mean well, but that comment you made about my body/hair/job/ family/ friendship/relationship, hurt me because I realized I am a bit sensitive in that area. Would you mind not bringing it up like that?

Hey sis, I know I did something to hurt you. I’m sorry. That was not my intention, but regardless of my intentions, I can see you’re hurt, so I apologize. How can I make it up? 

Hey sis, I know you’ve been feeling really confused about your future, and are looking for direction, but you may be numbing your feelings and engaging in self-destructive activities. Do you want to share what’s going on? Or how can I support you because I love you and don’t want you to fail…

The truth is that these conversations are INCREDBIBLY difficult to have, but they are NEEDED to sustain any friendship that is going to weather all the changes of womanhood. Ladies, we need each other. We are not just our sisters’ keepers, we are our sisters. It takes self-awareness and vulnerability to admit we were wrong or we were hurt, but we need to, or else the enemy wins. 

I can’t emphasize it enough, this is NOT an easy thing to do. I mean, I’ve had this blog post in my drafts since Nov 2025 and have been updating it slowly. I know talking to women about their friendships is not easy, e mi gan, do I even have the best friendships? When we were doing the 2016 challenge on Instagram and looking back over the last 10 years, I realized that a lot of my friendships look so different (some didn’t even survive), not because of anything, but life just lifed and the friendship became collateral damage. 

I don’t know, sha, I’m on the same table as everyone…. friendship is hard. At least a friendship that is deep and rooted. It is also complicated because people live in different countries with different circumstances, like marriage, kids, or even socioeconomic status. People are also different with different temperaments, different upbringings, different outlooks as they grow and experience things, traumas, etc. When mental health now jumps into the picture, it also adds a bit of razzle-dazzle to the conversation. 

At the end of the day, we need to communicate honestly, AND we need Jesus to actually have and maintain friendships as women in our 30’s. Community is not perfect, but it's soooo needed. So if you’re navigating changes to your friendships, it’s ok, it’s normal, just try to talk about it, and when in doubt, pray about it. 

Dear Jesus, I thank you for the friends you have put in my life, the ones that were just passing by for a season, the ones introduced for a reason, and the ones that are here for a lifetime. I ask for your wisdom, discernment, and healing in the area of friendships. Give me the courage to share openly with my sisters as I navigate life changes (especially the ones that are embarrassing, and I want to keep to myself). Give me the heart to forgive the sisters that have hurt me and the awareness of the ones that I have also hurt. I speak your healing balm over every woman reading this blog post, that they will experience freedom, reconnection, and healing in the place of friendship. Thank you lord that in 2026 we are moving forward and letting go of any residual resentment, pain, or confusion. We ask all of this in your mighty name. Amen! 

That’s it for me….

Have a lovely Sunday, 

Ibiyemi