There’s something I’ve learned the hard way: emotional death is contagious. Especially when you’re already doing the heavy lifting of maintaining your own relationship. It is a quiet, creeping kind of erosion that starts when you surround yourself with people whose relationships are falling apart, or have already crumbled into dust.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about judgment. I’ve got nothing but compassion for those navigating the pain of breakups, divorces, and the emotional wreckage that follows. But I’ve noticed something unsettling over the years. When my inner circle is filled with people constantly mourning their relationships, it becomes dangerously easy for me to start questioning my own.
We’re social creatures. We connect through shared experience, and when someone we care about is hurting, we want to relate, to comfort, to understand. But in doing that, there’s a subtle shift. You start focusing on the cracks in your own dynamic, even the ones that were never really there to begin with. You start mentally matching your relationship up against theirs, Are we doomed too? Are we missing something?
Suddenly, their emotional grief becomes a mirror, and it reflects back doubts you weren’t even harboring until the conversation started. This is why I’ve had to be really honest with myself: it is incredibly difficult for me to maintain close relationships with single people, especially those freshly untethered from commitment, because their energy, their focus, and their emotional bandwidth are just in a completely different place than mine.
The truth is, I have no desire to romanticize what life was like when I was single. That chapter closed for a reason. I don’t want to be tempted to miss it, or worse, imagine I’m missing out on something. And while I will always support my friends in crisis, I’ve had to create boundaries. Because when you’re constantly immersed in other people’s relationship failures, it is hard not to let that seep into your own sacred space.
That’s why I’m HUGE on accountability.
When a friend’s relationship ends, I don’t rush to comfort them by bashing their ex or speculating how unfair it all was. I want to ask real, reflective questions.
What was your part in it?
What didn’t you nurture?
Where did things break down, and what can you learn from that?
Not because I’m cold or unsupportive, but because I genuinely believe growth starts with ownership. If we can shift the conversation to what needs healing within ourselves, it stops being about how awful someone else was, and starts being about how to grow from the pain. That, to me, is empowering.
It also protects my relationship from becoming collateral damage. Because it is dangerously easy to get stuck in a spiral of “what my partner is doing wrong” when you’re constantly around people dissecting the failures of their own relationships. That energy spreads. It sticks to you. It whispers insecurity when you were feeling fine five minutes ago.
Of course, there are non negotiables, abuse in any form, be it physical, emotional, or psychological, is never something anyone should stay for. In those cases, walking away is not just healthy, it is necessary, and I’ll always hold space for a friend in that kind of need.
But the boundary still stands,
You can talk to me about your relationship falling apart, but do not drag my relationship into the mess.My dynamic is mine. My challenges are unique to us. They don’t need to be compared, matched, or measured against someone else’s. It is not a competition, and it never should be.
Emotional contagion is real, and if I’m going to stay grounded, accountable, and present in my relationship, I have to be mindful of the emotional environments I walk into. That’s not selfish, that’s self preservation. And it is one of the greatest acts of love I can give to the people I’m building something real with.