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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
