How to repair a friendship after a fightAnd how to send the first message

Friendships don’t come with the built-in glue that families and marriages have. Nobody is obliged to come to the next holiday. So after a real fight, a friendship can end simply because both people wait for the other one to move first.

If you want to repair a friendship, the most useful thing to know is that the first message matters more than the perfect message. This guide covers the first message and how to apologize in a way your friend can accept.

If the friendship mattered to you before the fight, yes. Reaching out costs you a few awkward minutes. Not reaching out can cost you the friendship.

And your friend is likely to be gladder to hear from you than you expect. In a series of experiments with more than 5,900 participants, University of Pittsburgh researcher Peggy Liu and colleagues found that people consistently underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out to. The gap was biggest when the contact came as a surprise. Their studies looked at reconnecting in general, not specifically after fights. Still, the lesson carries. The fear you feel before hitting send is often bigger than the reaction you’ll get.

Wait until you can write without anger, and no longer. For most fights, that’s days, not months.

If you send a message while you’re still furious, it’ll leak into the wording. If you wait too long, the silence becomes its own story. “She hasn’t said anything in three months, so she must not care.”

A quick check. Can you describe the fight without making yourself the hero? If yes, you’re ready.

READ NEXT ↘How to talk to difficult family members

READ NEXT ↘How to talk to difficult family members

READ NEXT ↘How to talk to difficult family members

Keep it short and leave the argument itself out of it. The first message is an invitation to talk, not the talk.

Some scripts:

• “Hey. I’ve been thinking about our fight and I miss you. Can we talk this week?”

• “I hated how we left things. I’d like to hear your side properly. Coffee on Saturday?”

• “I owe you an apology, and I’d rather say it in person than over text. Are you free sometime?”

What to leave out: any version of “I’m sorry, but…” Any recap of who said what. Any request that they admit their part. All of that can come later, face to face.

Here’s an invented example. Sana and Dev fell out over Dev skipping Sana’s book launch without telling her. Two weeks later, Dev writes, “I’ve felt bad about your launch every day since. Can I buy you dinner and apologize properly?” That message works because it names the thing and asks for nothing except time.

Take clear responsibility and offer to make it right. Those two parts matter most.

A 2016 Ohio State University study led by Roy Lewicki tested six elements of an apology. The researchers found that the most important was an acknowledgment of responsibility, and the second most important was an offer of repair. The least important was asking for forgiveness, which Lewicki said is “the one you can leave out if you have to.”

So a strong apology to a friend sounds like this:

1. Responsibility: “I bailed on your launch and didn’t even tell you. That was my fault.”

2. Regret: “I’m sorry. I know how much work you put into it.”

3. Explanation, briefly, and only if it helps: “I was overwhelmed that week and I handled it badly.”

4. Repair: “I’d love to read the book and come to your next reading. And if there’s anything I can do now, tell me.”

Skip the explanation if it sounds like an excuse. “I was really busy” after skipping something important usually makes it worse.

Go first anyway. Someone has to, and waiting for the other person to blink is how good friendships die.

Research from Chicago Booth’s Shereen Chaudhry and Valeria Burdea found that when both people made mistakes, neither wanted to apologize first. People were more willing to apologize when they expected an apology back. That’s very human. It’s also a trap.

You can get around it by naming your part and leaving room for theirs, without demanding it:

“I’ll go first. I was out of line when I called your job pointless. I’m sorry. I think we both said things we didn’t mean, and I’d like to talk about it when you’re ready.”

That last line opens the door. It doesn’t push your friend through it.

Let them be angry, and don’t argue back. Their anger is information about how much the fight hurt, not a verdict on whether the friendship can survive.

If the reply is cold or sharp, resist the urge to defend yourself. You already know your side. What you don’t know yet is theirs. Try something like this:

“That’s fair. I can tell I hurt you more than I realized. I’d like to hear about it, whenever you’re ready. No pressure on timing.”

Then give them room. Some people need to say the angry thing once before they can say anything else. If you meet that moment with patience instead of a counterattack, you’ve shown them the friendship is safer than they feared. That alone does a lot of the repair.

Show up in small ways, consistently, for a while. Trust comes back through repeated ordinary contact more than through one big conversation.

Repair, in the way relationship researchers use the word, is less about fixing what broke and more about getting back on track. In a friendship, getting back on track looks like meeting for lunch the way you used to, or asking how their mother’s surgery went.

It can help to do something together that has nothing to do with the fight. If you’re both on Kithmark, games like Tell me something good or Who knows me give you a light structure for talking again. For the specific moment right after a fight, there’s one called Reset after a fight.

Small exercise for the next month. Once a week, reach out to your friend about something that isn’t the fight. A song or an old photo. Don’t keep score of who texted last.

Let it go when your friend has clearly said no, or when the friendship involved threats or cruelty. Repair isn’t the goal in those cases.

If you’ve reached out twice and heard nothing, respect the silence. Send one last message that leaves the door open, something like “I’m here if you ever want to talk,” and then stop.

And if a friend has threatened you or made you feel unsafe, don’t try to fix it with a coffee and an apology. Talk to someone you trust, and get help if you need it.

The same skills apply in families, by the way. If the person you’re at odds with is a sibling or a parent, my guide on how to talk to difficult family members goes deeper. And if you want low-key ways to reconnect with a partner, try these games for couples that build closeness.

Inside Kithmark

One page per person

Each person gets their own page, like “Mum.” The People map shows where everyone in your circle is, with their local times.

Real screens from the Kithmark iPhone beta. Free in the iPhone beta. Android coming soon.

How Kithmark helps

Kithmark is a private record for the friendships that matter to you, showing how things stand in plain words, never scores. Your record is encrypted on your phone. When you’re both on the app, you can play games like Reset after a fight or Tell me something good to start talking again.