FRIENDSHIPS IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

In midlife, generally defined as the period between young adulthood and old age, friendships provide affection, companionship, understanding, and social support and therefore contribute to well-being. Friends can also affect the status, power, wealth, attitudes, behaviors, and values of middle-aged people. In addition to these consequences for individuals, midlife friendship patterns can affect society, such as by reinforcing the class structure and upholding the institution of marriage. Friendship is thus an important type of human relationship during this stage of life. This entry synthesizes what is known about the interactive processes exchanged between friends during midlife, the internal structure of midlife friendships, and how these friendships vary across contexts and individual demographic characteristics.

Although some people may remain friends for life; in actuality, there is a shifting process in friendship formations that we go through during adult life. Social address theories of adult friendship formation stipulate that friendship maintenance is easiest when two adults are at the same “developmental social address.” For example, two adults who are both married and have small children are more likely to forge relationships and maintain a friendship than an adult with children and a single, childless adult. Likewise, a friendship may be strained if one adult changes a developmental address (gets married) and another does not (stays single).

As compared with younger people, many middle aged people have less time and energy to devote to friends. They are too busy with family and work and with building up security for retirement. Still friendships do exist and are a strong source of emotional support and wellbeing, especially for women. Friendships often revolve around work and parenting. The quality of midlife friendships often makes up for what they lack in quantity of time spent. Especially during a crisis, such as a divorce, adults turn to friends for emotional support, practice guidance, comfort and talk. Middle-aged adults place value on the friends they do have. Their friends tend to mirror them in interests, activities and years of mutual experiences. Adults in middle adulthood tend to have a lower number of friends.