Almost nothing is better than the feeling we have when things move with ease in our friendships, when we feel listened to and understood, cared for and loved by people we have valued. With our friends, as with a romantic partner, we can make plans far into the future, and we can also end up on spontaneous adventures with no plans at all.

One important difference is that in friendships, people may tend to feel more awkward about asserting their needs and desires. This seems especially true for women because women have been socialized to develop and maintain relationships, often at any cost to themselves. As a result, it can become more challenging to articulate one’s preferences, limitations, or need to change one’s mind about something for fear to upset the other person. But what happens when it’s almost inevitable? Is it possible to encounter these disturbances without disturbing the ease, flow and depth of one Friendship?

Let’s look at two cases.

Take Lisa for example. She is a 26-year-old physiotherapist who, since leaving school, has lived with her parents to save money. Now she really wants to start on her own and live independently. The thing is, she and her friend Emma had planned to live together, but the area is expensive with few affordable rentals and every place they looked at fell short for one reason or another. Eventually they narrowed down their search to a few key areas and had a couple of opportunities to check out that looked pretty promising.

Suddenly, there were some new wrinkles to consider: Emma failed her teaching degree to qualify for the jobs she most wanted to apply for, while on the other hand, Lisa landed an incredible new position at a hospital across the state lines. Now the locations they were considering were no longer as viable for Lisa as these would introduce a commute of nearly an hour each way. But how would she break the news to Emma? Should she suck it up and drive the extra 10 hours a week to keep her end of the deal to find a place to live together? Or would that prove unsustainable and she would have to tell Emma that she needs to find a place much closer to her new workplace? She was worried and knew that Emma was having a hard time and didn’t want to make her feel worse. She wanted to preserve the friendship, but she needed to honor her own needs related to career growth and personal time.

Let’s look at a second example that closely mirrors the first and then examine the patterns between them. At almost twice Lisa’s age, I was faced with a predicament with a friend. In my case, I had a trip booked with a girlfriend that we had been planning for months. She had booked our hotel and I had bought tickets to two Broadway shows we wanted to see. It was shaping up to be a perfect weekend.

But five days before we were to leave, my husband received word that his brother died unexpectedly. We rushed out of town to be with their 92 year old mother and to take care of everything that went into closing down a life. It was immediately clear to me that I would have to tell my friend that there was no way I could go with her to New York City. I knew instinctively where I needed to be and that’s exactly where I was – with my husband and his family. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to be anywhere else, and I figured it would be obvious to anyone looking at the situation.

My husband still encouraged me to go even for a day but it seemed completely impossible. I called my friend, left a voicemail and sent her a text. I suggested I contact all the venues and handle the cancellations and rebookings and hoped we could find a date a few weeks later. I also knew there would be no financial penalties because her flight was free, we were in the right time frame with the hotel and restaurants, and I thought I would be able to work out a deal with the theaters for our tickets.

Lisa’s case and mine have common features. We had all made verbal commitments to our respective friends and wanted to honor them. But other life events changed the nature of decision making process. As much as we wanted to strategize other solutions to make our original plans work, neither of us could consciously sit with the extreme discomfort of keeping those plans—in my case, my husband left at a very terrible time, and in Lisa’s case enduring a commute that would take a toll on her body, mind, social life, and her bank account given the price of gas and car repairs. And our friends happened to be in their own vulnerable, needy positions, with my friend struggling with mental health issues that interfered with her ability to be flexible, and Emma wanting something to rely on as her other prospects proved less reliable.

Unfortunately, we experienced similar responses from our friends that revealed significant, complicated limitations. Emma admitted she wouldn’t do that kind of commute but still somehow wanted to and expected Lisa to. Lisa finished by saying, “Do you see that you are asking me to do something that you say you would never do?” In my case, my friend just wouldn’t budge and couldn’t see a way to rebook our trip despite my offer to make all new arrangements. It turned out that she stopped walking by herself. A month later I went on my own and met a dear college friend who lovingly accompanied me to the shows I wanted to see. We were in situations that were unsustainable, we couldn’t be all things to all people or in two places at once. We were each faced with a decision that seemingly put our own needs and priorities above our friends.

Both cases point to the importance of the following: being true to our innermost core, speaking our truth, showing compassion for the other person, doing our best to fulfill initial commitments yet being flexible when they must change, recognizing the limitations we face in our friends and be a good friend to ourselves in the process. Both cases beg the question of five or ten years from now, what will matter? For Lisa it is a balanced life with a blossoming career, and for me it is one marriage where we are there for each other no matter what. Trustworthy, reliable friendships should be able to withstand these important priorities.