Why your 30s are actually the golden era for female friendships

Friendship isn’t supposed to come with an expiration date. The idea is generally that you enter into it for good, forging a bond that will only get stronger over time. But women are often sold a different story, particularly when we reach our 30s, and suddenly every lifestyle choice we’ve ever made is being microscopically scrutinised and weaponised as a tool for severance. Are you married? Do you want children? Which schools do you live closest to? Are you dating? Do you go out on weeknights? Which dating apps are you paying for?

It’s a decade that divides us into camps. And those camps are often pitted against one another; many friendships won’t withstand the opposition. Married friends versus single ones, and so on. It sounds silly, but it really does happen – I’ve seen it myself many times: women feeling resentful on either side because their friend no longer understands their reality. The ones nursing babies rolling their eyes at the ones nursing STIs, and vice versa.

We’re told to expect these sorts of issues from our screens and beyond; studies have shown that women start to lose close friends from their late 20s onwards at a faster rate than men. But in my own life, where I’ve noticed separations, whether it’s through a friendship breakup or a classic fizzling, I’ve noticed just as much coming together, often at a much deeper and more meaningful level. Of course, I’ve lost friends along the way. But the ones who’ve stuck around since I turned 30 (and life started to get a little more serious) feel more solid than ever before.

It’s as if overcoming those expectations and hurdles means your friendship is the real deal, like you’ve passed some sort of test and can reap the benefits as a result. I’m talking about things that only really happen in your 30s: yes, there are the marriages and children, but there are also the major job changes as work becomes a little more preoccupying, as well as the occasional moves to another country. Then there are the older relatives who might start requiring our care, and the financial hurdles as people start paying mortgages.

In my experience, all of this has only brought me closer to my female friends, even the ones who aren’t at the same stage of life as me. In fact, sometimes, I’d say those are the closest friendships of all. As a single 31-year-old woman, I’m not living the same way as my female friends who are married with children and living in the countryside with their husbands. Not even close.

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But that doesn’t mean we don’t still have plenty to talk about. Many of those friends have been in my life for more than a decade – and the things that brought us together then are the same as they always were: a shared sense of humour, shared cultural interests, shared memories from when we were younger, being emotionally aligned, and whatever other unknown magic underpins real compatibility.

According to research, these relationships are vital to our health and success in life. A study from 2019 conducted by psychologists at University College London found that having best friends can help boost academic achievement and positively influence emotional well-being in younger women. Other research has indicated that as women age, close friends become perceived as family members, which can help boost confidence as well as overall life satisfaction.

“I think in your 30s you just run out of flying monkeys,” says Zoe Nichols, 39, who is currently planning a 40th birthday celebration with a small circle of her closest friends. “Being a single mum means I have very little time, and even though I plan my life around my son, I also make sure I plan on seeing my two best friends I’ve known since primary school to do lunches, shopping trips and even weekends away child-free.”

Pop culture sends mixed messages about female friendship, the most notable example being Sex and the City, which begins with Carrie aged 34. Remember the episode where Carrie’s Manolo Blahniks vanish from a friend’s baby shower, and her friend subsequently shames her for choosing shoes over children? Or when Miranda unexpectedly gets pregnant, and it creates animosity with Charlotte, who is struggling to conceive? The differences in their lives – and lifestyles – cause tensions. But as various men and prospective children come and go, it’s the friendship between these four women that persists and strengthens over time. In the end, it’s their friendship that’s their big love – not their partners. Or, as Charlotte puts it in one famous quote: “Maybe we could be each other’s soulmates?”

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Elsewhere, there’s Bridesmaids, which also spotlights the various tensions that can arise in thirtysomething female friendships when your lives diverge, but again sends the same message, which is that if you can overcome those hurdles, your friendships will become more meaningful than ever.

There are plenty of reasons why, despite cultural myths, female friendships thrive rather than fall apart at this age. The first is that in your 30s, you know yourself better, which means you know how you like to spend your time and who you like to spend it with. You’re less likely (I hope) to find yourself in people-pleasing scenarios and more likely to be intentional about who you give your time and energy to, which is invariably close friends.

“My primary school friends and I have grown closer with two out of three of us having children,” adds Nichols. “We live in different counties with different careers and different relationship statuses. Covid brought us close with regular FaceTimes – I remember organising a virtual baby shower for the group’s first baby. We voice note each other multiple times a week, but there’s never any pressure to reply the same day. We forget things, but we hold a safe space for each other that I don’t hold with anyone else in the same way.”

Your 30s are also tough, which plays a major part in bringing friends closer together. Breakups tend to hit a little harder because this was someone you feasibly imagined building a life with. Health scares are taken a little more seriously. Dating can feel impossibly tough, particularly in today’s landscape. And just because you’re married with children, that doesn’t mean life won’t throw hurdles your way, either. People cheat, some children might be particularly difficult, and there can be devastating losses along the way, like miscarriages.

Friendship is the saving grace among all this, the life raft amidst the storm. The door in the Atlantic besides The Titanic. It doesn’t matter if you’re not going through the same things, either. All that matters is that you’re there for one another, listening, supporting and nurturing, without judgement or conditions.

At least, that’s been my experience so far. And after a fairly difficult year, I’m rounding out 2025 feeling grateful for my female friends above all else. They’re the ones who got me through the rough waters, and I know I’ve been there to support them through it, too. I feel closer to them than ever before.