'On a weekend away, I realised my friend treated me like family. I knew I had to escape.'

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The author of this story has chosen to stay anonymous, but is known to Mamamia.

It took three hours to realise that my friendship of 30 years should have been over a long time ago.

I met my friend Kassidy in kindergarten. We practically grew up together; we enroled in the same primary school and even though we went to different high schools, our friendship stayed strong.

After school, our lives took different directions: she got married and had a couple of kids and I did not.

As our lives diverged, we still saw each other on the odd occasion — a group brunch here, a Pilates class there — but never for an extended period of time.

That was until I suggested a spa weekend away along the coast recently to reignite the friendship I once cherished as a child. This meant that not only were we together for longer than a few hours, we would be stuck together for multiple days in close quarters.

Image: Getty.

It started off badly.

Within three hours, I found this friend crossing boundaries, from invading my personal space in an aggressive way to making snide comments about family members to diagnosing me with various health conditions (yes, really).

These were the kinds of comments I didn't expect to hear from a friend — especially one I haven't spent an extended time with in several decades.

This was just the first day. I noticed a pattern developing where this friend would speak to me in a rude, abrupt way basically all the time. This is something I didn't notice in a group setting when her personality was diluted, but one-on-one, it was rare she spoke to me with a tone you'd expect from… errr, a friend.

Watch: The hosts of But Are You Happy discuss the signs of unhealthy friendship. Post continues below.

It was a bizarre contrast hearing her converse with other people we encountered at the spa — she was bubbly, polite and, well, nice. This isn't the Kassidy I got. And the trip was hell.

It was an endless cycle of her snapping at me, biting my head off, and the next minute, she'd act like that tense exchange never happened. It was infuriating.

This led to a realisation: my friend treated me like her family. In fact, she treated me like her sister who she would bicker with constantly and inevitably still be fine with.

And I hated it.

Listen: The Mamamia Out Loud hosts discuss whether your friends should be your family. Post continues below.

I am not her family. I am her friend. And unlike family, my friendship can end. Unlike family, I can easily untether myself from this person.

And sadly, that's what I had to do. I decided by the end of day two that I had to escape.

By the time I got to the 97th rude comment of the weekend, I simply said I'd had enough. I packed up my stuff and I left because I couldn't be in her presence any longer.

This might seem harsh. After all, this was a 30-year friendship, but I realised during our time together we had outgrown each other. I was no longer the people pleaser who would allow myself to be treated poorly, and I took solace in that.

The idea that your best friends are your family has long been romanticised. How many rom-coms have we been fed when our leading lady turns to her bestie to say, "We're not friends, we're family"?

I would like to bring back valuing friends for being exactly what they are: friends.

"Are your friends your family? And if that's all true, is it a positive thing?" Holly Wainwright asked on the latest episode of Mamamia Out Loud. Wainwright goes on to note how the expectations around family and friends can differ dramatically.

Image: Getty.

"Family relationships are often very boundaryless. You expect your family to do things for you that you probably wouldn't ask a friend to do. You expect them to put up with behaviour from you that you probably wouldn't expect a friend to. So if you were really treating your friends like family, you might actually be treating your friends quite badly," she said.

This isn't to normalise being straight-up abusive towards your parents and siblings — after all, there are boundaries in all relationships — but there is a certain level of bluntness and brattiness that we can get away with levelling at our family members.

Sure, we all have moments with our friends when we show our grumpy sides, but that shouldn't be the norm.

For me, I was noticing that the Kassidy I got was always under a black cloud, and as soon as someone else would enter, they would get sunshine and rainbows.

For Kassidy, she probably thought I would put up with anything — like a sister. We were raised together from when we were very young, so our connection ran deep.

But she isn't my sister and my friendship does come with a set of conditions, such as: be nice to me.

On Out Loud, they discussed the concept of unconditional love among family.

Image: Getty.

"For me, the word is unconditional. My family loves me because I exist," Jessie Stephens noted. "My friends love me because of the way I show up, or because of certain qualities… my friendships aren't unconditional."

And they shouldn't be. Friendships are a voluntary act — you've chosen to spend time with the other person because you enjoy being in their company. If they change how they treat you, or start to make you feel worse after being in their presence — that isn't a friend worth keeping.

I do understand that some people consider their friends as their 'chosen family' because their own family either passed away, became estranged, live in a different place or simply aren't very nice people. There is, of course, a place for this, but I'd hazard a guess that in most of these dynamics, they still treat each other like friends, but depend on each other like family.

But why can't we depend on our friends? I'm here to put more respect on the title of friend. After all, this is a person you've chosen to have and keep in your life — they didn't just happen to be born in the same family as you — and that's something worth celebrating.

For me, I'm keeping my friends as friends and my family as family. And after that weekend away, Kassidy is neither.

Feature image: Getty.