My best friend is moving, and I won’t be able to afford to visit her. Should I pretend I’m happy for her?

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• For Love & Money is a column from Business Insider answering your relationship and money questions.
• This week, a reader won’t be able to afford to visit their friend when she moves.
• Our columnist says that the distance doesn’t need to end their friendship.
• Got a question for our columnist? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.

Dear For Love & Money,

My best friend is moving across the country for a new job, and while I’m pretending to feel happy for her, I’m hurt that she is choosing to leave me for a new life and new friends. I can’t imagine a world where traveling to see her is regularly doable due to the cost. Should I tell my friend how I feel or keep pretending not to mind to be supportive?

Sincerely,

Abandoned for Ambition

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Dear Abandoned,

Years ago, my husband and I were part of a three-couple friend group. But then, one of the couples announced they were moving away to the coast. We were devastated, but we understood, so we told ourselves and each other that we were so happy for them. The third couple in our friend group did not understand. They were hurt and upset, and they didn’t spend nearly as much time feigning delight for our other friends as my husband and I did.

I found their unapologetic sense of place in our friends’ lives bizarre. “We’re just their friends,” I would tell my husband, aghast. “They aren’t going to choose monthly dinners and the odd lunch date over their dream lives!” But deep down, I was envious of our bitter friends’ confidence in their entitlement because it was much more honest than the Jokerish smile I wore at the going away party and my squeaky pleas to “take so many pictures of your new place and send them to me!”

So, while you may read my advice in this letter and realize I still think my husband and I were more right than our bitter friends, I want to say from the jump that your self-awareness and self-honesty are admirable. You can only understand your feelings if you are honest with yourself about what they are. Your experience of your friend’s choice to move is valid. Where it ranks on the list of importance in another person’s whole life is another question, but that doesn’t make the hurt you feel mean any less to you.

That said, not all emotional expression is constructive. While there is no harm in being honest with your friend, whether that honesty means, “I’ll miss you desperately,” or even “This might take some time for me to get used to. I imagined us living as roomies in the retirement home someday,” keep your love for your friend front and center.

Ask yourself what you really want out of this situation. Obviously, you want nothing to change and your bestie to stay nearby forever, but when you think about her best interests — a burgeoning career, new adventures, personal growth — I’m sure what you really want is her happiness.

So, even as you are honest with your friend about your feelings, make sure she understands that your feelings aren’t her job. Her job is to embark on this exciting new life and make it everything you want for her. This will mean focusing less on your heartbreak and more on her plans. Even better, make plans to keep this friendship alive despite the distance.

Those friends of ours who moved to the coast? We’re still friends. They still visit us, and we make it a financial priority to fly out to see them once a year. We downloaded apps like Marco Polo to keep the day-to-day nature of our friendship alive; we text each other articles, DM funny videos, watch games simultaneously, and keep each other updated on our reactions. We constantly talk about the podcast we’re unlikely to ever make with one another. We’re millennials, so we don’t talk on the phone much, but when something big happens, we make the call.

Our friendship has changed, but you know what it hasn’t done? It hasn’t faded. No one decided they didn’t like the other and needed to find a way out. Our friends simply chose an awesome job opportunity in a gorgeous place and imagined a fantastic future for themselves, and then they went on a journey to make it happen. It was never about our friendship, so it didn’t need to impact it, and we ensured it didn’t.

A large part of our fight to keep our friendship alive came down to us not surrendering to the idea that visiting our long-distance friends would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, we got creative, and I urge you to do the same. For instance, when I say my husband and I “made it a financial priority to fly out to see them” annually, what I mean is that our travel rewards credit cards may as well have our friends’ names on them because that’s how serious we are about saving our points for those trips.

We do all of our spending on those cards, and when it’s time to plan another trip, we always have more than enough for a couple round trip tickets to California. We stay with our friends, as I am sure you will be able to with yours, and we only end up spending money on a few restaurants and souvenirs for the kids. Basically, we spend around the same amount as we do on a big weekend in our city.

This is the best part of long-distance friends — going to see them not only means getting a free holiday house with a built-in tour guide, but it also means enjoying the epic slumber party of your middle school dreams. You’re going to have a blast.

Rooting for you,

For Love & Money

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