A few weeks ago, a close friend of mine did something so rude and inconsiderate, that the friendship, for me, is over. And frankly, I’m glad.

It’s hard to break up with a friend. Just as when a romantic relationship begins to sour, the work that is required to maintain the friendship outweighs the pleasure it brings. You find your friend demanding and self-involved; you start avoiding the phone calls and coming up with excuses to avoid getting together.

But where there is a formula for a romantic breakup – “You’re great, but I’m ready for a commitment,” or “It’s me, not you” – no such formula exists for ending friendships. After all, your exit strategy can hardly be, “Let’s just be friends.”

So when this friend, whom I had been having doubts about for many months, stepped so far out of line, it seemed almost fortuitous.

Until you have children, this need to weed out friends is hardly necessary. There’s always time to grab a drink or have a late-night phone chat. And if your friend is really driving you crazy, you can invite three or four other people along to dilute the intensity.

When you have a child, though, your perspective changes. And when you have a second or third child, it changes again. Time becomes more precious – particularly the time you choose to spend away from your children. Who needs a friend who’s going to hold a grudge when, on the odd occasion, you don’t call her back for a week? Who needs a friend who isn’t going to understand when you slam down the phone to attend to a bloody lip? Who needs a friend who’s going to spend 20 minutes talking about how fabulous her son is, and then spend another half hour talking about how difficult it is to choose the right contractor for her renovation?

I first experienced the desire to break up with a friend right after I had my first son. The woman in question was never the closest of friends, but we had known each other since grade school. She kept calling to make plans, and I kept conveniently forgetting to return the calls. My husband – a bit of a stickler for returning calls – chided me. I ignored him, and the phone calls kept coming. She had a serious boyfriend she wanted me to meet. She had a work issue she wanted to discuss with me. She wanted to have me and my family over for dinner.

When my husband scolded me for the third time about the subject, I turned to him and finally was able to articulate what I had been feeling all along. “I don’t like her. I don’t want to be her friend. Can’t she take a hint?”

Eventually, after getting married and moving halfway around the world, she either got the hint, or got a life. I was relieved.

Ever since, I have been cautious about acquiring new friends. I am at a period in my life, though, where many people are interested in forging new friendships. Through your children’s activities you make friends, and it is certainly an added bonus when you really enjoy the company of your child’s friend’s parents. But you never know what kind of expectations a new friend will have. Does she want long phone calls analyzing her troubled marriage? Lengthy conversations discussing her anxiety over her daughter’s weight, her family’s financial woes?

Whatever the worries are, I better find them damn interesting. And this new friend better make me laugh and have a healthy dose of earth gripping perspective.

Because these days, ending a friendship can be far more complicated than not returning phone calls. It’s not only your own relationship that is at stake, but the relationship between your children and your friend’s children as well. Try explaining to a 5-year-old why he doesn’t see little Timmy anymore. It’s not so easy.

I think it’s unfair to end your child’s friendship because you have lost faith or interest in the parent. And on top of that, it’s unnecessary.

Romantic break-ups often end in blow-outs. It is the rare couple that does in fact become friends. Certainly that is the case directly following the end of an amorous relationship. But when a friendship ends, there is no need for fireworks. Things can slowly fizzle, or the friendship can simply change from one that was central to one’s life to one that is peripheral. The friendship in its original incarnation may be over, but that doesn’t mean any bridges have to be burned.

You can have more than a few friendships in your life, which is perhaps why, in the end, friendships are so different from romantic relationships. Different friends can offer you different pleasures. One might have wisdom; one might have known you since nursery school; one might have energetic theater habits; one might have a dark, dry sense of humor. And they will all have their failings, because that is only human nature.

So your kids can still play with little Timmy, even if you’re not so crazy about little Timmy’s mother anymore. Maybe you’ll have to find an excuse to avoid spending a holiday weekend away together, but that shouldn’t be so hard, trust me.

Readers can address their parenting questions to Ms. Berman at sberman@nysun.com.