To ask if a friend has ever abruptly cut you out?

[Homeishappiness]

My friend has and I'm sad about it.

We were good friends, saw each other a lot, had a lot in common. I moved some miles away and I saw her twice in an eight month period (fine) but she and I emailed, texted one another reasonably regularly.

She went away in January, sent me some pictures and I replied saying it looked beautiful.

Have heard nothing since - texts and emails have been ignored (I know she's safe as she owns a small business and that's running well.)

Has anyone else just suddenly never heard from someone again?

[Tomodachi]

Last year. Similar story. I was so hurt, ranted and raved with another friend. Grieved a bit for the friendship. Eventually came to terms with it. Next thing friend turns up full of friendly enthusiasm, constantly texting, emailing and ringing now. It's all even friendlier than before. I have no idea what went on last year but I do know that if I am struggling with being happy with life in general I find it hard to contact people. I guess something similar may have happened to my/your friend.

[dragdownthemoon]

Yup. Best friend. She was my bridesmaid. Very close, then she started cancelling meeting up at the last minute. I'd always organise meeting up, then she would cancel, sometimes just an hour before. The last time it happened I text her and said no worries, just text me next time you are free to go for a drink. I haven't seen her now in 5 years. We are still friends on FB, I comment on stuff occasionally, sent her a few messages, she never ever responds. I have no idea why, but she just doesn't want to be my friend any more. It makes me really, really sad.

[ShesAStar]

I had this - my closest friend for ten years just cut me out. I tried for about 18 months to get in touch but she clearly didn't want to know. I still wonder why she did it, I thought we would always be friends. The worst thing was that I loved her children and really miss watching them grow. The last time I rang her she said she couldn't talk and would ring me back..... still waiting!!

[Pedestriana]

Yes, someone I was quite close to and flat-shared with.
We were still in contact (having had to move out because of landlord issues), and met up from time to time.
She is happily child-free, has an older long-term boyfriend, likes clubing/fine dining etc. We used to keep in touch via Facebook mainly as she was on there about 15 hours per day.
I got pregnant and it changed everything. We had an invite over to dinner and she got in a bit of a huff because I didn't like something that was served up. Given that we'd flat-shared, she ought to have known (and, I wasn't rude, I just put the item to the side of my plate and ate everything else).
I thanked her for the meal (we'd taken wine and flowers at the time), and messaged her a few days later via FB. My message was deleted.
I left it a few days thinking there must have been a problem, then messaged her again, to find the message deleted.

In the end I managed to get hold of her, to have her tell me that there was no point continuing the friendship as we had nothing in common.

[bottleofbeer]

Yep, just recently. We'd been friends for years after meeting through forums like this. Spoke every single day. One day I realised she wasn't on Facebook anymore and assumed she'd deactivated for a bit and thought nothing of it. Until I saw gaps of missing conversation on mutual friend's statuses. Realised it was her and she'd blocked me. Absolutely no idea why, the day before I noticed she'd 'gone' we had chatted as usual and perfectly normally. Another friend messaged her asking why but she ignored it.

I'd love to know what I'm supposed to have done. Not having a reason is the worst bit because you can't even put forward a defence or sort out any misunderstanding.

[monkeysaymoo]

Yup it really sucks, although I think I may have been partly to blame. Both going through really tough periods in our lives and I guess neither was there for the other one. I would find it easier to deal with if I didn't have to see her so regularly. It's always been polite when we see each other no hostility but I find it very hard all the same.

[ShaynePunim]

I've been at both ends of the cutting-off.

Two friends have cut me off and it was horrible, but one of them had the decency to tell me it was happening and the reason (her partner didn't like me - without having even met me), and the other one never said anything and I was very upset for a very long time about it. I never knew what I had done, this was several years ago and I still have a little heart pinch every time I think of it.

I once cut off someone too. Her little girl (same age as my now teenage DD) was very aggressive towards mine when they were toddlers - pulling hair, pushing to the ground, snatching etc, but the mother never did anything about it. Didn't intervene, didn't tell her DD to stop - nothing.

Then one day she made some horrible, offensive comments about my ethnicity, but in the guise of questions ("Is it true that you people do such and such?"). I was gobsmacked and politely answered something like 'no, not really'.

But that was the last straw for me and I never spoke to her again. I stopped answering to her texts, her calls...she even asked me why I'd cut her out and I didn't reply.

This was years ago and now I don't think I would still act like that. Even if I would find it mortifying, I would think the person at least deserves to be told why I don't want to be friends anymore.

[claraschu]

I agree that I would rather be told what the problem is, in as sensitive way as possible. It is horrible to be left wondering what you did, if you had misjudged the friendship all along, and just what on earth happened.

I can see that it is hard to articulate, though- feels too cruel to be honest, I think.

[BeggingYourPardon]

I've been the one to cut a friend out.

I invited her to my wedding, we'd known each other from college and kept in touch through Uni and got on very well. Similar sense of twisted humour.

My (now) husband went to school with her and they weren't the best of mates. He sulked that I had invited her and not knowing what to do and being very cowardly I stopped contacting her. She was hurt, she still sent cards for birthdays, wished us congratulations on the birth of our DD. I had removed her from facebook etc. But I was so ashamed of myself I couldn't bring myself to contact her.

I knew I had been incredibly cruel and after 4 years I rang her and said how sorry I was and I would understand if she didn't want to hear my voice. I certainly deserved a cold shoulder from her. I explained that although it just looked like I had cut her off I'd actually had issues not inviting my own Father to the Wedding and she had been part of the emotional fallout from it all. I couldn't face telling another person they weren't invited after all.

She forgave me.

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

yep, my bridesmaid and best friend.

i had the audacity to fall pregnant and my due date was her wedding day.

she didnt even invite me to the wedding on the off chance i wanted to go if baby was late.

The last time i saw her was when she showed me the wedding photos and we chatted about her coming out for my birthday the following week, she never turned up and i didnt hear from her again. She only lived 5 minutes away and had to walk passed my road to get to work.

I found her on fb about 3 years later and got in touch, i had PND from baby 2 at the time, and she had a dd same age as my youngest. I told her how hurt i was by her cutting me off with no explanation, and she basically told me my feelings were nothing to do with her, and i have no right to guilt trip her about it, and cut me off again.

i see her occasionally as she still works near by, i'm still angry about it.

[SecondMrsAshwell]

Yes, one of my friends was going to see me in a play on the Friday, I saw her on the Tuesday and she just disappeared, nothing, no text message, no e-mail, nothing. She wouldn't answer my texts. She had found out that she was pregnant quite late and went off on maternity leave straight away. I was so upset and, when she eventually came back, I pointed out that if her DP had been anyone other than the teddy bear that he is, she would have had the local Constabulary on her doorstep to see if she was okay. Her family and DP were all delighted and she said that it was all a normal pregnancy.

I know it was a shock for her to find out, but I didn't find out the reason why until she came back from maternity leave.

Never having had a child, maybe I'm being a bit unfair, but it really hurt at the time.

[kissmethere]

Yes was friends with dhs best friends ex . Just used to hang out or the odd phone call. Best friend said he was finding it awkward as we were getting the feeling I was being used so she could still get to see him . I think he was right though, we just drifted apart.

[bibliomania]

Yes, twice. Drifting away from people is pretty normal, but when you reach out repeatedly and they snub you, that really hurts.

It's hard to be left wondering why - was it something I did, or something they were going through in their own lives? I tend to think it was the latter - I represented something they found painful. In the second case, we became friends when we were both single mothers with dds the same age. When she got together with a new man and had a baby with him, I think I got in the way of her re-writing history to make them a cosy little family unit all along. That is probably quite a bitchy way to phrase it - I totally get her longing for what she saw as a "proper family" - but I really felt abandoned.

[MehsMum]

Yup, twice.
Once was when were living somewhere for a few years and I thought I was making a very good friend - we had DC the same age, did things together, they came to our house for a meal, we went to theirs, she loaned me garden tools etc. Then, suddenly, nothing. I tried repeatedly to get in touch with her to return the borrowed items but still nothing. Really, really odd and upsetting. We moved back home again and I can't remember what I did with the garden tools - passed them on to another (nicer) friend, I think.

The second time was a friend who split up with her husband and just fell off the radar: attempts at contact got nowhere so after about a year I just stopped trying. I assumed we were part of the emotional fallout of the collapse of her marriage. Then after about another year she got back in touch, apologising for vanishing but explaining that she knew we were in contact with her ex and had not been able to handle that (understandable). So were are friends again which is lovely, but I suspect it will never be as close again as she has moved away from the area.

It's shitty when it happens.

[LetticeKnollys]

My best friend from secondary school who I used to talk to all the time over Facebook and meet up with every time I went to stay with my parents just suddenly stopped replying to any of my messages when I announced I was pregnant with DS, now 7 months. He's a man, so it's not female broody envy, and he's gay, so no secret crush or anything. Really weird. I know he doesn't like kids, maybe he thinks I'm going to make him babysit for me if he speaks to me.

[TheChandler]

Yup, twice, both times I thought friends acting very unreasonably over something and me obviously not reacting as they wanted me to.

First friend wanted me to let her boyfriend move into my spare room. I said no, she kept trying to persuade me, I kept saying no, got another lodger. A year later when lodger had moved out, same thing again. She eventually got abusive and quite nasty over it and we never spoke again (her boyfriend is long an ex).

Second one last year over the Scottish independence referendum. One day she just turned on me, sent me loads of abusive messages, and I mean loads, all about how I wasn't a true friend and if I was one, I had to do x, y and z, and I was a snob, etc.. She wasn't actually all that a close friend, but someone who had been to my house a fair few times for dinner, bbqs, etc.. I didn't even send her abuse back, just asked her what was wrong, suggested she might be drunk or upset about something and then told her that her behaviour wasn't acceptable. She denied it was to do with the referendum but since it kicked off because of something I posted about it, it clearly was. She actually went so strange I was beginning to think she would do something silly and come round to my house or something! I wouldn't have anything to do with her now, I consider her bit of a nutter.

[wol1968]

Yes. This was a friend I had on a postgrad course years ago. We carried on meeting up for a couple of years after the course ended, then I moved away from the area to live with my now DH. After we bought our first house, I saw this friend a few times (always went to hers; she never saw our house) and stayed over once. It seemed like a nice enough evening though there were a couple of snide little remarks from one of her other friends which I didn't think anything of until afterwards. Then after that she was always too busy, or couldn't fit me in. I just said 'Fine. Let me know when you're free to meet up.' I knew she'd never return my call. I've never really worked it out.

Another, well I wouldn't call her a friend exactly, more a school run mum, I used to chat to her quite happily on the way to school, and then without warning she just stopped talking. Just like that. Incomprehensible. Her DC are friends with mine and we exchange whatever information we need re the DC in a civilised enough manner, but...no chat. Just why? As she's not really a friend, I don't feel happy to ask the question straight out (and it's probably not got a good answer either, TBH - just how do you put 'Your walk gets on my nerves' or 'You talk in paragraphs that I can't follow at 8 a.m on a Monday' or 'You're gormless looking and I don't want you hanging round my mates like a spare cobweb' in a diplomatic, constructive way? ) But things like that still bug me a bit.

[MsAspreyDiamonds]

My sister had and subsequently died from a terminal illness. My best friend completely shunned me because her parents believed she could catch it from me. I was devastated but got over it until she called me 10 years later to offer congratulations on the birth of my dc, I made brief small talk and then put the phone down. I moved house not long after and made sure never to contact her again.

What she did back then was horrible and I can't forgive her for it. Ironically, her father has recently been diagnosed with the cancer that killed my sister.

[elbowsdontsing2]

msdiamonds thats terrible some people can ignorant twats

[Crazycatlady27]

Yes. I had a friend whose Mum was close with my own Mum. She used to live about an hour away, so would come down to mine for a weekend and we'd go visit them.
We moved further away and lost touch as teenagers, but got back in touch a few years later. We spoke, but weren't as close.
She married and had a child, then got pregnant with her second who unfortunately due to medical problems, didn't survive.
I tried to offer my condolences and said I'd be there if she needed to talk and she was really rude to me, but I put that down to grief. A few days later she asked to borrow money from me, when I said I couldn't lend her any as I was skint myself, she blocked me on Facebook and hasn't spoken to me since!

[TheChandler]

Appalled at some of these stories, particularly of people cutting friends out of their lives because of cancer!!

[Redhead11]

A girl i was at school with for a couple of years. They moved away and we kept up writing letters and the odd phone call. She was getting married and had explicitly told me i was invited and the wedding was the end of the summer. I called her one night in early summer for a chat and was appalled to be told she had got married the night before. Her parents had been surprised i didn't show up, but she'd told them i couldn't make it. I hadn't even been invited. I never figured it out.