Tell me why your long term friendships ended

[Dragonfire282]

I have a friend who I've known since I was 16. 25 years of friendship is rapidly going down the pan. She's become very distant, im trying to keep things going but it's a 2 way street and I'm getting very little back. I'm upset, confused. I need to accept that friendships drift and maybe it's just time to move on. If you've lost a close, long term friend why did it end? Particularly if you've just drifted apart. Was there an argument, conversation or did it just slowly change to nothing?

She was becoming obviously jealous of my life, was always trying to compete with me in some way. I also noticed how much she gossiped about her other friends to me, sharing some very inappropriate and personal stuff about them; it made realize that very probably I can’t trust her with any confidential information.

She also (very likely deliberately) ‘forgot’ my birthday several times in a row. I have caught her twice trying to stir up shit between me and other people; she has twisted stuff my husband and another good friend of mine have said about me to her.

I just don’t trust her at all anymore. Once you see it…

I had a teenager who put me through a lot between the age of 13-16. All my friends were very supportive except one who gossiped behind my back about my dc and went on and on about how perfect her little angels were and how glad she was that hers hadn't turned out like mine etc to my face.
I moved house and forgot to tell her my address and she lost her only friend.

I was very close to someone for 20+ years. We started drifting apart when I had kids - she doesn't have any (out of choice) and our lifestyles clashed. I met her for a drink 3 years ago before I moved away, and afterwards I watched her walk home and thought to myself 'I am never going to see her again'. 😔

20 year friendship. We had 'words' over an issue that was pretty petty in hindsight. I'd always been a good friend, never fallen out with anyone, but was having major personal issues and struggling emotionally. Reverse the situation and I would have been supportive of her, certainly wouldn't have taken offence. Whole situation really upset me and I felt so angry towards her for a long long time. Fast forward 2 years we are friends again. We chat like before but I see her differently and the trust is only slowly recovering.

I've gradually ended two such friendships over the past months. A deliberate choice on my part. Both were long term mutual friends, but they always seemed angry, complaining, very right wing politics, anti-environment ... a total drag and really at odds with who I am as a person.

I've gradually cut down contact, will never initiate contact with them again. When they contact me I've nice, polite, etc. I really wish them and their families the best going forward.

I'm a lot happier as a result.

My best friend of about 10yrs- She moved to rugby with a weird married man and made signs about being abused twice.

Not the first time she was seeing someone behind their OH's back and I had to keep that secret for her.

Turned up late for our xmas eve coffee with him then cried whilst he got angry about the inconvenience of visiting us.

First time she sent a load of whatsapps in the middle of the night then turned her phone off for 3 days, she suddenly "found it" and told us all she had made it up when I suggested I would contact her adoptive mother to check if she was ok.

Second time she made a big pantomime of not being able to tell me how she really was as he was in earshot on a skype call, so when I messaged her privately afterwards to ask her if she was ok she told me to fuck off and that I was verbally abusing her by suggesting she might be in some kind of danger.

She then cut contact forever with a severely nasty message - we all think there is a chance HE wrote it

Who knows if anything was actually going on but I was exhausted, and I was her last remaining friend, all others had deserted her by then for her rude and erratic behaviour on holidays, houseshares and in general.

Hope she got whatever brand of help she needed.

I had a couple of good schoolfriends, one was a bridesmaid at my wedding; I did one of the readings at hers, etc. etc. When I left my husband they were very sympathetic and kind but they just stopped communicating with me when I started dating women. They'd met all my previous serious partners; we'd all get together at Christmas when we all went to visit parents still living in the same area, and the year I got together with a woman I got in touch, as usual, to suggest meeting up and they blanked it. I've had a couple of very stilted messages from each of them when my DD was born, but otherwise nothing.

she just ghosted me. To this day (11yrs later) i still don't know why.

Others i let go because i'm just not the person i used to be, and i got sick of always been the one doing the chasing to be let down/stood up, so i just stopped contacting them.

I don't speak to anyone from my childhood/teen years now, i've made a lot of new friends who like me as i am now, and i don't have anything to prove to them.

Several reasons...

Friend A... I drifted because post having DCs I found her too needy, expected me to mother her & go out of my way to meet her, she text me constantly ahead of meet ups to guilt trip me into travelling to meet her, meaning I couldn't concentrate on the friends I was with at that time. Plus I got sick of her banging on about "her business" in a pretty hip venue of the time. She had her own business for 3 months & sold nothing. She worked for me for the other 6 years there, so people thought my business was hers. which was all the more galling as she was never great at her job, but I let things go as she was my friend. I realised that she was quite narcissistic, so I backed right off. We are back in touch now though & it seems to have reset the boundaries. She no longer expects me to mother her or bangs on about her "business"

Friend B... I cut off dead as she proved herself to be a very toxic & jealous manipulator, who tried to ruin my wedding, tried to cause trouble between DH & I & made a pass at him on my wedding day. I'd also trained her in my own time to do a job that I later employed her for. Post DD I went through a sex discrimination & constructive dismissal case with my ex employer... B was the only witness against me, by this time she was openly boasting about "bringing my smug ass down" she had a real issue with my success & happiness, so no way were we having her in our lives again... & I won my case too

Friends C, D & E
This is more recent & has been hard tbh & we'll see how it pans out long term, but for now I no longer consider them friends. They are part of a bigger very long time friendship group who have been sucked into the dark side of the covid conspiracy theory nonsense. Unbeknown to me, my sharing covid information posts from family & friends working in the frontline of covid science & care, pissed them off. It was a particular surprise with C, the one I'm closest to as I knew she was struggling with finances due to lockdowns & I helped her set up making & selling masks to supplement her income, which was successful for her. I had no clue at that point that she was a covid denier. I was initially stumped as to why after over 30 years of friendship she left up an attack on me from a misogynist we both know. His rant was about how he doesn't know me & how I memorable I was etc because he's a sad fecker who doesn't like to be called out & deleted. He'd unblocked me just long enough to read my comments & then blocked me again... 3 other mutual friends who knew us all messaged me to let me know about the post... Friend C didn't delete it as I would certainly have done for her... I was really puzzled until the rabid covid denier antivaxxer, frequently barking mad posts kicked, not until some really schoolyard bully type antics from the 3 of them, one now clearly fancies herself as some sort of guru ... we live in weird times, so I'm keeping them at arms length for now. We no longer live close to each other & no gatherings thanks to covid. Not sure how I will feel until this is all over, trying to focus on this being a fear response, but the school yard bully stuff & some of the name calling was a bit of an eye opener, plus I look at them now & realise things with some of them now grate on my tits anyway. Hissing about hating kids, whilst babying dogs even to the extent of elaborate birthday parties is making me feel pretty "meh" about it all, which has surprised me as these are over 30 year friend ships

F came out as a full on Quanon inspired covidiot & could talk of noting else... we silenced that one, but hard to respect that level of stupidity from an otherwise intelligent man, fear response or not, so we'll see.

G is extremely CEV, I was in close contact as she was already in isolation due to cancer treatment pre covid hitting & she came out of isolation into lockdown. I was, I hope a good support to her & went out of my way to cheer her up. She was planning a holiday to visit us as soon as she could. I made her easier to wear WHO spec masks, which she loved

Then she got out into the real world, somebody got to her & she started posting covid denier, the vaccine is killing people & it's only flu type memes & suddenly blocked me on everything when I provided the science to contradict her posts... that one I feel very sad about & just hope she gets through this & I feel very angry with whoever got to her

Covid certainly culls friendships in my experience 🥴

A friend I thought the world of became very distant, started acting off and irritated with me. I didn't know how to deal with it so stepped back a little to give her space. This backfired, she told our mutual friends I was treating her very badly and cut me off. I was devastated, especially because another friendship received collateral damage from the untruths she told.

Still upsets me but c'est la vie.

I had this happen with a friend I really loved.

I never knew why, for sure. She just phased me out. I think she and her husband were really trying for a baby, and it took a very long time for them, whereas I had baby 1 and baby 2 very close together, very quickly after deciding to go for it.

So the only interpretation I can put on her disappearance is a) she decided that I'm awful (which is of course possible! ) or b) that it was just too hard being around me with the babies and not wanting to discuss her own difficulties.

I miss her.

After university, best friend from school moved away with boyfriend and has three kids in rapid succession. I did a postgrad and then moved off for a career job. Very little left in common. This was just before email etc was usual. A few mutual friends keep us posted on one another but there’s no real impetus there.

About a decade later a friend from university realised she was a later in life lesbian and that she had romantic/sexual feeling for me rather than friendship. I’m in but unfortunately it was just friendship on my part. She found that difficult.

I get it was a very messy time for her- she was married to a guy and she’d been repressing her sexuality for a long time and basically had a nervous breakdown when they couldn’t conceive- I think she thought a baby would make it all ok and when the baby didn’t happen it became too much.

I do wonder if we bumped into one another now if we’d be able to strike up a new friendship of sorts. I know she has remarried and is very happy with her wife so perhaps she’d feel secure enough in herself. I do miss her a lot.

*I’m bi

When I realised I was just someone for her to talk at. She's quite insecure and I feel she was being competitive with me about her kids, home, money etc.

There were a lot of anecdotes where the punchline was "and they said I/my children was/were the best looking, cleverest, most amazing person/s they had ever met." Yawn.

I'm not competitive so it all went over my head but it was extremely boring. I just stopped responding to her texts, she probably has no idea why.

Thanks for all the replies. They've been interesting to read but confusing too, I see some elements of the problems you've all faced in my friendship but I don't really know which side of the fence I'm on! I think it boils down to us just drifting, being busy with life, naturally drifting and taking the drift personally. I think if I back off that'll be the end of it which I dont want but I don't want to carry in like this either cause its making me feel sick.

@Dragonfire282

BarefootHippieChick thanks for your reply. I'm in the middle of what you described. I think I need to back off and see if she contacts me, its this horrible, weird, not knowing feeling that I'm struggling with but I don't feel brave enough to ask directly. I do need to move on.

I felt like that too. Like you, it was very much a one way street with me doing all the running. The last couple of times we spoke or messaged I was quite cool and didn't reply to her very quickly, she didn't reply at all and that was that. It was obviously the excuse she'd been looking for. I decided to just let it go. I think you should back off a little. If she truly values your friendship she will be in touch

She'd become very difficult to be around. There was always something wrong, always the victim. She wasnt always like that and I cant pin point when/why the change happened. I just let the friendship fizzle out.

Oh and another one. She became VERY needy. That was it. She wanted all my time. She moved away and I didnt make an effort to visit her. Her moving was good timing tbh.

I have also been let go though. She just became very distant, and ive no idea why. 5 years later I still dont know why. Id like to know out of interest, but im not that bothered by it.

I had two ten-year friendships end a while back because my dad was dying and they literally asked me not to talk about it, saying they 'weren't the right people for me to be talking to about this'. After my dad passed, one of them 'formally' binned me off with the explanation that I 'hadn't been showing any interest in her or her life' over the two-and-a-half years I was my father's carer (and effectively my mum's too as she went to pieces) until he passed. Neatly sidestepping the fact that she had not once, in that whole time period, asked me how I was doing or how my dad was.

I fell out with a really good friend who I met at university. She was very anti-kids. When we had our first dc, she was an almighty bellend about it. Her being a bit of a dick the whole way through our friendship was something I could take, but when she was rude about my baby it took me about half a second to decide she wasn't worth my time.

But actually...looking back that wasn't that long a friendship. Maybe 10 years. I have much longer friendships.

She tried to start an affair with my husband. She was maid of honour and everything

Here’s a nuclear one. I had a friend since were both 4 years old, she was bridesmaid at my wedding. We had some ups and downs but stuck with each other. After I’d separated from my exH, due to me finding out about his infidelity, I also found out some months later (18mths ago, after our “friendship” had lasted 45 years, that she’d also had a long affair with him starting when our youngest was a baby . So I called her, told her I knew and haven’t had any contact with her since. Possibly an easier one to handle than the “slow fade” ones above though, because at least it’s my choice and I know why.

Ooh coincidental cross-post @RacketeerRalph!

For me it was we just drifted apart, we both moved away, neither drive and it just got harder and harder to meet up, as our lives changed contact just diminished.
I do still hear about her from others and she's doing well and is happy which i'm glad about