Struggling with end of 20 year friendship - anyone had this?

[Rizzo8]

I've been friends with Andrew since we were early teens, now in our 30s. It was always a platonic friendship and like a sibling relationship. I'm an only child and always valued having him in my life.

Over the years we provided a lot of emotional support over relationships, bereavements etc. Then when we got a bit older holidayed together with our partners etc.

Andrew moved to Italy 7 years ago and I was also living there at the time. I eventually came back to the UK but our yearly holidays continued. Then 1.5 years ago he split with his partner of 10 years.

Shortly after I went to visit him and he messed me about a bit with plans. We also had an argument which he was responsible for to my mind but he refused to apologize. So we just moved on and forgot about it.

At Christmas he messaged, we conversed a bit and then I forgot to respond for 2 weeks because I had flu. He messaged again at new year and I replied explaining I was sick and asked how things were going and about general life things. He never replied but I can see he's alive and well via social media. That was 6 months ago.

My feeling is that the friendship is over and I feel very upset about it, almost like someone has died! I feel I can't talk to anyone about it either and haven't even told my partner how I'm feeling. How do you work through this kind of thing?

This was going to be my question — why do you feel he holds all the power in the friendship?

@Triskeline He's disappeared three times now. And then when he came back, he sort of hopes and expects to pick up where he left off. I feel he holds the power because he can just drop off whenever without warning and then reappear again whenever. And I accept because I've missed the friendship.

I'm steady with my friendships. Apart from very occasional lapses during difficult times, my friends know I'm reliable and they hear from me. I care about what's going on in their lives.

This is such a good post and so true. The pain of losing a good friendship is so intense, it genuinely feels like a bereavement, especially if like me, you’re being ghosted and don’t fully understand why your friend has gone AWOL.

It does get better in time but it’s very difficult, particularly if you struggle to accept the situation.

I have finally accepted that my friend of many years will not be coming back and I am moving on, but I dream of them regularly. In my dreams they are always as they were before. I feel so happy but then I wake up and feel sad that it was only a dream.

I hope you resolve things OP. I would probably advise reaching out again but in the full knowledge and acceptance that it might not work. Otherwise, you just have to give it time before you start to feel better. Even with the therapy suggested here, it may take longer time you would like.

I've been in your shoes OP - it is incredibly painful. I would say it took a good 3 or 4 years for me to be with ok it having happened. For the first few months I was upset it had happened, then it was wondering why, then for the last few years just feeling sad when I remembered.

Now I can see we were in very different places. My childhood best friend had a lot of issues. I thought the length of our friendship meant I was immune to them, but that wasnt the case. I hope they are ok. My friend had dropped me a few times previously - similar to your friend. Now I'm not sure I would stop in the street if I saw them (based on previous experiences I know they would keep walking). I don't really see the point although I do hope they are happy and ok.

I now focus on the friends I do have and I'm so much happier.