Should I try and repair this friendship?

[Lifeasweknowitisrandom]

In the spring, I had a friendship pretty much fall apart. She was a good friend but I was having a really tough time and I mentioned I felt unsupported. It wasn't aimed specifically at her but she pulled away afterwards and I barely hear from her now whereas before we messaged most days.

Overall, before this, we were good friends. There were some niggles e.g. her anxiety was sometimes hard to deal with and she often infantalised me despite being in my 40s. However, overall, we got on well and met up regularly.

Since all of this, I haven't seen her since early spring. I'm not sure if I should:

1. Message/ring and try and sort it out.
2. Just leave things be and see if eventually things sort themselves out.
3. Forget the friendship and move on

I'm not the sort of person who usually falls out with friends so I'm not sure how to navigate this one.

Message, arrange to meet and ask if you've done anything to offend her.

I know you're probably right but I'm slightly reluctant to do that as I know I'll end up apologising and I haven't done anything wrong.

If you want to try and restart the friendship you need to talk about:
the reason you made the comment,
how the comment wasn't about her,
how you appreciate that even though you didn't mean her to take it that way, she might have thought it was about her and so understandingly backed off.

I don't know if this was the case, but was the conversation about feeling without support face to face, or an ambiguous message on social media?

It could be that she is also going through a hard time and you haven't noticed.
I had a friend accuse me once of not being there when her relationship was breaking down. I was going through a family bereavement at the time but still managed to be on the other end of the phone. So yeah I pulled away. Sometimes when you are going through your own things you are blind to what else is going on.

Where did you mention you felt unsupported?

I mean no matter actually, of course she took it personally unless you specifically said with the exception of my wonderful friend x.

You do owe her an apology, I can't see why you feel you don't. If you posted it on social media she may still be wary - it's not cool to post your personal problems in a vague and accusatory way.

Move on. Once a friendship sours, it's over.

It was a WhatsApp

It wasn't to the world on social media. It was in a reply to a WhatsApp message. I don't owe her an apology for saying how I was feeling.

I think same as other post once a friendship sours its never right. So I let it go

I guess she felt told off by you? So isn’t seeking out your company.

if you didn’t mean her specifically tell her clearly and apologise for any confusion. If you did mean her, move on

Yes, I think from what you've said it's quite hard to tell what her perspective is on everything. I have a friend that I would describe as "high maintenance" who has sometimes been quite annoyed with me because I haven't been as present as she wants, but from my POV the support in our friendship is always one way, and she almost seems to be the type of person who finds things to need support over so that she can maintain that status quo.

I'm not suggesting this is you, but if your friend has pulled away it's possible that she thinks you've been unfair in your comment to her. Or she just can't take criticism. Either way, maybe it's not that easy to just move on from it.

Don't contact her. She felt reprimanded by you (understandably), you don't actually care how she felt and you have many complaints about her. She doesn't need to hear from you.

I told her I didn't specifically mean her.

I have cared for years how she felt and have supported her through anxiety as well as many other things. The one time I bring up how I feel it seems that I'm the one in the wrong. Personally, I don't think I am.

I wouldn't bother. Friends are there for each other.

I've had a really rough summer and one of my friends of decades decided she didn't want to know after my always supporting her, listening to her and doing stuff for her. She had supported me too. She didn't want to listen to me not even once. I'm devastated as I couldn't imagine abandoning a friend and not wanting to listen. It made me feel worthless and made a hard time even harder. I will never speak to her again.

You not accepting that the comment hurt her means your friendship is probably finished.
She was obviously hurt by it, the only way back would be to accept that and apologise, without that she is going to carry on feeling wronged (I assume she feels wronged as she has backed off from you). There isn’t much else to say.

That's the thing though, I don't know if she's been hurt by it as she's pretty much not talking to me. I'm hurt by things too but do my feelings not count, only hers do?

That's pretty much it. The lack of support and a friend ghosting me has made a tough time even worse. I'm so sorry you went through that too.

The thing is actions (or inaction in this case) speak louder than words, she is showing you by not bothering with you.

Both of your feelings count. You felt unsupported so alluded to that in your message, she felt offended by that and has backed off.
One of you needs to make a move - she either needs to accept you felt unsupported (and it doesn’t seem she’s willing to do that) or you need to apologise for offending her with the message. You are both glued to the same spot IYSWIM. If you aren’t willing to budge then there isn’t really way forward.

True but maybe she's shown me who she truly is. I can't continue to give, give, give when the one time I say how I'm feeling, I'm suddenly in the wrong for it.

Do you want to rekindle the friendship? As in, if you could put aside your hurt feelings about the lack of support and the pulling away, do you miss her and wish you were still close? Or do you feel like you’re not the kind of person who falls out with friends and so you should be trying to sort this out?

I'm not 100% sure to be honest.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, does she not agree with making SEN children wear lanyards to identify them.

If she said it in that context it could perhaps be used in a 'its a step backwards kind of way' to when phrases like that were shouted. I.e I'm doing an impression of the type of attention they might receive.

You will know the context better but sticking it in to play devil's advocate.

Sorry I must have accidentally clicked on a different thread as your OP is not what I was trying to reply to!