Can we talk about adult friendship break ups?

[Callysee]

I’ve had a few in my time, some I’ve initiated others I’ve been the one dumped so to speak. Currently coming to the realisation that in my 40s I’ve been dumped by a male friend I’ve had since my uni days. Partly due to the fact he has less time due to having young kids which I totally understand having been there myself but it’s also got to do with the fact he is from a wealthier background, lives in a better area and over time has preferred to be with other wealthy people. I never minded our wealth gap, we could still have a laugh but in recent years he has become increasingly intolerant and critical of poor people and wants to be able to put working class people down for not working hard enough while ignoring the fact the he went to private schools, had extra private tuition, traveled the world as a child, inherited his fathers law practice and almost a million quid.

I had for some time been enjoying his company less and less but I still remember fondly the fun loving sensitive lad he was back in the day and feel sad that we’ve barely spoke to each other in the past year or two. But also such
is life.

I was also “dumped” by a what I thought was a good friend when I was very low when my dad and brother were both seriously ill. Previously I and my father had helped her escape an abusive relationship by moving her out of her boyfriends flat in my dads van on the one night her boyfriend wasn’t home and then helped her get set up elsewhere. She told me she didn’t want to see me anymore when I cried in her presence just once as I was under so much pressure due to my family’s illnesses and my mum not being able to cope mentally, she didn’t want to be around anyone who was such a drag apparently!

Anyone else had a friendship break up as an adult.

I have a slightly different approach to many on mumsnet.

I've hardly ever 'ended' a friendship or had one ended with me. Some have come to a fairly natural end when one or other of us has moved away from the area, and so seeing each other is harder. Long-term old friends though, I've mostly kept in touch with, and newer long-term friends are pretty ongoing. I have fallen out of touch with a couple, mainly as they stopped responding once I'd moved location as much, and so it was getting a bit embarrassing keeping calling when there were no plans to meet.

I think there's often no need, unless there's a particular problem that is important to solve, to 'end' the friendship. There's more or less no friend from the past that I wouldn't want to see again in my life, certainly from the past 25 years, and I'd be delighted if any of them moved nearer or they wanted to reignite the friendship. I also have some old friends that I see every couple of years, or even less frequently due to our life circumstances, but we seem to be able to reconnect in when we do, and I love to see them, even if they are not everyday friends.

Even in my current life, we are all busy, we all work, we all travel, we all have kids, so a couple of months might go by then someone pops up, or we hang out as a group and then don't for a couple of months, then do again.

I think a lot of the problems in friendships come from needing to lock people into a very particular pattern of friendship (so frequent texts/calls/meet ups) when we are all at a very busy stage of our lives and find it hard to do things like meet if you have to take the kids on holiday instead of visiting your friends. As you age, and as age brings disease, illness, changes of circumstances, relocation, you get new opportunities to reconnect. Why close that door unless the person is actively bad or it's obvious they don't want to connect with you any more whatsoever?

I've been dropped by a group of school friends, we all used to meet up regularly, especially when some of the group who have moved away came back to visit.

Since lockdown, I am now treated to regular photos of their meet ups all over Facebook.
No explanation or reason given for the drop.
I asked my close friend, also part of the group, if she knew why and she said she didn't, but she would make sure I was included going forwards.
That was in 2022.

It feels like shit.
If you think I've done something wrong then tell me and I can either remedy it, or explain myself.
Just fucking people off is a rotten thing to do.

@AAudreyHorne That's shitty. The one exception I would say where I've moved away from friendship groups is in all-women groups that have turned a bit nasty- my NCT group was just two-faced and I didn't like the way they spoke about another member of the group and, I suspected, about me.

I'd have no hesitation in moving on from a negative group, but if it's just a long-term friendship that is drifting due to circumstance, why cut it off?

I am discussing it. We've all got people who've come and gone it's life.
The people who are meant to stay do.
That's my opinion.

So I actually agree with a lot of what you have said, I’m very at ease with friendships having their own pace and rhythm and certainly don’t expect someone to be in constant contact or to be in each others pockets, in fact as someone with rather lonerish tendencies I feel rather smothered by that kind of friedpndship. For example my oldest friend and I live about 90 minutes away from each other and we usually take turns travelling to each others city to spend the day together every couple of months or so and we don’t text much in between unless something major happens or we are arranging a meet up.

If you assume that everyone who feels sadness at the ending of a friendship is clingy and demanding you are very much mistaken, I fully accept that things come to a natural end at times but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel sad about the loss at times or a bit confused as to what went wrong.

I know the kind of friendship you’re describing and it’s definitely not my scene. I also have friends I’m even more distant to how I might not see for years but can easily pick up with when we do we see each other and I certainly be open to re-establishing friendships with people I’ve previously fallen out of touch with. I don’t hold grudges really.

I the only person I outright ended friendships with was a woman who would pitch up unannounced and uninvited at my flat with her kids saying she had come to stay for a few days and her kids were wild my flat and nerves were a mess by the time then all left, yes I was young and naive at that point. Another time she stayed without her kids I found her snooping on our PC and when I asked her what she was up to she told me she liked to know what kinds of things people got up to when they thought nobody was watching so liked to see what people were looking up online and downloading. She even told me how she’d done this to a man she was dating and had sent links to the kind of porn he was watching to his parents, his university lecturers, his employer and friends. I told her to leave and never bother contacting me again which she ignored until I moved and didn’t pass on my new address.

My biggest/craziest/most dramatic friend breakup was a woman I was friendly with who considered me her best friend.

She was constantly in some kind of drama in her life (usually to do with men), always the victim, every boyfriend she’d ever had had “abused” her along with any and all ex friends.

She was constantly relying on me for help/emotional support for her many many problems. She had a problem with me having other friends and would make snide remarks etc.

Why did I put up with her? For me she was a casual acquaintance - someone to go for a drink with now and then and listen about the latest drama, drink too much wine and go home and forget all about it. When she made remarks about me having other friends etc I just laughed and genuinely never gave it another thought - I assumed she was a bit insecure and joking. Whatever. Not my problem either way.

The relying on me for help began to escalate from numerous texts (most of which I’d ignore) to her turning up at my door/my gym/anywhere she knew I’d be. I was started to feel suffocated.

I then had some difficulties in my own life so had zero time/energy for her drama so when she sent me another barrage of messages I replied telling her so.

She then completely lost the plot. Her reasons were that she needed me for support so I couldn’t possibly disappear to handle my own issue. Secondly, she should be helping me with my problem and I was a terrible friend for not sharing it with her/trusting her as surely I had shared it with my partner. Just really baffling stuff. She had a massive go at me about how I was her best friend but she didn’t seem to be able to be mine, no matter how much time she spent with me.

All in all, I think she was just unhinged and I have never been so glad to see the back of someone. That “friendship” was so draining and such a source of fatigue in my life. When I finally blocked her it felt like a weight has been lifted. Good luck to anyone who ever meets her in future!

If I learned anything it’s this:

If someone doesn’t have any friends, it’s a red flag. You are not being kind by befriending them, you are being stupid. Run.

Yes it stings even in your 50s. My circle small. One awful one fizzled out she had alot on personally but quite abusive. I came to realise was always on her terms. Bumped into her left it at hello) I dont invest too much now in new friends as feel people let u down.

I went through this with my childhood friend of 30 years. It broke my heart. I eventually just asked her out right what was going on, she said nothing. I put up with it for another 6 months, asked again and she said the friendship was over.

That was a year ago. It hurt like hell and its something I think I'll always be sad about as I thought we'd be friends for life. I'm glad I know though. Luckily she dumped 2 of us in one go so I've not gone through it on my own.

I hope it works out for the best for you, whatever that might look like.

That's how I feel. So hurt/burnt by it, I'm not interested in making any new friendships. Maybe that'll change in time but for now I'd rather now invite any more drama.

I'd just like to offer an alternative perspective. I'm not sure if it will be helpful or add to the 'head fuck' experience, so I'm sorry if it's the latter. That's genuinely not what I intend.

I am that friend who you might feel is doing the slow fade. Except I'm not. I just do not have the time to maintain texting and regular meet ups like I used to. Over the years my career and life have grown beyond all recognition and I simply cannot sustain weekly/fortnightly get-togethers. On the rare moments I don't have something on sometimes I really just need to sit in radio silence.

I like to think I make it clear to my friends that it's me not them and they all know they can count on me if the chips are down, but I have one friend who regularly takes it personally who can leave me feeling a bit exhausted to be honest by the time I've offered yet more reassurance. Because her life is so different she just cannot fathom how full on mine is. I will avoid texting her unless I have the time to spend sending multiple messages back and forth because that's what happens. However, I love her dearly and would never 'dump' her.

Verbena193

Thank you.

I broke up with my 'best friend' of 27 years a few years ago due to feeling used and taken for granted. She was always a bit selfish but it took on a new dimension when she got remarried. I rarely saw her unless I initiated contact, hosted her for the weekend or travelled to see her. Never reciprocated. She refused to budge on the dynamic.

The final straw was leaving me waiting for nearly an hour and half at the train station after three hours travelling to see her without any explanation (her journey was twenty minutes) and trying to shut me up by getting me to take a gift she had broken on the way.

It went downhill from there. With hindsight the friendship had run it's course. She no longer needed me which was actually a relief as she dominated my life when she was single and I wasn't getting much from the friendship, although I didn't recognise it at the time. I felt quite flat/bored when I saw her. We were chalk and cheese.

Now I'm very careful in my selection of friends. I don't tolerate rudeness or flakiness. I need to have things in common and the same outlook/sense of humour. It's working.

@TheHistorian awful isnt it. Im same done with crappy behaviours. Fake hug ones must catch up soon xx they binned too lol. Had a lovely cousin same got one sided efforts. Done with it all

I think most of us appreciate that and that is not what we are on about. You say you make it clear to your friends that you will always be there for them if the chips are down even if you aren't available day to day. Thats fine but that isn't what we are talking about.

Also to maintain a friendship you need to make a bit of effort at least sometimes even if its just a text at christmas or new year to let them know you're thinking of them, most people understand that peoples lives are busy, so is mine.

I actually don’t agree. I’d much prefer a friendship just to drift as we become less compatible, rather than to have someone sit me down and tell me all the reasons they find me not quite worth their time anymore.

When I’ve grown apart from people it’s not been because of a thing they’ve done wrong. It’s often just a consequence of the way my life circumstances are developing. It’s absolutely possible for people to grow apart over time without it being something you need to officially break up about.

The thing is, though, there is a limit to how much you will always want to be there for a friend who cannot appreciate that you’re not always able to meet their needs, and who insists on taking things personally or constantly taking you to task for not making enough effort. Sometimes people don’t want to make that much effort, or they can’t. And so they are not the right friend for you. They’re not just a shit person.

What I don’t really get is posters who talk about how heartbroken they are to have lost friendships with people they then go on to say were abusive, selfish, bigoted, generally unpleasant, and only ever using them. I don’t get it. If someone is this awful to you, why do you want to be friends with them?

Without knowing the backstory, it can seem as though anyone who doesn’t meet someone’s (possibly unrealistic?) relationship needs becomes retrospectively classed as a narcissist or some sort of horrible snob or abuser or whatever.

Yes, it hurts when we’re dropped by a friend or a group. Of course it does. Nobody likes being excluded. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve done something ‘wrong’ we need to atone for, or that other people have misunderstood us and need to be corrected. Sometimes people just don’t like us. And of course that hurts. But that’s life.

I don’t see how it helps to pick the scabs and go over and over how much it hurts and reinforce the idea that people aren’t reliable and you can’t trust anyone.

I’ve recently lost a friend I’ve had for 20 years.

We were incredibly close and there for each other through every high and low but over the past year I found myself constantly let down, disappointed or ignored. I was understanding as we all have things going on so I gave them space and kept quiet. After not speaking for over a month I checked in but they played the ignorance card and apparently didn’t realise I had been in touch. They had abruptly stopped talking mid conversation but fair enough. Then next time they vanished and we didn’t speak for the entire summer. They were initiating conversations and when I replied to show an interest in what they had said I would be met with silence.

They have changed to someone that has zero respect for anyone, they have a partner they openly don’t care about, their family doesn’t want to know them, they were bullying people at their place of work where they have had three complaints in recent months.

In the end I said I no longer cared and I was no longer interested. I still can’t understand what’s caused them to act they way they have to push everyone away. Of course it’s all a big joke to them.

Look I do get what you're saying some friends can be very demanding, that is definitely not me. If anything my issue is that I'm probably not demanding enough and so it's easy perhaps for me to slide into the back ground when other people are more demanding and get more of a person's attention. I'm actually someone who is very self sufficient and happy in my own company as opposed to someone who is harassing friends with constant texts and drama and needing reassurances.

I'm sure you have your reasons for posting what you have but it's not really applicable in anyway to my situation. I think its perfectly reasonable to understand that people grow apart and that friendships end for various reasons and its ok to feel sad about that, and as I said in previous posts it's the relationship in the good times I remember having with a person that I'm sad about losing even when I understand that it didn't really exist in the same way anymore.

I was ghosted, reported anonymously to HR for some alleged misdemeanour (no case to answer; someone saw her putting the paperwork on the desk of the head of HR and tipped me off) and dumped by my closest friend (and godmother to my daughter). It was very strange; she was supposed to be coming to stay with us, didn’t turn up, and blocked me on everything. I contacted her via email to let her know that a mutual friend had died, recently. I told her I missed our friendship and she just said “We have both moved on and are in quite different places now.” No idea what I am supposed to have done.

Urgh yes! I hate that "we must catch up, let's catch up, I miss you!" and so you suggest some dates and then...... tumbleweed. Only for it to start all over again a few months later.

I dont get it- why fcking say it if you dont mean it? It makes me so pissed off- just be honest, say you are too busy to meet up or text me (despite being on SM constantly) rather than do the whole fake ass "I miss you- lets catch up" BS and then not reply. Its rude and dishonest.

I'd rather someone just say "so busy right now, but would love to chat at some point when I have some time" - its just wasting people's time to suggest catching up and then ignoring them when they suggest things.

So sorry OP- it hurts. Take back control and decide what YOU want going forward, it's very liberating. With those flaky friends I have decided not to engage and focus my time and effort on the people in my life who do genuinely care about me. It's a much healthier and better investment and it cuts out all the fake BS.

It is extremely painful when it happens, OP. I have slowly been losing a friend that has been in my life since I was 11 years old. He has supported me, and I him, through our teenage years, uni, jobs, first serious relationships, family issues, mental health… Typical “he knows deep stuff not even my best friend does”. We did not live in the same country for almost 10 years, but that never made a difference when it came to frequency of contact and how “normal” it all was whenever we would see each other again. I believe I am not deluded in this because, having done several international moves, I am fully aware of how friendships change when people move far or go abroad - I have “lost” many of those relationships simply due to them dwindling away and people not seeing each other anymore, no ill feelings.

It was after I had moved to the city he currently lives in, that we started to become more distant - he is now married, I went to the wedding, we live 10 mins away, but over the past year I have lost him almost completely. Invitations to catch up are met with “oh yeah sure” then never replied to when I suggest a place and time. If I try to initiate a conversation about something I am struggling with, or I know he is (from the wider social circle), it’s all brushed up and one starts wondering what went wrong, and when.

It all happened very suddenly and he was a key person in my life - so of course it is going to hurt even though I am an adult. It’s different than PP’s references to social friendships where a lack of contact for a few months isn’t taken too seriously, everyone knows people are busy etc. This is a different loss, it’s a more important friendship than someone I’d just meet for coffee every couple of months.

This has been a helpful thread, the friend who is slowly blowing me out is lovely. I haven’t a bad word to say about her, I feel sad and I will really miss her when/if it completely fizzles out.
We have supported each other through having cancer at the same time, my various other operations, lots of shite she’s been through, good times, good laughs, weight loss, weight gain, weight loss, weight gain, DGC for her, struggles our DC have had. We’ve know each other for twenty years, been good friends for about sixteen and then it moved onto best friends ten years ago. She doesn’t have any other friends so I feel privileged I made the cut for that long.

@whitneybaby what makes you think your friend is slowly dumping you just because they message less etc.

I've been messaging a close friend a lot less recently. I'm less available to them and I want to do less with them/ be less available to them. I'm not dumping them. I just have my work/DH/DC/wider family/ my own time/other friends to fit in too/ my hobbies. I'd come to realise this friend was consuming a lot of my time. Which imo is what they wanted as I feel they wanted me to themselves/at their beck and call/constantly available to them so they weren't lonely or on their own. I still love the time I spend with this person but there is just less of it.

Also to add I no longer want the type of night out that they do. Maybe i will change my mind and decide i like their type of nights out again. Maybe this is a phase. I don't know.

We are both 55.

Totally agree about putting in at least minimal effort. My ex best friend didn't wish me a Happy Christmas or New Year but popped up a week later in January looking for support for a gynecological procedure she was having that day. Go figure!

I guess part of my reason for posting is that it saddens me to see people ruminating over past friendships, and bringing the hurt up over and over again - and concluding from it either that they are disposable and insignificant to other people, or that other people are not to be trusted.

My hope is that people who feel this way can find a way to wear the hurt more lightly, to accept that it is a painful part of life and loss for everyone, and to prioritise spending time with people who make them feel good, and share their communication styles, rather than staying in friendships with people who don’t give them what they need, in the hope this will change.

Full disclosure; I am a low effort friend, and my dearest friends are also low effort friends, and we don’t love each other any less for not being in touch very often. But I am clearly not going to be a satisfying friend to someone with significantly different social needs or expectations. And neither of us would be wrong or a shit person: we’re just not compatible.

Some people are very ‘out of sight, out of mind’ - and I am actually not. My friends are always in my mind even when we are not in touch, and that’s one reason low effort friendships work for me: I hold my friends within me, somehow, and I know they hold me within them. But other people who process social information differently need more frequent contact in order to know that they are held in mind, and they haven’t just disappeared out of people’s lives.

And I do recognise the phenomenon of a friend or loved one changing beyond all recognition when their circumstances change, and how puzzling and sad this is. But I’ve also noticed how going over it and trying to understand what happened doesn’t help me grieve and accept and move on, but keeps me stewing in it, trapped in a sense of sadness and loss.

I’m not trying to be critical, I’m just hoping to offer a different perspective in which people might find more hope and happiness.