Have you ever been a friend who's gone no contact?

[SayGoatRuinAQuote]

Based off another thread, but the opposing view.

I've never been ghosted, but I have once ghosted a good friend (well, not terribly good - obviously - but we'd been friends since we were little so there was an easy familiarity there).

She told a few mutual friends some incredibly private information about me that I'd only told her. I was so hurt, I couldn't even confront her. She's also one of these people who would say, "I have a big mounth, it's not my fault" and that would be that. Weirdly, I carried on being friends for another year or so, although with hindsight I can see I was mentally withdrawing. Then she did something fairly minor (cancelled very last minute on a concert we were meant to go to).

I then just totally withdrew (almost like I was waiting for the straw that broke the camels back). For a while I wanted to tell her exactly why, because I know she will have thought I was over-reacting about her not coming to the concert. But in the end I thought... what does it matter? I'm not trying to salvage anything and nothing she says will ever rebuild my trust in her. If I can't ever tell her anything personal again, what is the point in our friendship? Part of me hopes she realises the real reason I broke contact, but I also know she isn't nearly reflective enough.

I'd be interested to know if any of you have had a similar experience and what your reasons were for ghosting, rather than telling them exactly why you want to end the friendship.

I have, three times that come to mind easily.

1. It was a co-dependent friendship, and her behaviour was erratic and toxic - looking back, she most likely had a personality disorder. She had a go at me about something that was really unjust, and I had been working hard on myself and I didn't just capitulate as had been our pattern. I called her bluff on a threat she made and then I blocked her and removed myself from the entanglements I had with her life. The saddest part of the goodbye was when I dropped her things off with her boyfriend and I can't even remember what he said but the look on his face was that he was so resigned to the drama that he had in his life with her as a partner.

2. A friend who had got into the pattern of ringing me to complain about how awful her life was, (it wasn't that bad, and she wasn't doing the simple things that would improve it) and how she "had no friends". Apparently since I had moved away the daily phone calls didn't count as friendship still. Meanwhile my life was falling apart (relationship, career, house, health, family's health all went dramatically downwards at the same time) and yet the support was decidedly one way only - meanwhile I found out that I was the only one she would ring to have these long daily tearful rants to; our other friends got the fun loving happy version. She had a go at me about something I had done (that I had done to try to make her feel valued and included) and I was just done. This is the only one of the three I wish I had done something differently with - I wish I had found the words to have an upfront and clear conversation around boundaries and how drained I was getting. I had hinted, and she'd laughed them off, and I wish I'd have been direct, just in case it would have changed the trajectory.

3. A friend who once told me that she believed that equality of giving and receiving in friendships didn't have to be equal in individual relationships, but overall in all of her friendships. I don't share that worldview, and I had started to feel really used and unappreciated by the numerous time consuming and costly favours I was doing for her, and all of the emotional labour which was reciprocated less and less. We were very close and spoke every day, and the final straw was when I was hospitalised for a month (and in an induced coma for 9 days) and she didn't visit, didn't send me a text message, nothing apart from one generic "get well soon" reply to a Facebook status. I knew hand on heart that I'd have turned up in hospital, looked after her pets and house, been checking in with her frequently, you name it if the tables were turned. I had ceased to be useful to her the moment I was ill in hospital and that was that. Mutual friends have before and since fallen out with or ghosted her for similar reasons.

Yes, to my oldest friend from school. Every single time we would meet up I would end up feeling shit about myself. In hindsight I can see that we became very different people, she was a highly driven career woman (nothing wrong with that) and would look down on me and my lifestyle choices. Lots more I could go into but I won’t here. I think she used me to feel good about herself. The day she criticised my son’s weight was the day I decided to cut her out of my life. He was going through normal puberty. Part of me wishes she could see him now, total fitness fanatic and about to join the armed forces!
i am truly lucky to have a close group of amazing friends and I can see now that my ‘friendship’ with her was not real friendship at all.