Ghosted by friends of 20 years.

[batfink2605]

I realise that I may sound like I am in high school. I promise I am not, and just want someone to either to tell me to get a grip or offer advice. I apologise in advance for length but don't want to drip feed.

Been with my husband 18 years. When I met him, he had a bunch of male friends who he saw weekly. Some of the friendships naturally fizzled over the years. Maintained contact with Tom (so now been friends for 24 years). Tom is married to Laura and they have two children. Their youngest is same age as our youngest.
Tom is godfather to our eldest.

Tom and Laura moved 20 minutes away by car a couple of years ago but we still met every couple of months as a minimum (met up with all kids, walks etc). Tom has always been awful with communication so majority of contact has been via Laura.
However, since December 2024 it has shifted massively and we are at a loss.

• Husband has sent Tom 13 messages since Dec 24. Casual messages in relation to meeting up, say happy birthday etc. Not one response.
• only saw them 3 times in 2025. Fine when we did meet but hard to get Laura to commit.
• no acknowledgement of our youngest daughter's birthday in September
• saw them at end of November 25. All fine. Said we would need to arrange to meet up for Christmas presents
• cancelled on the weekend we agreed to meet up for Christmas. Didn't respond when we asked for a new date
• Laura has ignored all messages since January, including meeting up Feb half term
• husband also messaged Laura ( he is a teacher and wanted to see if wanted to meet over half term). No response.
• nothing for my birthday or husband's birthday
• sent Laura a message for her birthday but no response.

I know that truthfully they have ghosted us but it hurts. Friends for decades and all kids really friendly. My youngest even when to nursery where Laura worked.

Husband does not want to message. He says he has pride and what would we get anyway. He is absolutely gutted as he has no idea what had happened. There have been no arguments at all so it is bizarre.
I want to message to ask but also need to respect Husband. If there had been an incident when we last met I would get it, but it was friendly as normal.

Do I accept the end of a friendship or send a message?

Families people just move on at times and people come in and out of each others lives. Dont be worried or hurt about it- concentrate on yours x

There’s no excuse for ghosting, it’s such a hurtful way of ending a friendship. Although I guess there’s no nice way of ending a 25 year friendship, it’s never going to feel ok if the reason is they don’t want to be friends anymore.

Its really hurtful when a friendship ends, it’ll get easier over time.

Hate ghosting its crap. Not easy op. You can do no more..

Maybe they viewed the friendship more between the men (although you felt close to the wife) and Laura got sick of the “wife work” of keeping in touch and you haven’t heard from them because as you say Tom isn’t good at keeping in touch.

It’s hard but I have never heard of anyone officially contacting someone and ending a friendship and giving a reason? No one has all the friends from all their life so it’s just a process of shifting and fading as life is busy. I think if you haven’t heard back after 3 approaches you should leave it. As others have said likely stuff going on in their life / marriage / elderly parents / health / kids. 3 times a year is loads to meet up IMHO if someone has moved away and if you both have expanding and evolving careers and social lives. ‘Ghosting’ is just a new word for stuff that always happened. Has anyone on this thread ever told anyone that they were dropping them because x,y,z - maybe it’s easy if you have had a row - but if you just get bored or their politics are tedious etc or you have more interesting opportunities or if you want to socialise less because of your own choices / preferences / issues - then it doesn’t require an announcement or an explanation - just expect the other to read the room.

It might not be about you both at all. They may well be going through a tough life situation. I dropped a good friend of mine who was friends from school. She was being difficult but I massively regret my actions I know I caused it. I did it because my marriage was collapsing and I went into myself. I shut out everyone and by the time I became a resemblance of normal again I felt I couldn’t message after such a length of time.

keep communication open and see, they might be going through something you aren’t aware of.

Sometimes people just can't face all their friends if something bad is happening in their life. A break-up, a health problem with them or the family, a money problem, who knows? It's so easy to think I just can't bear to talk to anyone just now, and then lose track, it's not necessarily because they don't "like" you any more after 20-odd years. But if it is just because they cba so decided to totally ignore you that is just really nasty behaviour.

My thinking exactly.
Something to this effect could've been brewing 'behind the scenes' for a while. You never know what goes on behind closed doors OP.
Hopefully not the case, but maybe your husband is being economical with the truth...

Or could it just be perhaps they didn't value your friendship as much as you did theirs.

Whatever the reason, ghosting someone is so bloody rude. I've been there too.

One reason that hasn't already been suggested is different parenting styles or incompatible children? I'd never ghost anyone, but I have quietly let friendships "drift" when I found my DC were consistently upset or overhelmed at the end of a catch up because another child had different rules and respect for boundaries that didn't work well with ours (such as unrestrained, boisterous and curious vs cautious, sensitive and shy). It's one subject that's pretty much impossible to raise without offending. Throw in a life event like poor health or strained marriage and the friendship could end up in too hard basket.
I'm sorry, it's still crap though. I've had a couple of close friendships end, and you move on, accept that it was "for a season" etc but it does hurt.

No person with any grasp of boundaries would messages someone 13 times without a single response.

Indicates to me that the couple may just have had enough of the OP’s husband

This really is a typical case of you thinking more of them than they think of you as friends. I have been there. I hardly make friends these days for that reason now. Saves any hurt.

I think you’re just deliberately kicking the OP while she’s down now. You don’t need to keep repeating this.

Respectfully, we don’t know that.

People change 💐

@batfink2605 - did they send a Christmas card? I always think being struck off someone’s Christmas card list is a) a sign of divorce or b) we can’t be bothered with you.

Obviously a lot of people no longer send cards, but keep in touch some other way. If all contact dwindles to cards, and then they stop, well, that’s it then.

Like some other posters, I think I’d rather be ghosted than be told I’m a crashing bore ! I can imagine that’s why I’ve been gradually dropped by people, but I really don’t want it spelled out!

I had to go NC with someone after 20 years. The texting, ringing etc was off the scale. Calling from withheld numbers. Voicemails. Just made me hate her even more and no I couldn’t have told her why I was doing what I did. No one could have. I’d seen her in action when others had drifted away.

The person I ghosted very much did deserve it. I’ll say no more

Well, there’s sometimes a falling out, which leads to a breakdown of the relationship. Or someone moving away, so you lose touch. This has happened to me with several friends.

Or your DC are friends with each other and there’s been a falling out and they’re no longer friends. This happened to me a few years ago. I see the mum friend out and about, we pass the time of day but there’s no expectation on either side for there to be anything beyond that.

People talk about ‘ghosting’ when friends have stopped responding to them for no reason, quite suddenly sometimes, like in the case of the friends of the OP and her DH. I have been ghosted myself, years ago, by a small group of uni friends. With hindsight, they were never as close to me as they were to each other. It’s sad but that’s life.

Hard to know. Did kids fall out or the husbands? Op I met a nice woman through our girls sports. We met every few months. I sent few texts. Nothing. Have to leave it now. Its hurtful though.

@batfink2605 so you’ve had zero contact since they cancelled at Christmas and there were zero problems between you all, so this isn’t about you and DH, this is about what’s going on with them. You have no idea what happens behind closed doors and they may not be in a good place, so the thought of meeting up for a ‘nice’ time is really not suitable. Laura understandably won’t fill you in on this, Tom may not want to either as they hope things will change and everyone be none-the-wiser.

If you do not hear from them soon though (don’t message) your DH should pick up the phone and call his friend for them to go out for a pint, just the two of them. They can catch-up and chat then, he’ll soon find out if there are issues his friend is dealing with.

Why didn’t you just tell her why and put her out of her misery? She’d have been really hurt and confused from what you did.

Spineless! If you had a problem you should have just told her, then walked away.

They have been friends for 24 years, have some empathy!

You should reach out and tell her this! It could make her day to hear from you.

But if you clearly see the ghosted party is distraught from it, as they keep texting, calling leaving voicemails they are basically begging to be told why this is happening to them.

People should do the kind thing and reply to at least one of their messages as to why. The ghosted party may not like what they read but has heard why so can move on. Those that don’t have zero respect for people’s feelings.

If you were aware of her character and situation you wouldn’t say that. She had an undiagnosed personality disorder. I was one in a long line of people who had to walk away in the end. She was destroying our mental health. I know I did the right thing.