I've just made the decision to cut ties with a long standing friend for pretty much the same reason, I'm so tired of feeling hurt every time she lets me down. She left our town after a divorce which was not her choice, she was heartbroken and couldn't be around anything that reminded her of her 'old' life. She left and I was devastated but completely understood. We kept in touch via text and email, I told her that I'd always be there for her and that I understood that she couldn't bring herself to meet me.
I fell pregnant and told her via email, she congratulated me etc but I didn't expect her to be involved as a friend because after her divorce this was one of her biggest points of devastation. Fast forward 2 years and she started to suggest meet ups, we met once with a large group of us and no children, we had a great time and said we should do it again soon. She suggested it to me several times but then cancelled every time, despite once being when I'd already got on the train to meet her (2 hour journey) and her excuse was that she was too tired from her night out.
Then I find out she's being having fairly regular nights out with a mutual friend: I get the hysterical phone calls and suicidal emails and mutual friend gets fun nights out and shows in the West End. Pissed off doesn't come close. Anyway, I realised that that the baby issue might still hurt so I didn't mention to her or anyone else that I felt a bit hurt and left out. I just decided that I wouldn't be too available for the advice should it be needed, but I'd not make her feel abandoned.
I stopped being the one to get in touch, so that sort of spurred her on to contact me which I thought was a positive sign. However three cancellations late I realise that this friendship needs to end. This weekend was the last straw, she said she was desperate to meet me and my child (first time, he's almost 2) and I made quite difficult arrangements to make sure I could go, we'd organised and paid for travel to her. And of course, 11pm the night before she texts to cancel citing reasons to do with new boyfriend. I'm so hurt.
I'm not only going to continue to stop being the person to initiate contact but I'm not going to reply to her messages at all. I'm planning on doing this in a phased way, I'll take a few days to reply, then a few weeks until I just 'forget' altogether. I'm not trying to be awful and abandon my friend but it seems that she's moved on, she's having a great time with other friends and her boyfriend yet she can't include me in that for whatever reason. I think I have to accept that our friendship is over and if she questions my distancing then I will sit and talk to her about it. I can't just talk to her about it now because I think her mental health is frail and she doesn't need to guilt. But I've sat in tears for yet another weekend because my friend doesn't care about me, I've had PND and she was my closest friend, I did tell her but she didn't offer any support she just said it was normal.
Some friends are flaky because they don't have the courage to just break off the friendship. If you're sick of the cycle then perhaps it's time to just break it off for her? Look after yourself, if it's making you feel awful then you need to break it off.