To ask if a friend has ever abruptly cut you out?

[Homeishappiness]

My friend has and I'm sad about it.

We were good friends, saw each other a lot, had a lot in common. I moved some miles away and I saw her twice in an eight month period (fine) but she and I emailed, texted one another reasonably regularly.

She went away in January, sent me some pictures and I replied saying it looked beautiful.

Have heard nothing since - texts and emails have been ignored (I know she's safe as she owns a small business and that's running well.)

Has anyone else just suddenly never heard from someone again?

Great I hope the CBT is helping!

Yes, it happens to me all the time, I never know what I'm supposed to have done wrong, sigh...,.,

I live in fear of it happening again with current people in my life.

A boyfriend also did that as well and just acted like nothing had happened, that really hurt.

I suspect I'd add another facet to that, Gin. Yes, I think a lot of people on this thread will have 'looked to themselves' and thought "what on earth could I have done?"

Sometimes people find it hard to maintain a friendship when the main thing that you had in common in the first place is no longer applicable. School gate friendships can evaporate when the children are at different schools, work friendships change when you don't work together any more..

I have had a number of friends suddenly cut me out and subsequently found out that they were having trouble conceiving (having had no idea at the time), so seeing me with DD (albeit with me having lost another two babies in the meantime) was painful for them. Once they have either come to terms with it or had children of their own, the friendship has picked up again.

Serene that's dreadful - I shudder to think what she would say about my house/ parenting skills!

The CBT is great, thanks. And actually even the therapist was a bit shocked at what had happened!

aaww thanks Keith. I didn't mean my post to sound quite so attention seeking. I was posting in a hurry before swimming. What i meant really is that some people find it harder to make and keep friends. And i seem to be one of them. I have temped and worked all over and never gelled with anyone. I get on fine on a superficial level but no one i've met seems to warm to me that much. I never had any friends at school really, none at college and apart from exH had no friends at uni. It has to tell you something. I'm just a massive pain in the arse!

I think as you get older making friends is harder. People in their 30s usually have already established networks. So it's very hard to break into them.

My NCT group were lovely tho. And tho i moved away i keep in contact with them 3 yrs on. I really miss them - they are lovely people. Sorry for your experience Serene. Some people are just a bag of cocks.

Tbh I have distanced myself from a lot of people in recent years as I have changed a lot.

Before kids I was a bit of a pushover and therefore a magnet for needy people, but becoming a parent has taught me to be assertive which in turn has meant stepping back from needy people.

So it isn't that anyone has done anything wrong as such, just that the dynamics of the friendship have changed so as to be unworkable.

Mrs K...I agree... some people are just a bunch of cocks...

I thought we gelled quite nicely on the one occassion we actually met MrsK.. Apart from when you forced me to look at your manky feet obviously, but I am prepared to overlook that

Soooo... those of you saying you hated to be cut off (and I can understand that), how would you really feel if someone who'd cut you off got back in touch after 10/ 15 years?

I ask because I have been guilty a number of times, and one particularly preys on my mind. I was brought up in an emotionally abusive household, struggled with self-esteem and depression through teens and tweens, never liked getting close to people, and when I did let them through immediately felt totally excruciatingly ashamed of myself, leading to further depression. Difficult to explain if you haven't experienced it... At one stage I finally decided I couldn't carry the past any further, and dropped everyone I'd known through teens. Is it worth getting in touch o wise mumsnetters? If only to say it wasn't you it was me, bye again? I'll happily admit to being a coward, an idiot, not very emotionally intelligent and anything else you like.

I would say that if you do get in touch rainbow, don't expect anything. You might be ignored, you might get abuse, you might get a lovely warm response. But overall they are under no obligation to acknowledge you and may not be bothered at all about you getting back in touch. Don't jump right in there with the "I'm a coward" stuff, just say "hey I know I disappeared all those years ago, it was a really complicated time for me, I'm sorry for any hurt I caused. You were a good friend and I still think about you and wonder how your life is going. If you'd like to have a chat let me know," and just leave it at that.

That's about what I was thinking. It's such a long time ago now. Thank you.

Hi all who responded to my post - of course it's not always the fault of the person who's been ditched. I also agree that sometimes it's down to the cutter outer's personal circumstances perhaps depression or ttc etc. And that there are different types of ditcher - from close friend to school mum friend and the former is going to hurt more.

But often in my experience, when people are shocked by being dumped by a friend, they often cannot see what others can see very clearly. That they are either hard work/demanding, thoughtless or somewhat self obsessed and simply not worth being friends with. I think it's worth having a good look at yourself or asking a partner or someone you trust and love and who will be honest with you what they think.

My best friend since school. We met up for drinks once a fortnight and spoke almost every day. She was instrumental in getting me and dh together (dh is her dh's brother) and seemed so happy when we went on our first date. Then, after about a week, she stopped returning my texts and started ignoring me on fb. I dropped by her house once or twice for a chat and she'd tell me she was going out and had no time.

I gave up trying about 4 months later. I felt awful because I don't know what has changed.

It's now 5 years on and we have hardly any contact. She was "ill" when dh and I married last year and, although we buy presents for her daughter at Xmas and birthdays, etc, she never buys for my sons. She gets dsd a birthday present, though.

I still have her on fb and I have noticed she has done the same to her last 2 best friends since me! One minute, they're inseparable, next, they're dumped and she's onto the next one.

I still feel hurt. Especially when she doesn't acknowledge my children as part of the family.

It has happened to me a couple of times and was really hurtful. Luckily I have enough real friends to be able to shrug it off to a certain extent but I grieved for one of them for a few years even so.

For those upset at not being given a reason, obviously it is confusing and hurtful but I think it helps to realise that you don't need a reason to get 'closure' from something like this. The only real way to get closure is to forgive them, forgive yourself for anything you might have done to cause it and then accept within yourself that it happened and that everything happens for a reason and you will now be moving on to better things.

Gin, I think it's actually pretty natural to DO those things when you find yourself frozen out, if only as part of a search for a reason. I know I asked other friends who are known to be very straight talking for their opinions for example.

Your second paragraph really does read as if you think the majority of dropped people deserve it. I don't know if that's true, perhaps it is, but being hard work or self obsessed still doesn't mean someone deserves to be treated badly. Or that actually they are behaving like that for a period because of difficult things in their life that are not permanent. Or that perhaps a chat with them about to change dynamics in the friendship isn't worth trying.

Obviously I feel quite defensive here! But then again I actually couldn't just cut someone off unless they'd done something actively harmful to me or my family, so I would think of other things first.

Spotty - sorry if I've upset or offended you. Not my intention. Just think it's useful going forward in life if we acknowledge and subsequently tweak traits that might be off putting in a friendship. I'll shut up now!

I admit to agreeing that I wouldn't want to hear the truth particularly. My one large friendship falling out did involve a couple of people telling me things and it was incredibly hurtful. The truth was really that they didn't like me. In a way, that's fine. I don't expect to be liked by everyone but the situation as a whole was horrible. I did question myself a lot and asked people for feedback but then, I have a lot of friends some of whom I've known since school. The group of women who ditched me are really one small part of my friendships so I don't believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with me (although obviously I have flaws).

For me, going through a tough time was also a part of it - I was really struggling. But really, I've supported people through hard times and not resented it or cut them out. Of course sometimes people are too much of a drain but sometimes people just aren't the supportive friends you thought they were and it's difficult to judge that without having been there.

oh serenejean. i'm so sorry that happened to you.

Gin, no worries, like I said I'm a bit defensive. I get your point but it was rather a blunt one! For example, in my case one of the things I was dealing with was the reaction and aftermath of my stepdaughter being extremely and distressingly ill and then dying, and the ongoing support my husband needed. So it's possible I was manifesting less than brilliant behaviour with those I saw regularly and thought of as close friends, but in their position I would have done quite a lot more to help me work through ways I could be easier to be around rather than just shut me off. When I did what you suggest and asked others for their opinion, not one had experienced me as difficult but of course dynamics are different in different relationships and it's entirely possible to be a pain in the neck in one situation and not in others.

So I think there probably is learning when this happens, if you have the insight, but also situations can be complicated and non-universal.

Serenejean, I'm not sure if it's any consolation but my experience of the NCT has been that, in some cases, it attracts a very particular type of person - insecure, competitive, social climbing types. Essentially some see it as friend-buying service, where they pay an eyewatering amount of money to be in an exclusive group of "suitable" mums - ie mums just as snobby as they are. If you don't fit into the NCT norm of middle class professional with certain "standards" then you're ostracised. This isn't something promoted by the NCT itself, I think it's just a side effect of the NCT's image as supporting a particular type of parent who has enough money to afford the fees and who signs up to the particular ethos of the NCT - natural birth, breastfeeding etc. It breeds quite a toxic culture in some cases and I think you fell victim to that.

Strangely enough in two of the cases where I was cut out it wasn't because the people hated me but were very possessive of me and wanted me themselves then stropped when that couldn't happen. In the other case, the person in question has had a lot of upheaval in the last few years, I was critical and he couldn't take it. So I precipitated that really and I regret it in some ways although the criticism was warranted.

The only way to deal with this problem on a personal level IMO is to have a long hard look at yourself, try to be as happy with yourself as you can possibly be and then accept that people are funny and will sometimes do inexplicable and hurtful things. Try to be true to yourself and be happy with yourself so that if things do go wrong then you can say "Oh well I tried my best," and move on. There will be people who like you for you, genuinely. But you have to like yourself first.

Callindana and last user - thank you.

I think you are right about the nct in particular, although I feel I was a bit stupid as I bought into the nct mythology that these women were close friends simply because we went through the newborn bit together . It seemed that everyone I knew who had had a baby had made nct friends for life etc so I think I bought into that and assumed perhaps also because I was going through a tough time that the others understood because had assumed we were all closer friends than we were in reality.

There was something quite vitriolic about it as you say which may stem from the type of people attracted to it, not forgiving of people they deem inferior. Also touched a real nerve for me (working class background))

I can laugh a bit about it now but only with dh who taps the jar of coffee in our kitchen regularly and remarks 'only instant'

I can give my own perspective on why you wouldn't tell someone the reason you are ditching them.

In my case, I didn't cut the friendship dead but I have backed off a lot to the point where we virtually never see each other. There are lots of things going on as our lives have taken very different directions and we have profoundly different ideas, lifestyles, children etc now. But we have been friends for over 20 years so just killing the friendship doesn't seem right.

In my case, the death knell was finding nasty posts about myself on a well-known forum. There is no question this so called best friend was talking about me and it was definitely her. I have never told her I know but it has coloured my view of our friendship to the extent that actually, I don't like her too much anymore nor want to spend time with her. FWIW, the posts weren't true and in one case, complete fabrications. I also heard third party gossip about me that can only have come from her. So sad. I don't think I owe her an explanation for not being her best friend anymore, she certainly isn't mine. If you asked her why I don't really spend much time with her anymore, I guarantee she would be as confused as so many people on this thread!!!! She did do something wrong though.

We were very good friends with our next door neighbours.Same age as us-we went out together, on hols together.spent a lot of time together-even Xmas dinner.We even asked them to be our kids' guardians.Supported them through unsuccessful IVF cycles......all things that friends do.
5 years ago,my DH lost his job.After a few weeks we noticed that NDN seemed to be backing off a bit-tried to arrange get togethers with them which they were always too busy for,or just drinks at ours,which,again,they could never make.
3 years ago, they moved house.They never even told us they were thinking about it-the for sale sign went up,they sold really quickly and never even said goodbye when they left.They never gave us a forwarding address and we haven't got a clue where they have gone.
Within 24 hours,they had unfriended and blocked us on FB- and had done the same with any mutual friends we had.They had also got their family members to do the same who we were friends with (I used to childmind for her sisters 2 kids and was unfriended and blocked by them too!).
To this day, we don't know why they did it.