To ask is it ever ok not to tell someone why your ending friendship?

[ladystarkers]

I’m torn.

I don't think they were being intentionally unkind. I think the whole thing was just a mess tbh. I also think i was really thick skinned and because it wasn't something i would do, was very very slow to pick up on. So every time they got an email they must have been thinking 'Christ when is this person going to get the hint and just fuck off!'

Since then i've kind of gone the other way and if i don't get a reply to my first texts to people i don't try again and a few friendships have slid a bit because i was always the organiser. But i can't bear the thought of it all happening again - altho i'll never love any new friends like i loved these people. That's gone forever now. I was a fool about it all.

As PP it all depends on the circs, if you've drifted, hinted, even said it out loud and they still aren't getting it then it's understandable to just stop replying.

Generally there is no need for this to be either/or. If a friendship has run its course it will die out gradually. Sometimes they die off and then will resurrect a few years later if circumstances change or your paths cross again. I have quite a few old school friends who I didn't see for 10 or 20 years as we built our adult lives but to whom I am once again very close.

I can only think of two situations where there was an abrupt cut off - one happened to me after I had my kids. Someone I was reasonably close to stopped returning my calls and I guessed from comments she had made about other friends that she considered my married/settled life to be too far removed from hers for the friendship to continue.
In the other situation I let the friendship go, she had severe, long standing addictions and mental health problems and whilst we weren't 'close' I saw her reasonably frequently. I realised gradually that the friendship was entirely one sided, with me acting as a permanent witness to her illness and symptoms and expected to be 100% supportive even when she was behaving outrageously badly. I am not proud of myself but I decided it was not a true friendship and stopped contacting her or returning her calls. I still feel guilty about it. It was a completely selfish thing to do, but the feelings of lightness and relief it gave me not to have to see her or deal with the constant crises were totally worth it.

I found out that a 'friend' was spreading very damaging gossip about me. I went round and confronted her about so she was under no illusion about how I felt. Everyone sided with her because she was the queen bee. I later sent 'the letter' to another friend in the group. It still hurts even after 20 years and the whole thing was my reason for coming on MN to make sense of their behaviour.. If I had talked on MN if it had existed then I might have behaved differently. Who knows. I don't place much store on 'friends' now. Ghosting must hurt if you genuinely have no idea what went wrong. I think it's cowardly.

I dont think anybody needs to be told a list of their failings really. If someone gets told repeatedly that they are "too busy" most people would know what that meant.
I think friendships should be taken with a pinch of salt and that in life people come and go really. I would just let someone just go next time.

MrsK I remember your story well from previous posts and I still feel your pain when I read it again.

I'm being ghosted at the moment. It's so confusing. I text her asking if she wanted to get together as it's been months. She said yes to meeting in the hols. I text her asking when she was free to come over. Nothing. Even though she was enthusiastic about it in the text. We used to see each other every week, she described me as her sister to her mum. She is rubbish at empathy when I've had bad things happen, but I'm no drama queen, I sort out my problems. She wants to wallow in her problems, which is different to me. But I'm not trying to change her. When I moved to a bigger house that was the start of the ghosting. It has bothered me because I don't know what I've done wrong. I'm a loyal person so it's really hurt my feelings. I think it's unkind to ghost another person. I stopped being friends with two women and told them what my problem was. One was taking drugs and the other was a narcissist.

I think it's incredibly cruel to ghost someone, with no indication why. It's happened to me several times and caused mental breakdown as I desperately tried to work out why, so I could avoid it happening again. It's had a huge long-term impact and I still get nightmares and flashbacks which get worse if I get close to someone as I guess subconsciously I'm terrified it will happen again.

It strikes me that if you are unwilling to tell someone why, your reasons aren't that good. If someone truly deserves to be ghosted, you will have conviction in your own reasoning, and be able to calmly state that, and no-one can use it against you.

Depends on what 'telling' would accomplish. If it's a situation where a friendship no longer has 'common ground' then it's better to speak. By common ground I mean those situations where this may occur, i.e. one friend marries, has a child, develops other interests, develops strong opinions (politics, religion) etc that the other doesn't share. It's kinder to say 'We've grown apart and the friendship no longer serves a positive purpose for either of us' or words to that affect.

BUT, if the 'friend' has been cruel, dishonest, deceitful, or bullying then why bother? They aren't going to sit silently and listen to you and will spend the time arguing with you, or worse insulting, guilting, or tearing you down. Why put yourself through that? You may have the momentary satisfaction of telling them 'what they did', but in turn you will probably walk away with even more negativity and bad behaviour taking up space in your head.

In most cases, speaking one's mind to get 'closure' is bollocks. If someone smacks me in the face, I'm not going to get within smacking distance simply to tell them how much it hurt so they can smack me again!

I've remembered I have been ghosted! By a lovely couple who had DCs similar age to mine.

I had a long friendship with them (all at University together) and introduced them to another good but newer friend when we were all expecting DCs at the same time. The new friend got divorced and became close to the couple and suddenly they didn't take calls or make arrangements with me or DH. Was very weird but we suspect the new friend bitched and lied about us to bond with them. She had form.

I still think that ghosting is better than a face off. Although we would have said 'she's lying!', they possibly wouldn't have believed us. Who needs the drama?

When I moved to a bigger house that was the start of the ghosting. That is it in a nutshell. It wasn't your fault. She was jealous.

I've been ghosted, and I've ghosted or upfront told someone what went wrong. None of it is very pleasant at all. It all stings. But the person I told (that he had made me extremely uncomfortable lingering over watching some porn that he had accidentally switched to) retorted fairly that it was not my place to try to hold him to account and he could understand why I didn't have many friends at the time). Fair point. We can control how we respond to people, but we shouldn't aim to control them. That's what I took away from it anyway.

ChristmasCarcass But you could text them and say why before blocking them. Although if they've done something awful it should be obvious! But when the person has no idea why it's incredibly cruel. I suppose the more unfair/undeserved the ghosting is, the less likely it is the ghoster will explain, because they don't actually have a decent explanation.

Allroads I think that's why I'm being ghosted! I can't go into details because they're very specific and outing. Thank you for sharing.

I don't think there's any good way of doing it. I get it that friendships don't always last forever, circumstances change and most just drift away without any particular hurt on either side.

However, I would add that I've had the message detailing every last fault of mine followed by unfollowing across all social networks which does really hurt - it came out of the blue which surprised me, but clearly didn't for her. I am not sure if it would have been worse if she'd just distanced herself. Most hurtful part was that she led our entire group to unfriend me at the same time - the rest offered no reasons of their own, just unfriended me at the same time. Literally went from a friendship group of 6 or so, to none overnight. It was as if the friend had said to them all, its me or her, so they all chose her.

I think it can be cruel.

It happened to one of my best friends this year after a 20 year friendship. She has no idea what went wrong and probably never will. Very painful for her just to be written off like that with no opportunity to discuss/address the mystery problem.

MrsKoala your story sounds very hurtful but some good has perhaps come out of it for you.. sometimes we just need to reset things in our lives.

It sort of happened to me, but it was me not accepting the ghosting. A friend and I were in contact every day, usually online, text that sort of thing, I would say hardly a day went by where we didn't speak.

Out the blue, she stopped speaking to me. Literally stopped dead. She was online but would become unavailable when I said my normal 'hi', didn't pick up the phone, literally cut me off. I have to add here she was the one who would be opening the conversation far far more times than me, so I wasn't a needy friend, it was more the other way round.

I tried a few times like the pp said. 'Is everything OK?' or 'Has your Mum taken a turn for the worse?' and 'Just wondered what's going on?'

Nothing. Zilch. Ignores me. After a few tries over the space of a month, I decided to take the matter in my own hands because what she was doing was rude and horrible and I'd had enough of being puzzled about it.

I wrote saying as I had no idea what was going on, I was bowing out the friendship and wished her well on all the stuff she had going on in her life. So I felt in my head I was the one who'd ended the friendship not her (although that wasn't really the case)

At least, for me, it meant I wasn't wondering and hoping and I'd taken the power back. I heard since she was slagging me off so for me, the best thing I ever did was to email her.

I ghosted someone last year, because I couldn't stand her casual racism any more. I was always an 'everyone is entitled to their own opinions' kinda person, but then when she said to me, while laughing, that white people should only have children with white people, it was it for me. I am married to a Pakistani. She knows that. She said to me that it was ok, as my kids could pass for white.

I am quite sure that even now, she doesn't know why I have ghosted her. She probably thinks I am rude. If you need to ghost someone, do so. Relationships are only worth the emotional work you are willing to put into them.

My supposed “BF” ghosted me because I declined to be a bridesmaid at her wedding (for various practical reasons). She couldn’t understand and after saying several times: I’ve got a lot to say to you but won’t, suddenly disappeared and said: give me some space. I messaged her a while later and asked what’s going on and she just went off about me about not being in touch (despite her saying don’t talk to me). She then went all mental and was quite mean then blocked me.

It’s really upset me but I think that a friendship is 50/50 and if the other 50 isn’t helping or contributing to the relationship then it’s not a true friendship.

Watching with interest as I’m going through this at the moment.

Friend for over 7 years, pretty close, talk every day, see several times a week. We’ve been on holiday together as families etc.

I’ve just felt stifled for quite a long time. Her drinking is out of hand. She’s made my DD cry whilst drunk. I’ve felt bullied into doing things I don’t want. She has good points but at the end of the day the bad was really starting to outweigh the good.

I tried just declining invitations, not replying to texts, not answering the phone etc. However, it didn’t work. She just couldn’t see it. Too thick skinned and self centred to even notice anything was wrong.

Just before Christmas I had to text to say that I had a lot on and I would be in touch when it was over. I don’t intend to get in touch again. Is that ghosting? I’m not sure.

I do know that telling her why won’t be well received so I’m not volunteering the information. If she asks, I will give a watered down version.

I just know that the relief I feel is immense. So, it’s the right decision for me and my family.

I think it's better to go for a gentle fade. So not a big song and dance and nor so rude as to just go no contact over night. Just let it get longer and longer before returning calls and so on.

The reason I say that is that life is a long game and you never know.

What I mean is -

you never know where that friend may turn up in future - she could be in a position of power over you -end up being your boss/your DPs boss/ a next door neighbour/the chairman of your local organisation where you volunteer.

you never know how your feelings may change over time (I know someone who recently rekindled a friendship with a ghosted friend because the friend had a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the ghoster said life was too short)

you never know (sounds brutal but can be life) whether she may be useful to you at some point in future.

All these things mean it is usually a bad idea to have a big song and dance about why someone is so dreadful because that is rarely recoverable.

Slow fade.

Sissy if you sent a message saying you have a lot going on, that’s not ghosting imho - it’s a reasonable way to drift off.

My one really hard ghosting experience was someone I went on a couple of dates with. seems ridiculous to be upset about and not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but I just couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t that I wanted a relationship but I did think we had potential as friends. What was really upsetting for me is that I imagined someone who wasn’t me but a lot more fragile getting treated like this. So I called them on it:

I wrote a message saying ‘look, I’m quite a tough person but if I wasn’t, ignoring someone when they don’t know why could really affect them. Hope you’re well and best of luck in life’

I immediately got a reply saying ‘so sorry I’m a shit - I just can’t face telling someone I’m not ready for a relationship. Let’s meet up for lunch.’

We did, we had a pleasant time and then we said ‘we must do this again’.....

...and neither of us ever wrote a thing to the other again. Perfect ending.

you never know (sounds brutal but can be life) whether she may be useful to you at some point in future.

If my 'ghoster' ever decides I'm useful again, and turns up at my door, she'll be firmly told to fuck off.

whenlove seconded.

Thank you derxa.

I think I may have ghosted an ex-friend, but I'm not really sure.

She was never a BFF, but we were good mates for over 20 years. She's always been someone who likes to compartmentalise her life, and she had lots of other close friends, most of whom rarely met each other. Our friendship had always been rather on her terms because of this.

As the years went on, she developed a bit of a drink problem. We still saw each other fairly regularly, but she became more and more unreliable and would often cancel at the last minute with barely credible excuses, some of which turned out to be lies (basically, she'd got a better offer!).

By this time, she'd moved 50 miles to a town a few miles from me, and basically expected me to be her unpaid chauffeur on boozy nights out. Among the last straws were me booking a holiday cottage for us both, and her coming down 3 days late, claiming pressure of work. When pissed on the night she finally arrived, she disclosed that she was now shagging her lodger and she'd opted to spend the weekend with him rather than come away with me, as planned. She also invited her son to join us for "an evening" but he ended up staying with us for 3 of the 4 nights left, and she expected me to do a 40 mile detour to take him back to his digs "on the way home". On another occasion, we went out for lunch in a pub frequented by some social and professional contacts of mine, when she got appallingly drunk, loud and foul-mouthed and I was profoundly embarrassed.

My now DP was also a good friend of us both. When we got together, she sent him several really abusive texts, calling me a "fucking bitch" and saying, among other things, that I'd only been friends with her so I could get close to him (which was funny in a way, because we'd both thought she was trying to get us together).

She still acted like we were friends, and he only showed me the texts when she'd broken yet another arrangement to meet, and I was very upset.

We had no contact for several months, until our paths crossed by chance and she just acted like nothing had happened. I was so gobsmacked I couldn't say anything, and she'd arrived (drunk again) just as we were leaving.

I've never explained why I want nothing more to do with her, but reading this thread makes me wonder if I ought to, should the occasion ever present itself. Mind you, she has such a selective memory that she'd probably refuse to believe me and/or it would just turn into a huge row.