To end a friendship?

[justanotheruser18]

Have you ever ended a friendship because the other person was too negative? Am I unreasonable to consider doing this?

I don't really understand when people on MN talking about "ending friendships" etc, as if they are marriages.
If you find that spending time with someone is not a positive thing in your life, then spend less or no time with them. Isn't it as simple as that?

No, no-one should feel like they have to maintain a friendship with a mood hoover. Having a moan every now and again is fine, sucking the life out of every interaction is too much.

@YourWanMajella yes that's true but I have found that social media and WhatsApp have made it difficult for me to achieve desired distance.

@gettingtherequickly 😂 mood hoover.

Actually yes. I didn't "end it" as such but just let things fizzle out. I found it constantly draining as the focus was ALWAYS on them and their problems and never once asked about me or my life and how things were for me or anyone else for that matter and every comment from anybody would always be turned round back to them or why others ideas wouldn't work. There was also a lot of jealousy involved too I think. If I would say "how about doing this....?" Always a negative spin on why it was a bad idea yet no positive suggestions. It wasn't a depression or lack of confidence or anxiety issue But it did become depressing for me! Even if there wasn't a problem they'd find one. They expected me to do all the "work" in us getting together anyway, so in the end I just didn't bother.

Yep, done it a few times.

Once very overtly because she was causing me so much upset over my divorce.

A couple of other times where things just fizzled out - for example we were close when we worked together and lived a couple of towns apart but when we moved it was harder and clearly neither of us was particularly bothered about keeping it going.

Negativity is very draining and also very self indulgent. But you need to ask yourself why your friend is so negitive. Is she going through a hard time or is it just who she is?

My best friend went through a rough patch in her life for about five years and it was really hard to be around her sometimes as she was so negative and pessimistic. Tbh I think she has an anxiety disorder but won’t admit it. It started when she split with her uni boyfriend and then into her next relationship. She married a lovely guy but he was from abroad and could work at first do she was the sole breadwinner for many years. She had to take on a lot of responsibility and it was tough. She became very negitive and unable to see or do anything to alleviate her frustrations. Luckily, the situation changed and slowly she is returning to normality.

I did; I suppose you could say I ghosted him but this was about ten years ago before ghosting was a “thing”.
I realised that I felt so unhappy spending time with him. It was so exhausting. He would also put me down a lot and finally got to a point (on my birthday) where he made me cry. I realised that none of my other friends would ever do that to me. Basically went travelling for a few months and changed my number when I got back. It obviously wasn’t as easy as that but it was the best decision I ever made.

Yes with my best friend leading up to her getting married. She treat me like shit belittled me and i let her. Used to dread meeting up as i came away feeling so low about myself. I did go no contact and it came to a head one day when she asked why i stopped calling. It got very nasty we havent spoke since this was 6 years ago. The sad thing is i sometimes miss her.

A couple of times - not because of the negativity as such but because the friendships were both very unbalanced. Good friendships can usually withstand lengthy periods where one person is going through a hard time and needs to be "carried" for a bit, but if they just see you as a bit of blank wall that they can scream and cry at every time they see you, then it's not actually a friendship. (After years of providing a listening ear to one of my ex-friends, I admitted to her that I was on anti-depressants and having frequent suicidal thoughts. Her reaction was to say "but MY depression is worse than yours. Mine is PROPER depression", and then change the subject for good. The worst part was that she clearly didn't even realise that she'd said something wrong, because I don't think she even saw me as a real person with an inner life, just as a moving target for her to complain at. Incidentally, a couple of friends we'd formerly had in common were quite critical of me for phasing out my friendship with her, even though they'd all dropped her like a stone five years previously. That should probably have been a warning to me about those friends and their perception of my role in their lives too!)

I think two or three things. They contradict each other.

• friendships are precious if they are good.

• on here, there's a lot of 'ditch them'. I generally don't agree with those posts (although rarely say this)

• friendships aren't compulsory. If it's not working for you, fade away.

Told you it was contradictory!

Have you confronted them about this? It’s one of those things I think people need to be told if they’re doing it because it will be so destructive to them and their relationships they really should at least get the chance to be told.

Ending a friendship in a way, is harder than ending a relationship , it’s socially acceptable to end a romantic relationship, no one will question your decision, however ending a friendship is a totally different ball game, people can’t understand why you can’t just remain friends, what’s your problem? question your decision constantly, try and get involved with trying to get you to be friends again etc etc, and it can rumble on for years, and that is on top of all that the friend you want to remove from your life constantly hounding you as well, it’s exhausting. Friendships can be toxic and sadly it’s not always as easy as spending less time with them as a previous poster said, it can go way deeper than that.