To worry I've treated this person badly

[Leftcheekrightcheek]

I was very close friends with someone for a number of years and would see or speak to her most days - we were each other's main confident.

Then a year or so ago our lives started to head down different paths, or rather she took a sharp turn off the path I'm still following. I actually thought this would cause our friendship to drift and realised I'd become too reliant on her and decided to make an effort to widen my social circle. I also found myself becoming increasingly irritated and annoyed by certain personality traits of hers. They're not things she can easily change and I don't dislike her but started feeling that I needed to distance myself and not have her as a close friend anymore as she can be an attention seeking drama queen.

So I started the distancing process. Stopped initiating contact, was slow to respond to her messages, stopped reacting to her prolific fb posts, too busy to meet up etc etc. Instead of the friendship slowly drifting like I expected, her persistence intensified and she eventually asked if she'd done anything to offend to which I replied that I was just very busy (which is actually true these days!).

After I declined yet another invitation to meet up several weeks ago I've not heard from her since. So it seems I finally got what I was aiming for!

However, I feel guilty! She often posts "woe is me" type stuff on fb and in the past I'd always be one of the first to react. She seems to be going through a particularly tough time at the moment, although I do now believe a lot of her issues are of her own making. I've ignored every post and let others do the ((((hugs)))). We have a few mutual friends who have mentioned "poor X" and asked if I've seen her lately to which I've been non committal muttering about being "too busy". I'm sure sooner or later people will realise we're no longer friends and will think I'm a cold hearted cow

Honestly folks, AIBU or did I treat this friend like shit and handle the whole thing badly?!?

That was a horrible thing to do to a friend.

Being told the truth can be brutal too, it's heart breaking when a close friend basically announces that they don't like you enough to make the effort anymore. And you still end up wondering 'BUT WHY??' There's no nice way to end a friendship.

Wow this is awful true friends may not see each other all the time but don't do this :0

You were never her friend if you could just do this for no reason other than you thought your loves would be different now.

My best friend has 0 children still goes out ans on holidays etc I am married with 2 children once being disabled.
We might not see eachother for months but we still talk regularly and she is still there for me and me for her regardless of us having completely different life's !

I think because she asked , you should have said some non confrontational words to her that would have given the friendship some distance and kept her feelings relatively unbruised.

Blimey. Glad you're not my friend. The pre-meditated I started the distancing process sounds bonkers enough. Sounds like she really valued you as a friend and you quite frankly shat on her !

Unless you'd have to 'break up' a friendship it's hard to explain how difficult it is. I had to distance myself from a friend a few years ago and it was harder than dumping a boyfriend.

Need to ditch a romantic partner - well if it's not right then you've done the best thing, etc etc. You can trust that little tiny niggle about things not being right.

Need to dump a friend - but you've been friends for ages. What's so wrong that you can't still meet for tea? You have to explain WHY. Shrugging and saying it's not working isn't good enough.

I had to dump a friend. We'd worked together years before and we now lived in the same town with kids at the same school. As we saw more of each other she became very controlling. I had to ask an old school friend to read through my FB messages with her and say if I'd been horrible to her (I had PND and doubted everything) and my SF had to explain that I was been gaslighted. She pointed out the times I was apologising for being 'verbally' abused.

I started to back off a lot, but LC rather then NC. Ex-F asked me what she'd done wrong, but it's subjective, and very personal, and in this instance she was a manipulative bully with the ability to turn on the waterworks and be a victim of anything. What should I have said? I muttered something about my study taking up my time.

Then ex-F started to try to rip a friendship group apart. Each of us were allowed to be friends with her but not each other, even though we already were friends. She overplayed her hand and we all sat down and discussed the lies about each other she'd told over months. I went NC that day and have never looked back. I still get asked why as 'you were such good friends' and it's been over 2 years NC now.

Breaking up with friends is a messy business. And there's no right way to do it. You tried to go LC which is a completely reasonable way to go about it.

You may not have handled it in the best way, but there is no right way. You have to fumble through this and get to the other side. If you do not want to be friends with her you sometimes have to accept that you'll always be the bad-guy to them and their friends (as I am) and to just do it anyway, for your peace of mind.

I've been a victim of this too and I accept that friendships don't always last. The only one that really hurt was an acquaintance who not only blanks me now (doesn't bother me) but told her 6yo DD not to be friends with my DD, and they're in the same class.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but here goes, I think you have treated her badly, I think just being honest when she asked is best. People drift away, just say that, say, nothing wrong, but just think we are in different places in life now. It's always awkward when friendships dwindle out but I personally don't like the idea she's worrying she did something ... I have been there and it's not nice. But perhaps that's why I have that perspective.

To me it depends what these "paths" are. If you hung out while you were both in happy relationships, then dumped her when she became single and struggling and not much fun, then you are at fault.

But if you were both on the wagon and then she went back on the drink and socialising became difficult, then you are not at fault.

It's sad, but I suppose you can't continue a friendship that grates on you purely for the other person's sake.

Honestly I don’t blame you. I’ve had to do it because my good friend was a racist knob who just wouldn’t let up on her xenophobic diatribe. There came a point where she said something quite personal and I thought ‘life is too damn short.’ It’s exhausting and even if people are saying you’re mean, to be honest, good for you. She should have the wit to move on. My friend wouldn’t listen to me or pick up on anything. I’m not responsible for her dumbassery.

I bet your 'friend' is happy though, and I bet you're not and still hankering after things deep down.

I've recently done similar with a friend.
In my case, it was someone who became a friend when she lived in the same village as me and we started walking our dogs together. It was fun for a while but then I realised that she had some self esteem issues which meant that she was happy to make sly digs about me. She moved about a mile away and stopped bothering with me, stopped having any interaction with me on FB (before, she'd message me constantly, like and comment on every post I made etc) and it became pretty clear she was jealous of certain aspects of my life.
Periodically, out of the blue over a period of about a year, she'd mention meeting up but either I wasn't free or she'd mention it in vague terms without fixing a date...and then go back to ignoring me.
About 6 weeks ago, after another long period of absolutely no contact, she messaged me to see if I fancied meeting up with her. At that point, I politely replied that I felt our friendship had run its course because if either of us had wanted to stay in touch, we would have done.

As others have said, it's really difficult to end a friendship without actually having to spell it out to the other person. In my case, the other person had made it clear she didn't value the friendship by her behaviour, but was still surprised when I made it clear I wasn't interested in pursuing it. I'm not sure what else I could have done, other than been going when I first started to feel there was no mileage left in it.

You were mean and unkind.

Have the balls to tell her.

Don't beat yourself up OP.

Family, you stick with through thick or thin.
Friends - not so much.
There are only a certain number of hours in the day and you only get a finite number of evenings and weekends. Use them wisely.
I don't get the big fucking deal about friendships tbh.
Can you tell I've just dumped a friend for taking up too much of my time, energy and money? I think I'm down to about 4 friends now and even that feels like too much commitment
PS - I've dump your friend just for the whiney facebook posts btw.

Being told the truth can be brutal too, it's heart breaking when a close friend basically announces that they don't like you enough to make the effort anymore. And you still end up wondering 'BUT WHY??' There's no nice way to end a friendship.

Totally agree Harridan. I hoped a long term friend would get fed up of me not making an effort but she intensified her efforts and then I had to confront the problem with her. I know from mutual friends that she wished she’d not pushed the issue. No easy way.

Thank you for replying - a mixture of opinions here.

To clarify, I didn't drop her like a hot potato, it was a long gradual process of over a year and I never stopped replying to her, just took longer to respond, becoming less available, increasingly genuinely as I made efforts to widen my social circle and interests. My aim was to let the friendship fade gradually over time without anyone getting hurt but it didn't work out as I expected. As I said in my OP, I even thought she would likely drift away from me first due to her path change which I would rather not divulge but was a nice, positive one for her but not something I would want for myself, so no jealousy!

If she had done something heinous like become a racist knob like a PP's ex-friend then it would've been easy to end the friendship. When she asked if she'd offended me I just didn't feel able to say I'd just gone off her and found her to be an annoying drama queen as I would be mortified if someone said that to me! I just thought it kinder for her to think that my life had also changed, I was busy and we'd drifted apart, which isn't far from the truth.

Incidentally, the "woe is me" fb stuff is nothing new, I've just become increasingly intollerant of it and she seems to have no shortage of sympathisers.

You should have been honest.You sound really proud of yourself.
Friendships do face at times but that doesn't mean you lie and deceive people,leaving them worried they have upset you.you've listed her'bad'points to justify your patronising behaviour.She is better off without you.

Fade not face.

OP not beating herself up she is looking for validation of her very poor behaviour

Probably done the right thing as she deserves friends who respect her and treat her decently.

There is no good way to break up with a friend, what do you lead with? Its not you its me?, i think we should spend some time apart? I think we want different things out of the relationship?

I mean its bad enough when a bloke says it and it hurts like hell, never mind a confidant who has become more than a little wearing, quotes the daily mail and has started on the forever living while getting back with the ex, oh and by the way are you free to babysit saturday - all day - because you know, your friends

Ghosting is a cowards way, but cowards live longer.

I think you were mean. It sounds like you stepped back too far too quickly. When she asked you coukd have said something tactful but more honest such as, our lives are heading in different directions and I've just been busy with other friends.

Now I'm reading this I'm wondering if this might be happening to me
My approach would be just to cut you out entirely as soon as I realised what was happening.

Really it's sad that she bothered to try and find out what she'd done wrong. She obviously still felt close to you.

Why do you think you care now she's stopped contacting you?

Genuine question for those who feel Op should have been honest. What would you say? I mean the actual words. You've decided you no longer want to be friends with me, for whatever reasons, the decision is made and now you're going to do me the courtesy of being honest. What are you going to say to me? Bearing in mind that unless you've put duct tape over my mouth I'm likely to say things like: "Well yeah course our lives are different but we're still friends aren't we" and "but I don't understand where this is coming from" and "I don't understand, what have I done to make you want to end the friendship" and "please tell me what I've done to upset you" etc etc. What do you say to end a friendship that's less hurtful than what the Op here did?

Do people really break up with friends? I've never had to do it myself.

Either we both drifted and realised we had moved on or they did something so terrible I had to tell them I didn't like them.