To be worried that former friend is bad mouthing me to others?

[another20]

Last year I detached and let a “friendship” fade after many years of feeling increasingly uncomfortable and compromised around their hypocritical and overbearing political views and lack of personal boundaries. After many months of politely declining invites I received an aggressive text to which I didn’t respond but then blocked their number on phone and WhatsApp. I then got a further aggressive email demanding to know why they are blocked. I didn’t respond to that either. I didn’t discuss the fade or the texts/emails with anyone. However since then I have noticed that a couple of long term mutual friends are distant with me. Of course that is their right and may not be connected at all. But I am worried that she is bad mouthing me to them. Is there anything I can do here?

They will be bad mouthing you to them.

It's their problem tho. Not friends if they arnt asking for both sides.

Ouch - my gut fears are likely then.
Good point that they haven’t sought my side to whatever stories she is telling. But to be honest I wouldn’t add any fuel to the “fire” (what fire tho - I was just someone who wanted to slip away peacefully - but clearly that’s not allowed). I would clarify any untruths if they came up but I wouldn’t “explain” myself other than vaguely “I didn’t feel we were very compatible”.

Should I approach mutual friends to ask if there is anything wrong? Or leave it?

Ignore it.

I have to say though I think just ignoring someone is rude if they outright ask why. A simple "i have a busy life and we dont appear to have much in common any more means that I probably won't be joining you on any of these occasions but thank you for asking. All the best." outlines your position without aggravating the other individual thereby reducing the likelihood of this reaction.

Tbh, while you may have had good reason to 'fade' blocking and ignoring them isn't on IMO unless they're abusive or whatever. So it may be that these mutual friends have heard about that behaviour and don't think much of it or you because of it. So sadly whatever your motivations for doing it, it is your actions being looked at not the ex friend's.

You are right Seline - I could have ended it much more directly. However I always responded politely to requests to go out - the only thing I didn’t respond to was the aggressive text received months later. If it hadn’t been aggressive or we had bumped into each other and she had asked I did indeed have a polite response ready.

In honesty, it just sounds like they're doing to you what you did to your friend. You didn't give the friend a reason for backing off so you can't expect one from them. I agree that it sounds like she's talking behind you back though.

She may not be saying anything rude. She might just be telling people she was avoided and then blocked and people are judging those actions.

Yes I can see how it looks with just one side of the story. Not sure I would do anything differently though if I had my time again with this particular individual as I was/am quite scared of her and found holding my boundaries difficult with her.