I genuinely don't know what to do.
He was my best friend for five years (until very recently). I couldn't have wished for a better friend, he was there whenever I needed him and vice versa, he got very close to my eldest DD and often attended family gatherings. Then, at the beginning of the year, it was my birthday and I'd booked a table for about ten people. Right before it was due to start (literally an hour before) he caused an argument, I apologised for my part in it but he refused to accept it and didn't come to my birthday lunch. I was pretty devastated about this because we had never argued before and I was shocked and upset.
Things were a bit cool after that, but we got past it and moved on.
All fine - or so I thought. He had a falling out with another friend and she threatened to tell me something, so I asked him and he basically admitted that he'd been telling her that he'd been avoiding me because he wanted to drink less alcohol and blamed me for his excessive consumption when we got together and thought ?!? I should add in here that he often came over to my house, we would meet for coffee/lunch - it's not like we were getting absolutely trashed every time we met! And he'd been slagging me off for weeks. Now, that really upset me. We didn't speak for a couple of weeks and then I decided to clear the air. We met, I asked for an explanation (very calmly, no fighting) and he said that yes, he had been avoiding me because he always drank too much with me and he wanted to slow down. I said why hadn't he just told me that? And he said he didn't 'know how to' and enjoyed going out with me and didn't want it to stop.
Since then we haven't been as close. And gradually he has started ignoring me, shutting me out, so I backed off and didn't contact him so much. Swiftly after that he started taking ages to reply to messages, which I know was deliberate. During this time he met a girl online who lives about an hour away and contact dropped even more. I am genuinely thrilled that he's found someone because I know how much he wanted to be in a relationship.
Final straw was that I invited him over this Saturday for a specific reason and he would always come to these before. He read my message and didn't reply. Two days later I followed up with '?' because I needed to know numbers. He still ignored me. Then on Sunday morning I got this message:
"Hey, so sorry, I haven't been blanking you, sorry I couldn't come, I've got a lot on. Are you free Tues or Thurs, we could catch up then."
My instinct is to reply with - "that's fine, don;t worry, yeah I'm free X day'. But actually - it's not fine, I do want him to worry and no I don;t want to catch up! Over the weekend I suddenly realised that he doesn't want to be friends any more. He's treating me badly and I'm not going to put up with it. I haven't responded, it feels like the straw that broke the camel's back.
BUT - am I cutting off my nose to spite my face?? I feel that the friendship has reached a natural end because that's what he wants, so why should I accommodate him when he can't even be bothered to reply to my messages? But I'm not sure whether I should be the bigger person and just swallow my upset and resentment and try and maintain the friendship, despite his actions?
Help! I'm really stuck with what to do. Sorry, this has ended up being massively longer than I intended.
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