To be devastated my friend has ghosted me?

[Nuckyscarnation]

I moved back to the NE from London last June. I was pregnant with twins and moved home to be nearer family.

I had a friend in London who I had known for the eight years I lived there. The sort of person who you meet and they change your entire outlook on life. I genuinely love and adore her. I thought we would always be friends and that nothing could ever change that.

We went out for a meal a few days before I left. Promises of coming to visit when the babies were born etc. Stayed in touch on a regular basis right up until February this year. Our last message conversation was talking about how I was going to come to London in April to see her and how she would come up for babies christening and wouldn’t miss it for the world.

After this message I didn’t hear from her for a few weeks. Didn’t think much of it, but messaged her to see how she was. Message was delivered but not read. That has been it! No response to subsequent messages, texts and calls have gone unanswered. I got so worried that I messaged a friend of hers I know to ask if she was OK. She expressed surprise saying friend was fine. She did say she had been super stressed with uni and work, but couldn’t give an explanation as to why I was being ignored.

I am just utterly devastated It was the twins birthday party at the weekend. I sent her a Facebook invite to it and a week later she deleted her Facebook. I have obviously been deleted from her life in a similar fashion. I just feel so so sad. Has anyone else experienced similar? What did you do if so?

I just can’t believe I might never see her again. It’s breaking my heart

I'm in my mid forties. I've done it and had it done to me. Peoples lives change over time and they grow out of friendships. It's sad but it's life. People meet partners that change their outlook on life (sometimes in not a good way), people have kids and everything changes then. People split up with partners and their lives change again. New friends come along. Your own outlook on friendships and life change. You grow less or more tolerant of people. It's just human nature!

It's human nature for friends to come and go as life ebbs and flows but just to ghost a close friend, to drop them from your life altogether with no explanation is cruel and a bit flat footed.

I have many friends that I have accumulated over my 55 years on the planet, from school, college, work, the children of friends of my parents, and many other places - I've lived all over the country and many of these friends live many miles away or in different countries altogether.
We've had bust ups, periods when we don't see each other, periods when were very close, times when we are all a bit meh. Many of these friends, in the early days when I moved 300 miles away from my home town (in 1982) and had no landline kept in touch with me by writing me letters. I still have those letters and I still have those friendships.

All this going NC, and ghosting people troubles me and reading the posts here I know why because I can see the pain it causes.

Surely it's better to try and work things out when things go wrong and to tell friends if they've upset you, and to be resilient if someone is a bit busy and hasn't got time for you for a while and for reasons that are probably nothing to do with you.
It makes for a much richer life and a less lonely one too.

A particular friend I was very close to (holiday'd with her, nights out etc) lied to me and used me in a certain situation. We didn't fall out but I pulled her on it and it wasn't a close friendship for a while. It never went back to how it was really and she continues to lie, is a complete drama queen and I have come to realise she is not the type of person I want in my life really. It's hard as we are part of a large friendship group (most of them think the same about her as well) so I can't not see or speak to her again but because of how she is, I really don't want to! I feel life is too short to be wasting time on people who drain you and make you cross most of the time. There is always a drama in her life and she's always having it tougher than anyone when it's actually just real life problems that everyone else just gets along with and deals with and the lying continues. I have took a step back and if that's seen as ghosting then so but it but it's how it's had to be for me.

Had it happen to me when I left my last job. He was my best friend at work. Anyway I left for another job. I sent texts, whatapp and socisl media and to this day he ignored them all. it was 2 years ago and I still wonder what I did wrong?

Sympathies OP, been there done that and it bloody hurts. I had a lovely friend, we met through work, we then both had baby’s within the same year, would take them places, then one day she called heartbroken that her partner had been having an affair. She wanted him back but he didn’t want to know and instead threw her out with her child and she had no choice but to move back to her family hours away. I remember us both crying at 3am whilst she was in a motorway service station on the phone to me, me comforting her and her heartbroke and not wanting to go back to her home town, I offered her to stay with me short term but she didn’t want to burden. She went to finish the drive home and said she would call me the next day. Heard nothing. I txt her to check she was ok and no response. Months passed and suddenly she text me randomly late at night apologising and asking how I was, 3 texts later she suddenly stopped again. And that was it.
I was gobsmacked. I was utterly crushed. I was upset and more so, angry that I had even replied and let her just ghost me all over again.

Now she’s back with the cheating sod and he moved to her family’s area to be with her.
Past caring now. Times healed but I won’t ever bother again.

Anyway point is, time will in time make the pain go away. It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking but you will feel better. I personally wouldn’t write a letter or anything as chances are you will be ignored again and the hurt will deepen.

Distract yourself for now and allow yourself to grieve for the friendship.

In the gentlest possible way, OP, could you have been far more invested in the friendship than she was?

She "changed your entire outlook on life"; you "love and adore" her; but you're "devastated" and it's "breaking your heart" ... this is very intense language and I wonder if she felt stifled. I think I might, if people referred to me in these terms. Perhaps she enjoys your company, but she doesn't have as much invested in the friendship as you do, so your move back to the NE was a natural break in the relationship for her.

Either that, or perhaps she's having problems TTC, or not at the same stage in her life as you are. There could be a million reasons why this friendship has run its course, but I do think you're being a tad (very) over dramatic about it.

I hope you find new friends in the NE and can forget about her soon. She might just be well jealous she's nowhere near the Toon, and you are