Hanging on to friendships because of longevity

[Breakthesilence12]

I have done really old friends and one I consider to be my ‘best’ friend but lately I have been thinking that I don’t feel the same way & that I hang on because we have been mates for 20 years plus and through a lot.

She recently gave me a list of my misdemeanours stemming from me having kids & her not having kids. That my ‘energy was weird’ to her etc. I’ve literally been raising my kids and working full time & have tried my best to be a good friend. I cancelled a couple of nights out when my kids were younger as they were ill and that was marked and on the list.

I have only just really woken up to the fact that is mostly about her but I feel weird about it. Friends aren’t necessarily easy to come by in adulthood but I just don’t feel the same.

Aibu to gradually distance myself? What to people feel about long term friends. It’s a bit like leaving a long term relationship.

*Some really old friends’

There’s been loads of friendship threads this past year - I think the whole pandemic and lockdown has made a lot of people reassess and reevaluate who is important to them, who they feel like they are important to, who has made an effort to keep in touch and check in and who hasn’t, etc.

Plenty of people hang onto friendships “because we’ve been friends for 20/30 years/since primary school/whatever” when the friendship clearly adds nothing to their life (from what they’ve posted).

When it’s got to the point where someone is giving you a list of your misdemeanours and on it are things that you can’t do anything about - like “you’ve had kids and I haven’t” then it’s friendship over.

@BornIn78 yea that’s a good point about the pandemic and reassessing everything. I also feel like by hanging on to friendships that don’t fit, it doesn’t give me space to make new friends