To ask why you finished a friendship?

[hahahayoumustbejoking]

Seems a lot of friendships going to the wall on MN. Got me thinking of ones I've ended.

1. When I was 19 and poor I showed an older and well off friend at college a bag in a shop I adored. Said I was saving up for it and even though it would take another few months I had my heart set on it. She turned up with it at college on the Monday, breezily swinging it on her arm. Never the same after that.

1. Had a niche holiday planned with a friend who then changed her mind and we cancelled and the whole thing fizzled out. Found out later she'd gone with others to the same venue instead.

1. Saw friend coming on to my then boyfriend (now DH). He was oblivious but I'd seen her do this to others. Desperate to be the most sexually attractive person to every man. Just thought 'can't be arsed with this anymore".

Anyone else got examples worth sharing?

It was a friendship that always had quite a nasty competitive side to it, but I put up with it because she was fun to be around. Last straw was when she slept with my ex when I went away to uni, clearly as yet another competitive thing. Decided I was done with it.

I end mine when the balance is off, eg making all the effort, providing all the support but getting minimal back. It’s so hard to do but so liberating once you’ve made the decision.

She kept falling off the face of the Earth for weeks, sometimes months at a time.she stopped answering texts, didn't pick up the phone and never called back when we left messages with her family. We were worried something awful had happened, but she just breezed back one day saying she'd 'been busy' and seemed amused we had been concerned. She did the same thing a couple more times and again, seemed quietly thrilled when she found out we were talking about where she was and why she was quiet. In the end I just stopped bothering. I think she just enjoyed the attention to be honest, but it became exhausting.

1. At 17, pre mobiles on one of those long landline chats to my best friend. There'd been some kind of benefits rally and she said she thought disabled people and single mum's claiming benefits should be shot because it wasn't ok for them to take hard-working people's money. She was serious. I hung up the phone mid argument and never took her calls again.

1. Early days of mobile phones I lived in a flat with zero signal. I had a landline. My friend would text me last minute to do things and no matter how many times I told her I wouldn't get them till I left the flat and she needed to phone me, she would just text and follow up with drunken abusive messages about letting her down. I kind of shrugged it off but then it just all got too much and I realised I couldn't keep being her punching bag. A decade on, I still miss her.

1. She came to my wedding and every single person there had a story about her. She told one of my dearest friends that she was an awful person who should never have children, loudly called out my MOH for drinking when pregnant (she was not pregnant but 12 months past a c section) and followed the best man round all night.

@PieceOfString,that's some tale alright.Lucky escape.

She took the mobile phone from a drunk mutual friend she was out with and started sending me abusive texts, calling me a slag and saying no-one liked me

I called out the friend whose phone it was, who didnt have a clue what I was talking about - she had asked the said 'friend' to hold her phone as she kept dropping it and had nowhere to put it

We both stopped talking to her after that

A friend of many years suddenly discovered religion and activism. Got so fed up with her trying to convert me I went low/no contact.

I have been a stalwart friend of someone since we were 10 so nearly 40 years. She has pushed it over the years, including coming onto my various boyfriends and my now DH and when challenged would say things like 'I'd never take him from you, .... although I could'. But generally the friendshiop has always been about me propping her up and supporting her when her job or her relationship or whatever has gone to the wall, then her ghosting me when things are going fine for her. I decided last January that I was no longer checking in with her, seeing how she was or providing support to whatever her drama du jour was going to be. Have not heard a thing from her since.

I don't often end friendships, but I have a couple of times. (1) The friend took offence - actually with another family member, but blamed me for not 'breaking off contact' with them; gossipped spitefully about me to others; and, worst of all, got a mutual acquaintance to write a letter to me, attacking me not only for this incident, but for supposed mistreatment of another friend and saying that I had 'exceeded the other friend's' limits;' etc. I believed it all and - because of some of things for which she attacked me - nearly had a breakdown;; as well as it nearly ending my friendship with the other friend (who turned out to be uninvolved) and making me harsher with the mutual acquaintance than I should have been (she behaved very badly in getting involved in this way, but I initially thought she did it spontaneously and it was entirely her idea, which it wasn;'t (2) The person started delivering lectures to me on what was wrong with my way of life and behaviour (nothing to do with anything dramatic; things like (a) speaking to her at the wrong time or when she wasn't in the mood; and (b) having too much contact with my own mother) and not just asking me to act differently, but demanding that 'we discuss it' and that I tell her 'why do I do it' . I found the stress too much, and gave up on the friendship.

I’ve only consciously ended one friendship - a friend who was a no-show at my wedding.

Lots of others have ended by drifting apart though. I will hold my hands up and say that I’m not at all good at maintaining friendships.

I went on a short holiday with a small group I had been friends with since primary/secondary school. I had depression at the time, was on anti-depressants and couldn't drink. I wasn't in great form, but tried really hard and other than drinking did everything with everyone, laughed and joined in. Went to the loo in the very busy and loud pub we were at one evening and on my way back I could hear them slagging me off and saying I was boring for not drinking and laughing about me. I was absolutely mortified, it was a kick in the teeth I didn't need from people I thought were my best friends. I left without going back to the table and text one of them to say I'd gone back to the apartment as I felt sick. Luckily we were off home the next day so I pretended everything was OK and then never bothered with them again. I wasn't in the right frame of mind for confrontations and actually since I've left that group I've never been happier and realised how negative it was. They did invite me out regularly for a while afterwards and sent messages but I just let it fade.

A school mum friend who i’d also gone to high school with myself. Spent the 7 years of primary school giving her lifts, childcare when her mum died, listening to her moan about everything all while putting up with a weird competitive side about our DD’s who also did a hobby together.

Her DD ended up low level bullying mine at school and became a ‘frenemy’ to DD.

It then came to a head at the hobby when her DD tried to ostracise mine out of the group and the other girls rallied round my DD and ostracised the bully instead. The Mum then used SM to find out where my DD was going with other friends and would turn up with her DD and behave weirdly.

It was all super weird tbh. The mum was always trying to cringingly show how she was ‘best mates’ with her now pre teen daughter. Yet the daughter had big MH/anxiety/school refusal issues and tbh was just plain mean because she’d never met a parental boundary in her life.

Yet the mum fell out with me but wouldn’t say what I’d done. I asked her twice what was going on at the place she randomly followed us to and she refused to say.

I just blocked her after that and life became simpler.

The friend developed very serious mental health and addiction problems over a number of years. I tried to be a good mate to her for a long time but eventually came to realise our relationship had become entirely one sided and so wasn't a friendship anymore. She only ever paid attention to herself and her own needs. There was no give and take, she never listened to me or what was going on in my life. She had become a drain on me. I let the relationship drift.

Someone who never seemed to have a good word to say about anyone, even our mutual friends. I began to realise that she was probably saying things about me behind my back too. After she said something very unkind about a friend's child, I told the friend what she'd been saying, then left her to it. I'm too old for that sort of crap.

I left my husband of 7 years due to the fact he was emotionally abusive, controlling and he cheated on me.

My now Ex was the best friend of a good friends husband( I actually introduced them) and she couldn't cope with me ending the marriage even though she knew how he had treated me. She told me she thought I was having an early mid life crisis and blamed it on the fact my mum had died suddenly a few years previously.

Even though I was so much happier and met an amazing man who I'm now married to and have have children with she would cry about the fact I'd left my first husband every time she got drunk!

I realised that she was more bothered about the fact I'd broken up the group than whether I was happy or not. She wasn't a good friend.

My then DP and I were going through fertility issues and when I told her, really upset, the first thing she said was that her and her DP were going to try for another child. She's horrible and so self-absorbed.

This was in 1973….

Started work and met a girl I got on well with and we became close friends. I had a lovely boyfriend, we’d been together for a year but only saw each other at weekends because he lived about 20 miles from me.

When boyfriend and I had a very minor disagreement she managed to convince me that he didn’t really like me. I was 18 and she was 21 so I was easily led and dumped him.

She immediately asked me to move to London and share a bed sit in her sister’s house. I was working in London so it made sense and we moved into a smallish beds it with 2 single beds, a wardrobe and a Baby Belling.

Within a fortnight her new boyfriend from work was coming home with her every evening and frequently straying all night. I was going out every evening and sometimes not going home at all…… Fortunately I fairly quickly met a nice guy and moved in with him, he eventually became my first husband. My ‘friend’ had a row with her sister and stayed with us for a few days…and tried to get off with him!

I slung her out and went over to her sister’s to collect last few belongings and sort out rent. Turned out sister hadn’t been charging us rent but ‘friend’ had been collecting £2 a week from me as my half of non-existent rent 🤬.

I realised a school friend I'd known for 20 years was awful - she constantly put me down and I was some kind of joke to her, even though I was actually more successful in life than her by most measures.

The other was a friend when I finally realised she didn't actually like me and I was just handy to go out with. she gave it away when she said 'you should meet my flat mate, he is JUST like you, he could be your brother.' Then 10 minutes later started talking about how much she hated him.

In the process of one post-Covid breakup now. I'm sick of her self-care, mindfulness bullshit which mainly seems to consist of her thinking it's ok to drop contact for months on end to 'be gentle' on herself. Yeah, thanks for dropping messaging contact when I hadn't seen a soul face to face for 3 months. What is the point of a friend that you can't rely on to maintain basic contact when you have spelled out you really need it. It's been 3 months of no contact now (used to message every few days for about 12 years, she is abroad) and she may well be ghosting me - I'm not going to be the first to message though, or rush to respond if she does.

Imo many friends aee more hassle than they're worth. If you can find a good one they are worth their weight in gold.

My ex mate texted my new bf behind my back asking if he wanted to play guitar with her then denied it...i saw the text as my now fiance showed me!
When I asserted my boundaries and said i didn't like the underhand approach she had a massive strop and i never saw her again!

Been friends with a woman from marked wealth. We got on well. However, she seemed to invite people from similar backgrounds to her holiday home/s each year ,not us or our dd who was best mates with her dd and who supported that dd when she struggled.
My dd had parties at home with mates and drank under my watch rather than elsewere wereas her dd was discoraged etc. I sort of got fed up of my dd being seen as the bad girl, were I saw it as learning to mangage risk and life under my guidance. My dd ended up doing extremely well at 6 th form and being able to talk to me . I got fed up of being judged when the hard thing for me was to let her make mistakes and helping her learn through them . Eg my mate did not discuss boys or sex much wirh her dd as the expextation was its a no no wereas that girl talked to me about such stufd and it just became polrised.

I’ve never really ended a proper friendship, but the closest was probably a former colleague, a very unpleasant person who I kept trying to be patient and understanding with for far too long, because she had some tough things going on and and I wanted to help her if I could. She would take take take, constantly asking me for help with things, while also making it very clear she didn’t actually like me and, I later found out, saying some very nasty things about me behind my back including making up downright lies about my personal life. It was all very odd. I can hand on heart say I never did a single thing to hurt her, but she just seemed to choose me as a target for all this rage and jealousy for some reason. I was far from the only person she did this with, but there was a particular level of weirdness she seemed to reserve only for me, possibly because our career paths were so closely intertwined and she saw me as a threat somehow, I guess.

After we stopped working together I would still see her occasionally through mutual friends and she would still ask me for favours any chance she got (like wanting me to put in a good word for her for a job at my new company!) and I just decided that, while I wished her well and hoped she got over whatever was going on with her, it really wasn’t my problem any more and I didn’t have to have anything to do with her ever again. I can’t tell you how liberating it was.

Badgerbonce oh my god that story sounds SO similar to a woman my mum was friends with when I was younger, to the point I’m genuinely wondering if it was the same family! I wasn’t that close to them but my sister was good friends with one of their kids at one point. The fancy holiday home, wealthy family, inviting others (mostly really awful social climbers) on holiday while making us feel like poor relations, making our family out to be bad influences on their kids when really their kids were up to all sorts… they were truly the worst people I have ever met!

I got good advice from here when ending a friendship. She got back in touch during lockdown 1, but ended up talking about her boyfriend from 20 years ago and how she wished she was with him instead of her dh. She wouldn’t stop phoning, even when I told her I was in A&E one night! I asked if she could message instead, I really felt she was impacting on my mh. Guess what she did the second I sent that message? I blocked her on mn advice.

So I have never actively ended a friendship. However I have distanced myself from a lot of people.
Reasons being:

• flakey all the time
• too clingy
• quite nasty to other people, but we’re always nice to me so I continued friendship, then they would turn Nasty towards me.
• drunken messes, cannot cope with these types
• work friends, but no longer work together so nothing in common anymore
• best friend turned into a nightmare at my hen party and lead up to my wedding. Behaved badly on the day. I haven’t seen her since. It still cuts deep. I guess she never really liked me.