To want to confront my best friend

[Happyclapper18]

My best friend has suddenly cut contact by 90%. When I contact her she takes days to respond and makes excuses as to why she has no time to call or meet. I know that if I challenge her she will not respond so I feel my only choice is to let it go. This seems so sad as we were very close and had alot of fun over the years
Just can't think how best to react.

I'm sorry this is happening. If it were me, I'd write a short letter and post it. Explain how you are feeling, that you are worried about this uncharacteristic behaviour, reiterate offers of support and that you will give her space if she needs it. Also ask respectfully that if the friendship is over for her that she lets you know so you aren't left hanging -and that you will be very sad if that's the case, but will respect the decision.

She will then have a heartfelt and honest letter to look at and mull over. The fact that it's a different form of communication to one you've traditionally used may prompt a reaction, but it may not. It's hard to end something that's been so intense (see my story below).

If it helps I was on the other side of this type of situation. A long standing very close friend, she was lovely but quite a challenging person and quite abrasive. I always made allowances as I knew her history (we had shared everything! ) and that she struggled to communicate without sounding arsey. But one day, after about 20 years of friendship I had a really, really special and exciting thing happen to my family. I mean a once in a lifetime, incredible thing and she just scowled and was so, so rude and dismissive. Didn't ask me anything about it, didn't even bother to feign interest. And that was at my birthday dinner which I'd invited her and one other close friend to. I was so upset at the lack of compassion and of any feeling for me. She may have been jealous, or genuinely not interested, but given the magnitude of the thing, she should have done much, much better. It was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I questioned what I really now got out of the relationship, and cooled right off. It fizzled. I was slow to respond to things and we now are out of touch. It was the cowards way out by me, but frankly i was so upset and angry and don't want to spend one more iota of negative energy.

In short, an accumulation of stuff ended it for me. This may be irrelevant but I share the story to give you something to reflect on in case it helps.

I hope you get it sorted.

Confront us a pretty aggressive way of putting it.

life has been very difficult for a lot of people these past couple of years. Priorities for many have changed. I’ve lost touch with a couple of people, no big thing, we’ve all just moved on.

Write her a letter, someone in their 50's is old enough to remember when letters were a thing. Two reasons, one it can be quite cathartic for you to write the letter and two, she doesn't feel pressured to reply and she can read it more than once. Letters give time for reflection where messages don't. (she could, of course, return it)

oops cross posted

My advice is to walk away. She knows where you are if she needs you. She is choosing to keep you at a distance. Sad at any age, dreadful after many years of friendship like yours.
I have been through something similar and it felt like a bereavement -really dreadful feeling of loss, confusion etc.
I hope you can throw yourself into something else that gives you joy.

Then leave it there. Balls in her court.

Being ditched out the blue is mind boggling, I can imagine you're peplexed. Whatever she says, she's being very rude. There's no excuse to just go vague on someone you were close to.

I've experienced this to different degrees over the years, thought I was jinxed for friends but to be fair it was over the course of 25 years.
1 - huge mental health crisis, turned out to be the onset of bipolar disorder. Really severe depression, didn't leave the house for weeks, only spoke to her parents. She's now very stable on meds, we're still friends and I'm flattered that her DP encourages her to call me when she's feeling down.
2 - Marriage breakdown and depression. I only found out years later. Friendship was re-kindled for a while but we've moved on.
3 - Intense new affair and marriage breakdown. This one was in the age of Facebook so I could see the new relationship playing out and that there was intense and frequent messaging going on, but she didn't have time for me any more, unless it was a "send to all" message shamelessly promoting her own music career. Didn't block but did un-friend etc.

I wouldn't drop a good friend that might be having a crisis.

I had a friend like this OP. It’s so very sad when you grow apart and I’ve never got to the bottom of it. But she did confide in me a lot when her and her husband split. I supported her through a very tough time. Then out of the blue they decided to get back together. Yes she had told me a lot of personal things about her relationship but nothing where we couldn’t still be friends.

She distanced herself over time and it then suddenly just became the odd message. We used to spend a lot of time together when our kids were babies/toddlers they even went to the same school. Now it’s just a smile in the street or if we bump into each other she’ll say we must get together and it never happens. Her husband is very controlling so I feel very sad for her and for us!

It’s behaviour I don’t understand either OP. I had a situation exactly the same around 6 months ago. We used to meet for drinks, go out as couples, BBQS you name it!

I then, inconveniently, tried to commit suicide (MH/work pressures were fucking immense) and after that she wouldn’t return my calls, she was too busy to meet.

It took a while, to recover from ‘that’ and not having her support when I needed it the most. It’s hard OP, we were all like family so I hear where you’re coming from.

My advice? Exhale the past and inhale the future. You deserve more than that x

I think Mumsnet is very quick to burn bridges on friendships but relationships like yours are hard to come by.

She could be depressed, ill and keeping a diagnosis secret to avoid it becoming real, in a bad place or embarrassed about something and has told you things that with whatever new context she wishes she hadn't.

I'd send a nice text (or card as suggested) saying you are worried about her and hope she is okay. That you recognise she doesn't seem to want to talk to you right now but that you are here and still will be even if she needs a break.

Then leave it.

This behaviour is out of character so I'd treat it with concern rather than anger until you know any more

@NoWigNoWit I'm sorry to,hear that. I hope things are better for you now.

I would send one last card to her (by recorded delivery so she knows you have it) outlining her distant texts, lack of calls and acknowledge it is possible you have upset her in some way, and that you are not aware of how. I would say how much you have enjoyed the happy years with her and thank her for the friendship. The onus is now on her to get in touch if wants to continue the friendship she has to get in touch. And then leave it. If she comes back to you, hopefully you can have an honest and open discussion and if she doesn't you have your answer.

op, she might have very good reasons for pulling back - outstanding reasons even but she is treating you in a very shabby way by not explaining what is happening and being very distant. She knows where you are. As sad as it is, you now need to pull back and wait and see. Old friends are very hard to lose, but you can't carry on like this.

**You know she has it

This happened to me after I had a bereavement in my family. She ghosted me. It was very painful and I never got an explanation. Just send one last message saying “are you ghosting me? I have no idea what I’ve done wrong but I’d appreciate an explanation” then don’t contact her again.

I could have written your post. My friend who always said she was upfront etc etc ghosted me me for weeks, then got nasty when I asked if everything was ok. Obviously it wasn't hut instead of being upfront like she professed to be she just ignored me. Anyway suffice it to say we no longer see each other ghosting is a cowardly horrible thing yo do to someone

I was very hurt at first now I now longer think about her

Sometimes, how you see your friendship is not how the other person sees it. I have a friend who calls me her BFF and she tells everyone how close we are etc. Things became much more intense when I was at home during lockdown and she started messaging me multiple times daily. In truth, I find her daily moans about cleaning and her illnesses and her rants about whatever the latest bee in her bonnet is that day irritating and boring and would like to hear from her less so I ignore her rants and moans and don't respond unless she has something normal to say.

Give her some space but don’t block her as a PP said.

I have had this happen to me with two close friends in the past. In one case friend was in the process of leaving a 6 year relationship and no one out, in another friend’s relationship had turned abusive and was not in contact with anyone.

You can’t make people respond. Check in again on a few months time though, sometimes people are embarrassed to have cut contact and in the case of friend 2, my reaching out after a period of time was really appreciated

No. She is clearly signaling she doesn’t want contact.

All you can do is to let her know you recognise the change in relationship and while you're confused about it you respect her and that you're ready to talk if she wants to. It is sad but only relationships that involve two people who want connection with each other will work. Whatever is going on right now she doesn't have the respect for you to be open and is oblivious to how this affects you or doesn't care but that doesn't stop you from dealing with this cleanly and with maturity.

I’d just block her and move on tbh
ecen if she is going through a tough time,
you’ve tried enough and actually she owes you an explanation and/or apology

on another note I did distance myself from a friend in tne same way you describe. But I’d spent years of being treated like shit by her and then I just kind of, switched and couldn’t bear to even respond to a text. I fully ghosted by the end.

I have to say this new fashion of ghosting someone of fizzling out contact is abhorrent to me.
If you've been friends with someone for a long time - you owe it to them to give some sort of explanation.
Yes, yes you do. And to all those who have done this &'are angrily getting your backs up now.

Your friend (ex friend) was themselves. If you suddenly found that difficult or something you didn't want in your life. Use your words the first or second time it happens eg. "That's harsh" or "I don't appreciate that" if you don't get the response you appreciate it's absolutely your prerogative to not maintain a friendship. Especially if it's a regular thing. No one is owed your time.

If it was unusual behaviour for them then you should consider if something is wrong in their life & whilst gently reminding that this type of behaviour isn't ok, you should be supportive.

YOUR inability to have adult conversations about your boundaries isn't there fault & frankly ghosting someone is horrific, childish, spiteful & vindictive behaviour.

There is zero excuse. No one on this thread (and I've read them all) had an excuse for this type of behaviour)
@catwomando if I were you I wouldn't have continued that friendship either but I would have told her why. After a long friendship, which presumably you valued at one point (otherwise why the hell were you in it?)

Same goes for all of you.

I watched someone go through this & it was at the worst time in their life when they had been admittedly horrid & pushing people away& being a generally obnoxious person to be around. BUT they were dealing with something horrific.

To see so-called good friends ghost them was appalling, and contributed to their suicide. Yes. It did. The pain upon top of the horror that changed their behaviour, the feeling no one cared.

I hope you all give some thought to this. It takes literally NOTHING to send a text explaining why the friendship isn't for you right now. Then block contact if you like. Especially if (as it seems here, the reason is your own issues or your own problem for not dealing with difficulties in communicating your differing needs earlier & not that the fact that the other person had changed drastically.

This has terribly upset me.
In these days of multiple ways of communicating with another. To leave someone with no explanation is bloody heartless & cruel.

Yeah definitely don’t call around her house, especially to confront her

wow