To need closure on ghosting friend

[darkbluenails]

During the pandemic my good friend of 10 years got more and more distant. I messaged about going for walks, checking in, pub visit if she felt up to it. She never replied. Wondered if I was paranoid then around this time last year I asked what was going on? She said nothing, everything totally fine and she just hadn't seen any of my messages. I wasn't sure as could see she'd read them but said OK and we chatted a little bit. Then a month later she deleted me from Facebook.

Nearly a year on and it still really hurts. She won't talk to me or tell me why she's done this. I drove past her yesterday and waved, she definitely saw me but totally blanked me. We had a 3rd friend who is now definitely starting to ignore me over the last year and won't let her son play with mine, she's refusing to meet with me to discuss and I feel friend A has poisoned her towards me. I know they still meet up regularly.

I have this in my head all the time, if I see her it brings it all up again and stresses me out. I overthinking hugely and worry about it all the time. After the way she's treated me I don't want her friendship back but I need closure of some sort. I don't know how to move on and stop thinking about it. She was a really good friend and to just be cut out has been so painful.

Sadly, she wasn't a really good friend. I have come to realise over recent years that in a few of my relationships, whether that be friendships or even my marriage with my ex husband, they just didn't feel the way about me that I had assumed.

Sorry, its a bit early and I'm not great at articulating myself right now, but what I mean is, we bring to our relationships a whole host of life experience, our own attitude, expectations, emotions, feelings etc. It's only natural that we assume the important people in our lives want to treat us with the same consideration, love and respect as we treat them with. Unfortunately, we can never know what they are really thinking, what really drives them, how their life experiences have shaped them and their attitude towards us. This friend was not who you thought she was.

I know it is hard to let go, but my advice is to try to move on and not dwell on it. Know you are worth more, you have a lot to give and there are people out there who will treat you with respect and not leave you feeling like this.

It's their loss, not yours!

Sorry to hear that. It sounds very painful. I can’t imagine what reason she might have given herself but it certainly sounds like it’s all on her and she has deliberately decided to pull away. I had similar from a friend of 9 yrs over the pandemic, stopped replying to messages and in the end I stopped sending them as it was clear she was no longer interested. We weren’t as close as it sounds like you were but it definitely hurt. I have told myself friendships come and go and tried to not think about it. Sometimes that’s all you can do. She has a busy life and I suppose she felt it was full enough for her. Her feed pops up sometimes on social media but it bothers me less now, it’s been a while. Hoping you can move on too. I think better to try and distract yourself than dwell, if you can xx

Op. I really feel for you. I had a "friend" like that, we spent loads of time together and I thought she was one of my best friends and then she ghosted me.

But, then I reevaluated our friendship and I realised that everything was on her terms. She missed a big birthday without ever really acknowledgeing it and she never had anything nice to say about her husband, parents or sibling. I have come to conclusion that she saw the relationship as transactional and I thought we were friends. It still bloody hurts as you can tell by the tone of my post.

I am watching with interest because i still feel hurt or sad whenever I see her (shared friendship group).

I would ask her why?

It’s horrible isn’t it! It’s like a bereavement . Time will help but the hurt takes a long time to heal. One day you will wake up and you won’t give them a thought but in the meantime hold your head up high and think, ‘sod ‘em’!

I mean as you know that really isn't a friend that you want anyway so you would be better off to just leave it with your head held high knowing you've done nothin wrong.

If you really can't and have to know what her problem is then you will have to be direct and ask her. I'm getting the impression if you are nice and decent about asking her she will just skirt around the issue. You will probably have to get a bit shirty to provoke her in to giving the truth. 'is there any particular reason you've decided to ghost me after all our years of friendship or are you just a massive bitch?'

Honestly? You aren’t going to get closure from this person. People who ghost don’t do that.

Give yourself a defined period of time to be sad then move on.

So cowardly ghosting, I've had it done to me. Wouldnt want to be friends with someone like that, I've all but forgotten her now and so will you in time

I ghosted a friend of a decade recently. I did the decent thing in telling them why as there's always a reason.

Also I was unexpectedly binned off by my entire group of university girlfriends in our 4th year - never did find out why and could only guess it was linked to my having a one-night stand in the first few weeks of university with the fella who subsequently became the long time partner of one of them. The fact that the whole crew dumped me and blanked me at close quarters (I had to share a ride and a classroom with one of them) broke me and hurt me beyond measure. It took a very long time to get over it.

Unlike you I was able to put it behind me once we graduated but you've got it in your face each day.

I'm sorry people do this.

Whatever the reason you need ti step back and respect it.
It wasn't the friendship you thought it was.
Let it go and put all your energy into people who give the same back - of which there will be many.
Sine you haven't met yet.

I’m sorry this has happened, it sounds really painful and can tear you apart wondering what’s gone on. It’s quite unkind she’s got another friend involved, and I can see why it feels like bullying and high school behaviour.

I just wanted to give an alternative view but I’m not suggesting this is the case with you.

I haven’t ghosted but I am currently giving my friend the slow fade and detaching myself.

For 3 years she has used me as a therapist, dominated our conversations with discussions about herself, never asks about me even though I have some crap stuff going on and could use some support from my friend of 15 years who knows me better than anyone.

I always pay when we go out and she never returns, but now expects it. I have invited her for evenings out, holidays or to events but she always say she has no money. Yet she has enough money to do things like this with family, and other friends or spending on items. But there is no money available for anything with me.

I won’t discuss it with her because it’s too late and I don’t want an argument. By now any efforts to change will not feel genuine and I just don’t want to do those things with her anymore anyway.

It does sound really painful but the fact is that you didn't really know her at all. This won't be the first time she's pulled this stunt. I imagine she was doing it even back in school, leaving behind a trail of girls who didn't know what they'd done wrong.

I don't think you have done anything wrong. There is no point speaking to her because this will be a deeply embedded behaviour pattern which she won't understand herself. If you speak to her she will get defensive and accusatory and you will almost certainly come out of it feeling worse.

You just have to think, wow, I thought I knew her, I thought I liked her, but I didn't know the real woman at all.

It is really shitty behaviour there may be a reason there may not be but don’t torture yourself you don’t need closure because honestly some people are just shit people aren’t friends to them they are simply people they use to spend time with and just because it’s not something you’d ever do others don’t think the same .
I had it happen to me years ago were close well I thought we were she was even my dc god parent.
it was simply that she’d made new ‘friends’ and I wasn’t useful anymore. Yes it hurt but I’d come to the conclusion that I wasn’t a friend to her I was just someone at that time who was in her current circle until she moved on to the next . The signs were there she made friends all the time probably because people thought she was lovely but didn’t stay for very long she’d stop making contact if she met new friends , odd but these people it’s a constant pattern. It’s not you op you’ve done nothing wrong .

@OnTheBrinkOfChange

"You just have to think, wow, I thought I knew her, I thought I liked her, but I didn't know the real woman at all."
^^

Totally love this - going to keep pearl of wisdom and remind myself every time I ask myself why (close relative )

She doesn’t want your friendship and made it clear when deleted you from fb.

As painful as it is OP, leave it and move on as you won’t get closure.No point in confrontation as it won’t clear the air and you might get full on DARVO (nothing going on but apparently it’s your fault 🤷‍♀️)

For whatever reason, the friendship wasn't working for her. You don't really want her to tell you what she doesn't like about you, if she thought it was fixable then she would have told you. The other friend might see the same issues with your friendship, it seems unlikely that a real friend gets "poisoned" against you as such. Is it possible that you're relying on people too much, or have a chaotic lifestyle, or are excessively drinking, or make hurtful comments, or judge their choices? People more on your own wavelength can make for better friendships that you'll find easier too.

She isn't necessarily trying to be cruel by ignoring you, she may just not have anything useful to say. In the past, I told someone that her excessive need for support was exhausting so for my own mental health I needed space; that conversation really didn't help either of us, so I've learned from it. I've had to step away from some old friends more recently, because it didn't work for me and the lack of consideration got annoying. There would be no value in starting up a row, because it wouldn't change my mind, so I just reduced contact and then stayed quiet.

Ghosting is cruel. Lots of people say you can walk away from a person's life with out reason or explanation, but I don't agree. There will of course be a reason, but if you had genuinely done something wrong then you would know.
One thing I've learned is that some friends will love bomb, be there for the good times or the times that they need support then get bored and move on to a new best friend.
You won't get closure from her, only yourself. Find a way of doing something almost cheesy like a friendship funeral, where you do something physical to grieve and get your own closure.

ask this second friend why

I was your friend in this scenario. I'd known my friend for 40 years but as I got to middle aged I realised how unpalatable my friends behaviour was (never to me, but dreadful conduct towards mutual friends) and I realised I couldn't relate to her anymore. I gradually reduced contact, would reply to suggestions of meeting up with vague responses, made myself unavailable. That was cowardly of me. It came to a head when another friend said she realised I was exiting the friendship and wanted to speak to me. So I did and was honest with her, with as much kindness as I could muster. I told her I essentially didn't relate to the friendship anymore. She still tried to suggest meeting up occasionally but I stood firm. I simply didn't want to be in her company anymore.

I feel like she acknowledges my reasons as after 4 years, her parents have no idea we aren't in contact, she keeps up a pretence.

I think you need and deserve an explanation OP and I should have grasped the nettle with my former friend sooner.

This happened to me with a few people during the pandemic. I think the lockdowns gave people the excuse to become more introverted and hermit like. Or gave people the opportunity to triage their friendships. Or you kind of realised that you could get by with a lot less contact in general.

I also had some short lived friendships during the pandemic and then people lost interest (in one case it was mutual). I think we latched onto each other during strange covid times, and when covid was more or less over the need for each other diminished.

I have basically hardened myself quite a lot and am busy with work and my teens so I am quite philosophical about it.

Your friend sounds quite unkind OP so the way I would deal with it is by thinking that you are a nicer person than her and she doesn’t deserve your friendship.

You sound lovely

Can I just give a different perspective on ghosting.

I'm absolutely not saying this has happened in this situation.

I had a "friend" who was massively overbearing, loud, dominant and would disagree with everyone just for the sake of it. She worked in a caring position, and used her 'power' to convince everyone that she knew everything about how the NHS works etc. Forgetting that I work in a similar role but much higher up so knew she was talking bollocks.

There would be minor rows, and frankly I would be relieved because I thought I'd get a bit of peace for a while, but she just kept bobbing up like nothing had happened.

Over the lockdown I'd had enough, she was taking the piss out of her employer, the tax payer, going around calling herself a key worker on the front line while phoning in sick so she could sit in the garden with her children. (Not an assumption, she openly admitted it)

I'd had enough, I stopped replying to messages, stopped going to group functions when she was there, left if she showed up, but was always civil, never made a scene etc.

She knows very well why we're not friends anymore, even if she says she doesn't and cries innocence.

It also become clear why she couldn't keep a group of friends longer than a couple of years.

I didn't want a big row with her because I'm a grown woman and frankly, couldn't be arsed.

The only closure you need is knowing that she is not the friend you thought she is. And neither is this second friend.

Delete every reference of them in your life. Delete all texts, pictures, throw away presents.

Write her a letter telling her how hurt you feel and then burn it to say goodbye.

This has happened to me with a few people post lockdown
it's very hard

I wouldn't ask because she may not even know, or she might make something up.

I really know how much this hurts. Sorry.

ICanTuck that's the scary bit though

is there a perception that we have done something awful? I haven't been behaving like your ex friend and I'm sure OP hasn't either!

OP I recently distanced myself from a long term friend of mine. I didnt ghost as I will still have to see her as she is part of a long stand friendship group. She did something really underhand to me and it made me re-evaluate our friendship. Im telling you this as I dont think you are like her, you have tried to make an effort, inviting her out, asking what the issue is etc. I suppose what Im trying to say is that if I can still exchange pleasantries with this lady - who by the way played dumb regarding the issue and basically acted like she was oblivious, "have I done something to upset you panamera", then this so called friend of yours should be able to have a direct conversation with you.

I can understand why are you anxious about it, what she did is cruel but you have to remember that you have done nothing wrong here!