To ask why you ended a friendship?

[poseformenow]

Or the other way around?

I had a childhood best friend who for no reason stopped wanting to be friends. As in I asked to meet up and she said she was busy every day for the next 3 months. I mean 😅. There must be a reason but she never elaborated. She cut a lot of people out over the years though.

I ended one because she kept asking me to do things, borrow her money, give her lifts. Then she cancelled us meeting up to go on a date with a man (a second date and she’d only met up with him the night before). But she didn’t cancel she kept saying 1 more hour. Reading back I was an absolute mug.

We all became friends over a shared childhood interest. We were friends for fifteen years but as adults had no time for the interest that had bonded us. We all just grew apart. One (international) friend got very cross over this and insisted we continue to force the friendship. It was really horrible having to send messages to someone who I had very little in common with anymore and it caused me a lot of anxiety. Eventually I just stopped.

I identified that their competitive nature and desire to trample on everyone their path including children was not going to work for me. We have gradually lost touch to the point where literally only one person in "our" friendship group is still in touch. As a result I limit contact with that person too and it feels like the elephant in ten room but that is collateral damage compared to the anxiety and sleepless nights this person caused. I am genuinely much better off without her and have zero regrets even though it was without its price.

Twice I’ve decided to end a friendship.

The first, she was repeatedly cheating on her husband and using our nights out as a cover to meet up with random men, I didn’t want any part of it.

The second, she had a drink problem. Every night out ended up with her an absolute mess, and being rude & obnoxious to everyone, me included, it got very boring.

I have never actively ended a friendship, it's more that we grew apart and things fizzled out. I think a watershed moment is if you haven't spoken in a while and you then have big news eg pregnancy, new job etc. You decide not to share it with them as it just feels odd.

I had a friend from uni who one day just ghosted all of us from uni, and none of us have heard from her since. She changed jobs and I guess wanted a fresh start for some reason.

Friend 1: she was way, way too intense. Wanted a lot more from the friendship than I could offer, I tried to be gentle and then when that didn't work, even less gentle but it was becoming exhausting. I ended up ghosting her. I still feel bad.

Friend 2: I felt used. She was always needing favours, forgetting her purse when we met for lunch/drinks, always meeting to suit her schedule. I bent over backwards many times! I asked her for one small favour (a lift home from hospital, it was en route for her) and she said no. I never contacted her again.

I was out of work when a friend suggested a night out which I said I couldn't do as I was skint. My boyfriend at the time was still working and she said it must be nice to have a rich boyfriend to live off. Told her to contact me when she's ready to apologise, never heard from her again! In hindsight, no loss whatsoever!

Currently have a friend ignoring me, I've reached out twice but I'm not going to anymore, I've not done anything wrong but she's actively running away from me when she sees me on the school run so that's me done. I've tried but I'm not begging for her friendship.

I’ve never ended a friendship, though have allowed several to fizzle out as our lives grew apart. I still think of them occasionally, and I’d happily chat to them or go for a coffee and catch up if the situation ever arose.

A former friend ended our friendship as she somehow got it into her head that our friendship was toxic because I was secretly in love with her and was trying to break her and her new girlfriend up because I was jealous. It was sad, because we’d been great friends and shared both a lot of fun as well as periods of mutual care and support; and also very strange, because I’d never given any indication at all that I was interested in more than friendship, had known and supported her through plenty of previous relationships, and was, at the time, in a LTR myself with a man (who is now my husband.) She clearly had her own reasons, whatever they were, for feeling the way she did, though, and I didn’t try to dissuade her or work it out as I doubt it would have been positive or fruitful for either of us.

Had a friend since school, we had very different lives but would make time to catch up as and when. Over a conversation that I thought was a mutual conversation she took more as an argument i was blocked, so I moved on with my life. Over a year later I received a few random messages to reach out but a lot has gone on in my life the last year that we no longer have anything in common. I think people come into our lives at certain times for a reason, but accept people go their separate ways. no hard feelings.

Friend of 20+ years. Used to have ladies dinner and a few drinks once/ twice a month. Started insisting we do it at mine, kept turning up staying bang on half an hour, didn't bother to eat, then disappearing to see her affair. Then after I'd not spoken to her months found out via another friend she was still using me as the excuse to get out.

I had a friend who, truth be told, is one of the only friends in the traditional sense I've had in my life (someone I know in real life and had conversations with regularly, via messaging). Despite this, I actually dreaded our messaging conversations because she had very conservative political and religious views that would come up in every conversation and was very confident in the complete correctness of her views. For reference, I tend to be moderate in my views on most things and am even pretty conservative on some issues myself, so it's not like we were as far a part as we could be, but it's still a significant gap. As a result, we would get into arguments about topics such as gun control (she is very against it, which isn't that unusual as we're Americans, but I'm more moderate), the Satanic-ness of popular music (though I strongly voiced my disagreement, I never really told her what music and how much I listened to, I actually listen to some pretty extreme punk and rock nowadays, lol), and which version of Christianity was correct (we used to both belong to the same group, but I later converted to a very different one). These were not enjoyable conversations because I never got the feeling she was interested in understanding others' views. On the rare occasion we met in real life, we didn't usually have such conversations and things were much more pleasant, but most of our interactions were these online ones.

One day, I mentioned in a message to her that I started taking antidepressants and she sent long messages about how this was bad and I shouldn't do it. All her reasons were vague things like them having side effects (yeah I know), them costing money (I have insurance), and my depression not being bad enough to need them (how would you know better than me and my doctors when I haven't told you that much about my depression??). She would not acknowledge that there was anything wrong with this. That was just too much for me ultimately, and I ended up sending her an email "breaking up" with her. It was painful, but I don't regret it. We weren't actually compatible as friends.

Because he was desperate for a relationship despite having a girlfriend. His time keeping was awful too. And (someone suggested this was done on purpose) made us miss an event because he can't follow simple directions.

She stuck by my ex when we split, went out for cosy drinks with him and told him stuff I used to confide in her about.
Called me a narcissist.

She admitted she was wrong a couple of years later, I missed her so much so we tried again. She even came to my wedding a year or so after that. But it was gone, I couldn't properly forgive her so I let her go.
Don't think we've spoken in about 6 years now and I don't regret ditching her at all.

She yelled at me and made me feel bad. Very toxic person and extremely immature.

She was manipulative and controlling. Used her emotions as weapons to keep me in line. Had a mental list of friendship rules that I was berated if I transgressed ( even though I never knew what the rules were). Was a bloody relief to break free tbh.

Because it became one sided. I rang her several times during the pandemic to see how she was doing but she never rang me. It was the last of several one way things such as going away with a group of our friends but not asking me and then not realising I might be upset not to be asked.

Last straw was 2 weeks ago. We'd arranged to meet for lunch a 20 minute car journey so that it was midway between us. She didn't turn up. I waited half an hour. Then this week she rang for a favour and didn't mention it. When I said I couldn't do the favour, she reacted badly. I mentioned the lunch. She had forgotten and just laughed and said what am I like?!
I'm done. Don't know when she'll realise but I've blocked her number and also on Facebook. She doesn't go on here as she thinks its 'crass'.

I let one friendship fizzle out, when I realised I was always in the driving seat; so decided to see what would happen if I didn't contact her to meet up, that was about 25 years ago, I haven't heard from her since.

2nd one, friend called me in total distress, DH's family were visiting, she told me she had been arrested for drunk driving, I said I would be there asap, expecting to have to go to a police station.
She was at home, when I got there it turned out the conviction was a couple of months before, she was drunk and upset, I made her coffee got her to drink water, listened to her for about 2 hours. She then said she used to like me, but now I am an f-ing bitch; so I left and have heard nothing since.

When she had so much going on that she couldn't even message me when I had a huge life saving surgery. I had a minor one just before and she said "Sorry I didn't get in touch. I was busy with work" and I was "Not an issue, the big one is next month". But she was still without capacity to contact me. If your life is so full of pressure that you can't maintain our friendship at all, time for me to let it go. I am not in a time of life I can take days out to service friendships any more.

A few times over the years I have had to stop contact with “friends” who disrespected me and treated me badly. Never regretted it. I learned to set boundaries on what I would and wouldn’t put up with.

When I was much younger I ended a friendship because she kept making nasty/snide remarks and I called her out. She'd say things like 'I could tell that was you down the road because you've got too much make up on' etc. I basically told her I wouldn't put up with being spoken to like that anymore. Instead of apologising she tried to justify her behaviour so that was the end of that.

A couple of years later I had a message from a random woman on Facebook asking what had happened between us. Turns out she'd done the same thing to others including this woman and she'd spoken lied about what had happened between us so this woman had gotten curious about what had happened between us.

She posts all over her fb page about how she loves to support her friends, and gets lots of replies saying how kind and wonderful she is, and thanking her for being there for them. We were very close at one point, I supported her when she was going through horrible things at work, and through other tricky situations. She hasn't been there for me when bad things have happened, and couldn't even be bothered to say congratulations when my daughter was born. I sent her a message last year trying to catch up/reconnect and as part of it mentioned that I had been made redundant some months earlier. She never bothered to reply. I've muted her on FB and won't bother passing on my new address when I move - I don't think she cares. She clearly doesn't see me as a friend anymore.

Around 40, I cut anyone off who didn't add value to my life. Who wasn't family! Including my ex husband! It included boring people, boastful people, people who didn't reciprocate hosting.

My youngest was admitted into hospital at 2 days old on Christmas Eve with possible meningitis or sepsis. He was in for 7 days, k the 6th day he started having seizures for no apparent reason and became incredibly ill. He was sedated and moved to neonatal and almost didn't make it. That whole week he was in hospital she ignored my messages, even ones where I was opening up I was struggling with my anxiety over all of it. When dc finally came home a different friend came over to see us and him, I posted a photo of them on fb and my friend commented on it saying she can't wait for cuddles. She replied that to every photo I shared and I'd always reply my door is always open to her she's welcome anytime. Dc got to 6 months old and I didn't hear from her again so I blocked her her on fb. She asked me within 20 mins of me blocking her why I did it. I never replied.

Main reasons I did it heavy drinking she was hard work on nights out. Now its a polite hello!
Friend 2 always chasing making plans. Never from her side. Just had enough it. Its fizzled now. I havent energy for these people...

Have ended a couple of friendships. One when we got back from 6 weeks travelling abroad when I realised I was just her interpretor & she was so so ungrateful for all the French I'd had to dredge up from the back of my mind to get us through (in North Africa). Wanted me to translate, ask questions, understand the answers in microseconds. Told someone who asked how we coped, "oh my friend speaks a little French, it was fine". Made me realise what a user she had always been.

Another one thinks men can change sex and should be allowed in any women's safe spaces, sports, prisons you name it. It's all completely harmless, there is no conflict with women's rights and I am an behind the times. I just stopped responding to any contact. What's the point?

I was really close friends with someone when our little ones were small, the kind of friendship you really value, someone you could ring at 3am and know that they would be there for you and vice versa.
But she craves friendships. As the years have gone on she never lets me forget she has better friends, the ones that she goes out with on nice evenings out after she's told me she's not up to meeting up. The ones she will drop out of a conversation to answer a text "oh it's such and such, wants to know if I want to go for a curry"
As the saying goes 'One day you'll realise you lost a diamond while you were busy collecting stones'