To think that ghosting a 30 year friendship is really fucking cruel

[Mumsfret1976]

I'm in the process of being ghosted from a very dear friend. Its so painful, I've spent months replaying conversations, things I could have said or done wrong. I've always done my best to be a good friend. Always been there to listen, to care. Always been interested in her DC. There's nothing I can pinpoint but after 2 years of slowly fading out of my life she's now cut me off.

I'm just left feeling confusing and hurt. I know it's out of my hands, I can't make someone want to be my friend anymore but she meant a lot to me. Its also come at a time of my own ill health and my dad's cancer diagnosis. She doesn't know about my Dad, I didn't want her to feel obliged to stay in my life if she didn't want to and she obviously doesn't.

Has this happened to anyone else? How did you get over it? I do have a couple of others friends and DH, DC and my parents so I'm not on my own but no one will ever replace her.

Sorry OP. It is hugely painful. I kind of did this but I had been hideously mistreated by people she still hangs out with and she must have known what they were saying and doing to me. I had no choice. She was bloody awesome when we were young and I will always be thankful to have had her in my life.

I am sure your friend feels the same. Leave the door open maybe she will walk back in.

I’m sorry this has happened to you. There’s a similar thread on here atm which I commented on. This happened to me. It’s extremely painful and my BF is still irreplaceable. 6 years later I try my best to have a happy life with family and other friends. I try to tell myself I’m not a bad person because she rejected me. There’s sometimes things going on with another person that we can’t appreciate or they change and want to move on.

I'm sorry you're in this situation, losing friendships is painful but especially after such a long time, where it sounds like a one-sided decision.What's the context here? Do you live close enough to one another that you could see each other in person regularly? When you say she's cut you off, has she explicitly said she doesn't want to see you/blocked your messages or just stopped replying? Are you part of a wider group of mutual friends who might be able to shed any light on the situation?

I've sort of done this. My friend has become relentlessly negative and unkind about people. I find it difficult to cope with. She's had a very tough time and that has, of course, affected her outlook but I can't cope with it anymore.

I've tried to bring it up gently, repeatedly.

The last straw for me was when she ran into a girl we both knew in school. Neither of us are in touch with her and we haven't heard from, or spoken to her, in years. She's done nothing to anyone that I know of. But it wasn't just nice to run into this woman. She had nothing good to say. Her hair, weight, age of her children, job...not a kind thing to say. I was depressed and frustrated listening to it and being unable to redirect towards the nice aspect of meeting someone again.

That's just an example, it's been years.

Thankyou for the replies.

I think part of me feeling so shit is because I think I must have done something wrong. Maybe I have been too negative or talked about myself too much or offloaded on her too much but that's the kind of open, honest friendship we had. We laughed together, bitched together, cried together. I could always just be myself with her. It never crossed my mind to be anything else. We grew up together.

I've always thought I was good person, I try to be but maybe I'm not. Friends don't do this for no reason.

We won't bump into eachother anywhere, no mutual friends.

I'm so sorry. I was ghosted 2 years ago by someone I considered one of my closest friends. It was even harder as our daughters had known each other since birth and my DD asked constantly why we hadn't seen her friend. We'd known each other 12 years so I can only.imagine hpw painful it is after 30 x

This has happened to me. This guy is my son's godfather and I'm godparent to his child. I've tried to call him and his wife but no reply (it's been 6 months now). I have a happy life with a nice family and lots of other friends but I am devastated. We've been friends since the 90s. Sending lots of sympathy to you - it's just so painful.

My friend of 20 years ghosted me about 5 years ago. Still bloody hurts when I think about it.

Remember it says more about her than you.

Sending unmumsnetty hugs.

its very sad when this happens and you don't know why.

It's just a thought, but it may not even be about you. Maybe she's depressed or dealing with an issue that she finds really difficult and can't bring herself to talk about.
You've gone through all your conversations and can't come up with a reason, so I think you have to forgive yourself and stop worrying about it because its all just conjecture.

It happened to me and it still hurts. I can’t pinpoint what I did wrong - I think I was too boring. I was useful during times of crisis but when my friend got her life back on track I was dumped.

I am also currently passing out a friend. Similar to what other posters have said this friend had become incredibly bitter and negative. She only talks about herself, her job and her health. She is incredibly prickly and takes everything I say the wrong way. She is never happy for me and never asks about my life. It is exhausting and depressing. She used to be loads of fun.

I'm so sorry that so many have experienced the same thing.

I just don't understand why she's done it. Is this a new thing? Ghosting I mean. It seems so unnecessarily cruel.

I know friendships fizzle out, I've had many friends come and go over the years but this was different, I never ever thought she wouldn't be in my life. I've lost her DC, DH and her parents too. They all meant the world to me.

As much as I'm doubting myself I keep coming back to that fact that we've been friends for 30 years and I haven't changed so why am I suddenly so awful that she doesn't want anything to do with me anymore.

I wish I could just switch this off and get on with my life. Life is so painful, there's so much shit that comes your way, why would a friend inflict even more?

I have to admit I've done this and the reason was two-fold:

firstly, I've never been good with confrontation / open and honest 'this is why I'm annoyed with you' type conversations (except with DH - I excel with him ha ha)

secondly, I sought advice from two people whose opinions I trust and they both said if you say anything to her she won't take it well, people rarely do.

In my instance friend was like PP where there was just so much negativity regarding mutual friends, basically slagging us all off to each other / behind each other's backs.

This will possibly hurt for a long time, but you will get over it.

Incidentally I had it done to me too and after a very long hiatus (over a decade) we're on friendly terms again, so you never know!

Thanks again for all the replies. They've been really helpful.

I've just got to let it go. It just feels like such a huge loss at a time in my life when I'm already losing so much.

I'm so flipping tired.

Thankyou. I think maybe it's something like this. She was the one person I felt I could off load to. She would do the same to me but maybe she's reached a point where she can't cope with any negativity from anyone. Maybe she just wants light, easy friendhips without the tough parts of supporting someone through difficult times.She hasn't been there for me at all through my recent illness and I've never expected or asked much from her but she just doesn't give a shit.

Thanks again, your post has really given me some clarity.

I just wish I could stop beating myself up about it and I don't even know what I'm beating myself up about!

I've done it. It was a long friendship, but I gradually came to realise I didn't enjoy the friendship or look forward to seeing her. She was very opinionated (which is fine), but because I used to avoid confrontation or conflict, I never challenged her. Even if she was being rude or judgemental about my choices. Then, as I got older and more secure, this began to grate. I became less easygoing about her criticisms. The final straw came when I went through something in my personal life and she literally did not even send a text to ask how I was. I thought - i put up with you judging me because I thought you were my friend, but now you've shown you're judgemental AND a bad friend! Enough.

I don't know your situation, but my point is that there are 2 sides to this story.

I'm afraid I did it with a 10 year friendship because I knew they were divulging my business to someone they considered a friend but knew I didn't get on with. I did high profile works in specific locations around town which only my friend knew about. I knew they were telling the other person about the work I was doing and they didn't see the harm because they thought the other person was just showing an interest in me but It resulted in my work being repeatedly stolen and vandalised which I could never prove but as soon as my friend no longer knew the locations of my work, it suddenly stopped being stolen and damaged because they were no longer able to divulge what they didn't know.

It's awful when you invest so many years to learn you just can't trust the friend to be loyal and not divulge your business but I'm your case it seems more mutual investment that has just become stagnant for one party. I also had friendships with they family and parents which all went when I decided to walk away. Sometimes you just have to move on. Don't focus necessarily on replacing the friend but on yourself. Sometimes it isn't meant to be forever. Loyalties change as I found and maybe didn't really ever exist the way I thought they did. It's not you. It's them x

I've done it to someone I would have called my closest friend for many years. (Or I think I have, never entirely clear about the difference between ending a friendship without a discussion and ghosting someone)

Our fun and warm friendships had slowly turned into me supporting her through her emotional crises, which would repeat again and again, pattern never changing. She hated her life but wouldn't take steps to alter her situation, just came to expect I would step in again and again. And she seemed to resent it at the same time as demanding it.

So I just stopped. Touched base a couple of times over a couple of years in response to specific incidents, but otherwise disengaged.

I very much miss the friendship we had for so many years and I hope she found the strength to make the changes she needs. I'm sad that our children aren't friends anymore. I know it hurt her and I am very sorry about that too.

But for me it had become toxic and hurtful. I can't be someone else's Support Human all the time.

I have a friend who's doing this to me at the moment and I have found out why and I'm not sure how to handle it! I had been supporting my friend through a tough time and this mutual friend tried their best to discourage me from supporting said friend but I carried on supporting the friend. Before I know it the friend I was supporting has backed right off and the other seems to be her best friend all of a sudden so this person has been stirring but am not sure how because anything I have said I had said to my friend anyway. I have not told my friend either that other friend was actively encouraging me to support her or that the said person was slagging her off either.

Ive had it done to me. Actually we were a group of three friends and it was two of us were entirely ghosted. It was painful and happened over a while (12-18 months) through strange behaviour and then bumping into her and her acting like she had told us life changing things (relocation) when she hadn't. And then that was it she was gone. I would have fully supported the relocation. Thank goodness i had the support of the other friend who was equally as bewildered. It took about a year before we could meet up and that not be what we talked about. It hurt badly. We are still incredibly close now.

I thought i had been a good friend and supported her. I have no idea what happened. It still plays on my mind occasionally now and i think does slightly effect how i attach to people. But i wish her well.

I left behind a friend whose busy-ness and constantly using me for social engagements to plug her loneliness was exhausting. And because she couldn’t allow me space to have my full range of feelings after my husband died - she was okay with the idea of me filling my time or distracting myself, but not with me feeling sad and angry for a while. So I just couldn’t do it anymore - maintain the front or keep working out what was acceptable to her because putting on that mask was exhausting for me.

These things are quite subtle and can be hard to put your finger on. With my friend I knew she just wouldn’t understand if I raised it with her, because she hadn’t yet faced her own feelings of anger and sadness about some stuff in her life. Keeping busy and avoiding those feelings was how she got through.

My problem was that I wasn’t in a strong enough place to be able to work out how to have that conversation lovingly with her, and while I was going through the death of my husband I couldn’t face any stress of her taking it badly on top of that.

It can be really complicated and might not be something your friend has done lightly. But can you ask her about it? Let her know what she means to you and that you’d like to understand? (If you truly would like to understand).

You sound pretty angry which is understandable, but I wonder if your friend sensed this anger would come up and maybe that’s why she hasn’t discussed it with you? I wonder if also you might have been relying on her a bit too heavily for an adult relationship because of your strength of feeling.

This happened to me as well- she was one of my bridesmaids, we’d been on holidays together, one of my best friends for over a decade- she sent a gift when I had my first baby in Dec ‘19 then I moved house and the pandemic started- I kept texting her to see if she was ok and she was ignoring me, eventually I called her boyfriend as I was getting worried something was seriously wrong, only for him to tell me she was fine. She eventually sent me a text message several months later basically telling me she wasn’t my friend any more, blocked me as soon as she sent it and that was it. Looking back I still have no idea what I did to deserve it.

OP how about trying a session or two of counselling?. I’ve done this in the past and found it really helps when I’ve been going round and round in circles with something on my mind.

I always think with some people, over familiarity, built up over many years through a friendship can "breed contempt" as they say.

People change, maybe both of you, and maybe you just grew apart.

I have people that I no longer see, with certain friends from many years ago they may have such a different lifestyle to me that it has hurt. For example, snobbery is one thing I experienced but never felt able to raise it with my friend. Lots of small comments that I felt really degraded me, death by 1000 cuts it felt like, not one incident but many small ones. Another seemed to make up elaborate lies to get out of things and have frequent hissy fits about things, which in the end I found too much. Another made comments about how I raise my DC. I realise all of this makes me sound really sensitive but my boundaries changed a lot on what I felt I could tolerate.

So it could be that it's slowly slowly changed or she's changed or both of you have changed. Or maybe she has a lot going on and can't deal with someone else's drama on top.

I’ve done it with a 30 year friendship. Both our daughters are exactly the same age. She was my ‘sister’ but she was all me,me, me - arranged to visit - I would cancel plans and then she would just cancel the morning of the visit. She didn’t return calls. She would claim she was too tired to visit and then post SM pictures of herself clubbing. Every conversation was an hour of listening to all her issues - so depressing.

I started counselling and a year later got up the balls to phone and end the friendship and explain why - she didn’t answer I left a message, she phoned back and apologised and begged for a second chance I agreed.
Six months on from that nothing had changed so I stopped replying and contacting. She sent me a message in the summer I didn’t reply. I might get a text this Christmas. If I do I will wish her happy Christmas and I won’t block her but I have accepted it’s over and out.

I've been through this. It's like a bereavement in a way.

11 years ago my best friend who I'd known from primary school cut me off in a very vicious way. I thought we were still close. We met most weeks and I was about to ask her to be God mother to my newborn DD2. She rang me up, ranted at me and told me to never contact her again. I was gobsmacked but she clearly meant it as that was our last contact.

In hindsight I think she had post natal depression and was very stressed. I'd tried to support her but perhaps hadn't given her enough. When she stressed about not having dusted properly (dusting after hoovering 🤔) I made light of it saying any dusting at all was a success in our house.

We parented in very different ways, mostly though because we had children with very different personalities. My DD1 was later diagnosed with ADHD and I fully agree was a proper handful (still is) but not so much as to be intolerable.

All I can say OP is that you learn to live with the hurt. You can't control how others behave and you'll drive yourself crazy trying to apply reason to their actions. I hope you have other friends you can turn to and focus on.