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.

I ghosted someone I knew-she was more someone I knew than a friend

she wanted a lot more than I could ever give-I work full time,have kids and just want to crash in front of the tv when I get in-I’m knackered

she wanted to be round all the time-but she’d sit on my sofa,just talking at me for hours

she went through my fb friends list and demanded I get rid of about a third as ‘I don’t like them’

if I was seen out and about,I’d get the texts to ask why she hadn’t been invited

shed sit and slag off people I’ve never met and she’d then show me pictures of their pets/kids/gardens/home while slagging them off-I knew full well she was doing the same about me but let it go

she demanded that when she died,I was to take 3 weeks off work and clear out her house

shed come to my work and demand to see me-if I wasn’t in she’d start shouting at my bosses to promote me and that they work me too hard-I got hauled into the office to defend myself over her telling them I’d been slagging them off-I hadn’t but I could have lost my job over it

it was never ending-and I took it-for all her faults she was a lovely,caring but lonely woman

the last straw was about this time last year when my lovely mil came to spend Christmas with us

we’d just lost fil to cancer and we where not really in the mood for celebrating but the idea was we’d just bunk down together and get through it

for context my mil can be a bit of a prude-I’d never sit and discuss sex with her or swear-that’s fine

but this woman banged on my door-mil opened it and she pushed past and sat in my sofa

she started calling my mil ‘mother’ and demanding mil make her a cuppa and was banging on about her ‘piss problem’ (something to do with a bladder infection)

i was trying to get her back out of the door,when this friend turned to me and asked ‘where on this sofa have you given mr dogs a blowy?I don’t want to sit on the seat you’ve fucked him on,I really don’t want to sit in his dried cum’

i lost it,chucked her out,grovelled to my mil and not spoken to her since-she keeps coming into my work,but they just tell her to leave and Ignore any of her phone calls

my mil calls her ‘that weird woman’

NewToWoo, what you say about being used as a dumping ground is familiar. I think that's what happened to me and OH with someone we've known since the 80s. It started going weird about eight years ago, after he split up with his wife and met someone else. He only got in touch when he wanted something and communications became very dull round-robin accounts of his and his family's life. One time, we were having a face-time chat and decided to see how long it was before he stopped talking about himself and asked us how we were - 45 minutes. This happened a few times. Once it was our turn, he was suddenly busy and had to go.

After we hadn't seen him for a couple of years, he asked to visit for a couple of days this summer so we could catch up, but then spent most of his time wiffling on his phone, even at meal times. I was furious and once he'd gone I had the biggest cleaning frenzy of my life to rid the house of the atmosphere he'd left. Anyway, after leaving our place we've not heard a word from him, not even to thank us for having him to stay. I'm guessing we've served our purpose in his life and are no longer required. I'm hurt but mainly I'm offended and feel used.

Yes, I had this exact same thing from my best friend. No reason I could fathom. Turned out that she was shagging my husband. There's always a reason.

Wow @proveit that's awful. Reading some of this I know my former bf has thrown a good friendship away with me. All I ever did was listened to her bang on about how crap her life is and none of it her fault.

I'm not ghosting but I am changing two friendships to see them once or twice a year max. The reason is that they cost me more energy than they give me and when they want to meet up I don't feel happy about it. They haven't changed, I just don't want to be close friends anymore with people where the friendship doesn't add something to my life. I'm making new friends that inspire me and who make me feel happy to see them (even though the conversation can be negative sometimes, that's ok in itself).

I’ve just ghosted someone. The reason I haven’t been upfront is to avoid drama.
The friendship came about through our having children who were friends.
I’ve never been totally comfortable with this friend and have blown hot and cold with her, sometimes accepting her for what she is because of her liking me and sometimes distancing myself because of factors I dislike about her.
She is someone who talks about herself endlessly, is jealous, manipulative, unkind about family who have paid for so many things for her and more.
We haven’t contacted one another for a few months and it’s a relief for me. She maybe ghosting me for all I know but I’m fine with that.
Not at all saying you’re not a nice person, but the ghoster will definitely have their reasons and it’s unlikely they’ll come back from this.
I would try to make peace with the loss and enjoy friendships with people who like you.

I’ve been ghosted by someone I thought was a close friend.

She would message me every day for years, and we’d meet up every week and have a good time. We never had any disagreements.

The only thing that changed was she joined a group where they had a particular thing in common and she obviously felt she didn’t need me any more once she found them. She stopped messaging and stopped replying to my messages other than the occasional matter of fact response.

I now feel that she used me when she felt lonely and had lots of spare time to fill. I can’t think of any other reason. It hurts.

We still bump into each other sometimes and she acts as though nothing has happened - we’ve met up a couple of times in the past year, always after we’ve bumped into each other - she likely asks me to meet out of awkwardness. I feel like saying no next time.

Ghosting is cruel. I would much rather have been sent an honest message saying that she wanted to cut back on contact and giving me the honest reason or even just to say she was too busy. Yes it would be upsetting but ghosting has meant I’ve spent hours going over it in my mind, and it’s hard to get over.

I ended a long friendship, but not with ghosting - I’m afraid I flipped and lost my temper with them - for the first time in our entire friendship. They were constantly late or cancelled dates at the last minute, but I kind of accepted that as part of their general flakiness. It was the mean way they spoke about others behind their backs, while oozing charm to the same peoples’ faces. I had helped them out financially too and they somehow resented me for that. I got hostile vibes from them as did my husband. And they were with a new bf who had just come out of prison for possession and distribution of class As and I was naturally concerned. To this day, they see themselves as entirely innocent, their family blame me and their mother has done an excellent smear campaign on me.

I have no regrets about ending it. It was starting to affect my mental health.

I think in my case if my friend (met at uni, lived together, moved to London at similar times) had flipped I might have preferred that, because at least I would've known why. And I'm perfectly capable of being a tosser, so I would have believed them and tried to make amends.

In my case my mother died from a very aggressive cancer in my late twenties and I really, really struggled in the aftermath. For six months during her illness and after I was pretty much out of action completely, reclusive, depressed, struggling with traumatic flashbacks and family issues arising from the death. I gradually recovered, although the PTSD is something I'll live with forever.

I got myself back to work, and started edging myself back out into the world and she just wasn't there any more. I found out about 18 mths later that she had split with her long term partner, who was also a uni friend (through her, she was the main friend) and when I said 'God, she never told me' he said 'Well yes, that's part of her issue isn't it'. He's right. She just had walls up for so many people. I was one, and so was he.

It hurts because she still speaks to some friends from university, I see their interactions on Facebook and think 'But I was the one who made you a cuppa in the morning, I was the one who you went to gigs with, what did I do?'

Maybe she doesn't know. I certainly never will.

I have a friend who I've known a very long time that is doing this now, she hasn't responded to a message I sent at the beginning of December. We haven't seen each other since May and she's given me lots of reasons for not going out for my milestone birthday a few months ago.

I don't know what to do to be honest. I'm having a really awful time at the moment so I'm scared to ask her what's going on. My mental health has been in the toilet these last two years and I know that's not easy to deal with, but I can't fake being well. The alternative was to not see her at all. We never chat on the phone so we either text or meet up for dinner or coffee once every two months.

I don't want the friendship to end on a bad note, as I know she may have things going on but I'm absolutely devastated. She didn't send me a card for my birthday and only text happy birthday once I messaged her. What do I do? I don't want to keep texting if she doesn't want to be friends.

A friend did this to me. Apparently I was too negative for the months after a close relative was murdered. I am still incredibly angry with her. We had been friends for many decades and she dumps me as soon as I am not happy.

The reason you haven't been upfront is it is the easy option for you. That is what you mean.

To those who have posted about ghosting - why would you not message the person?

For me, on one occasion it was because I was so unbelievably upset by her behaviour and she seemed to think she had done nothing wrong. We were very close and I had trusted her with some information that she gossiped and laughed baout with her family and friends. I couldn;t bring myself to speak to her for a long time after that. Gradually, because she is persistent, we got back on speaking terms and now have a friendship again but it will never be as close. She is good company and sociable but also self absorbed and a gossip. So I keep our friendship at a much more casual level and that works for both of us.

It happened to me also OP, I almost feel relieved seeing how many others have experienced it too. Mine was a very close friend from school, bridesmaids at each others weddings etc. we were at different stages in our lives but I always felt I supported her and absolutely adored her as a friend.

After several months of hearing nothing from her I asked her and got some scathing messages back about how awful I had been at certain points over the years and she didn’t want to tell me. It honestly shook me to the core as i really am not the type of person to upset others and as I said I adored her & felt so terrible I’d ever upset her.

With time and support from lots of lovely people I have in my life Iv realised I maybe misjudged the relationship and she had changed from the girl I was friends with at school and we are different. It’s been very distressing but you do come out the other side and I wish her nothing but happiness but hope to never see her again.

@Lemonpink88 I could have written this. 43 year friendship, my soul mate, apart from my DH.
In some ways I do want to see her again as I’ve never had closure but it would just be awkward like the very last time we met 6 years ago when she clearly didn’t want to see me any more.

As people get older their choices narrow. Cutting someone out of their life becomes worth doing because they can - in plenty of other areas - how they age, a bad job, bad marriage, bad relatives etc they have no immediate choice.

I've ghosted and been ghosted before there was a name for it. It was in my early 20s and perhaps associated with wanting to move away from teenage attitudes and concerns.
Shared negativity is almost exciting as a teenager, it goes against the grain and that cheery, slightly false relentless positivity that adults impose on you. Getting further along the road, shared negativity is a drag and very rarely resolves itself because that's the basis of the friendship.
Sometimes when people feel negative themselves, what they don't want is anyone else's negativity because it's double helpings. Having something negative in common is not worthier than something positive in common, although what drives many healthy relationships is a positive joint project.

I suppose it's the not knowing, plus the sense that for a certain amount of time they were thinking this through and you weren't aware of it. It's pride to some extent - the most severe form of ghosting one could argue is suicide; if she'd done that, would you feel better or worse about it?

@Shortkiwi in sorry you have had such a similar experience. It really is heartbreaking, especially when out of the blue.

Thanks so much again for all the replies, they've really helped and I'm sorry to read that so many of you are going through or been through the same thing.

I've sobbed hard this evening. I haven't cried like that for a long long time. I needed to get it out. I'm hurt, sad, confused, angry, worried, lost. The thought of not seeing her again makes me feel sick. It's like losing a sister.

I think I'm going to climb a bloody big hill tomorrow, just try and let it all go.

It's awful isn't it, the not knowing what to do. Do you confront it head on? Let it drift? Keep trying and being rejected?

I've done all of the above and I'm not getting radio silence which has given me the answer.

Wishing you healing and support and kindness in your life.

*now getting

Reading the comments and the awful pain that pp have been through, 💐 I would not feel good ghosting a former friend.

Op its hard when no closure. I agree ghosting not nice. While 1 friend is happy to sit back I did text re happy xmas to her. It leaves communications open. But your right not nice. Friendships do change I think.

I agree with PP that ghosting is horribly cowardly. When someone you care about simply ignores your messages not only do you then assume you’ve done something wrong but you also then worry that something awful has happened to them and that’s really anxiety provoking too. I don’t know why people can’t just text something like “my life is really busy at the moment and I need to take some time out/space to focus on myself/family/mental health/ kids/ whatever”. That’s not rude but at least it doesn’t just leave the person forever wondering if they should send another message or leave it or worry something happened.

Thank you @Lemonpink88
and @NewspaperTaxis thank you, so eloquently put- totally hit the nail on the head.

What I notice from the comments by people who have been ghosted is that lots of them describe being soul mates or knowing everything about each other, laughing and crying. To me that indicates a very heavy, intense friendship which many people don't really have the stamina for as they get older. Once you have children, aging parents, work, a relationship, the last thing you need is for friendship to be draining or high maintenance. Friendship should replenish you. Be light and uplifting. My idea of hell these days would be to sit and get drunk with an old friend and spill our hearts to each other. Fine in my teens and twenties but now, I value light relief. But if I had a school or uni friend who was that intense still I wouldn't want to say, I never want to see you again because you are too intense and I need low maintenance friendships. It wouldn't quite be true. I'd still love them, I'd just not have the patience and energy to spend an evening with them, so might want the friendship to drift.