AIBU to end friendship?

[roofusdoofus]

I 24F have been friends with 23F “Emily” for ten years. Emily gave birth at 19. At the time of birth, I was situated at home owing to the pandemic and lived within a five minute walk from her apartment.

I seen Emily regularly and went out of my way for her and her partner during her pregnancy. I had very little commitments bar university online so I had the time to do this and was honored when she asked me to be babies godparent. I ended up buying a lot for them and baby before the arrival to help them get setup. My sister also had a baby a year prior and donated a lot of baby stuff to them. I even paid for 1/3 of the christening meal. The grandparents & I all paid £100 each towards it. I had the means to do this at the time so I did, I didn’t expect anything in return.

Roughly when baby turned 1, I was required to relocate back to university (two hour commute) and worked there part time on weekends so seldom came home. I had less disposable income because I now had my own rent and bills to pay. I often invited my friend up, baby included, as I had the space to facilitate them (my accomdation was shared with one other but they left weekends) but she frequently declined. I was understanding of this until I noticed she started visiting another friend, without baby, in a different (more expensive) city for two days at a time.

Eventually our communication died down, we weren’t on the same wavelength but she would often ask for £50 here and there for things for baby. I obliged thinking it was genuinely needed for baby but noticed she started going on nights out the day she requested money instead. I stopped giving. I was never repayed as she promised but never chased the money either.

Once I finished my degree and gained experience in my field, I moved home. We have rarely met up and she often uses baby (now four) against me i.e. “she doesn’t remember who you are”, and I feel quite triggered by it. For months I would fall to her feet as soon as baby was mentioned because I felt as godparent I had to be present for her, even though my friendship with Emily was on the decline.

We met briefly in November where she told me she was being monitored for borderline bipolar disorder and she opened up that she was having a hard time and almost had to be comitted. I was understanding and routinely checked in, but was often waiting 5+ days for a reply and anytime I suggested meeting she “forgot” or didn’t reply in time.

We arranged to do Christmas presents on the 23rd but last minute she suggested a time she knew wouldn’t suit (9pm at night) so I declined, saying we agreed to meet at 7pm but she had “shopping to do”. Turns out, her and her boyfriend decided to do their gift exchange instead at that time which is why she couldn’t meet me. She let it slip when she was telling me everything he bought for her.

I ended up dropping her and babies Christmas presents up the 24th, she was home and said I should’ve called to let her know I was coming (I had texted multiple times and attempted to call once), the only reason I knew she was home is because her ex (baby daddy) let me know he had baby and would be bringing her home shortly. So we agreed to meet the 26th, she was an hour late so we only met for an hour, it was rushed so we said we’d meet the 29th properly. I checked twice that this suited and she said it did, 29th rolls around and she “forgot” and picked up a work shift instead and didn’t even apologise. I never replied to the text and she never made any effort to reach out or reschedule. Instead she has been sending me generic snapchats (pictures sent to everyone) and I don’t respond. One was a picture of a Youtube screen saying she felt 16 again watching a youtuber as she did her hair makeup.

I put up a story about how I booked my flights and am relocating away in a couple of months. She seen the story and didn’t reach out to congratulate me or make plans to meet. I said I’d give her until the end of January to make amends and she hasn’t. AIBU? I have decided to remove her off of social media and should she wish to make amends she can reach out by phone call. I keep seeing posts about how only low maintenance friendships survive and feel like I am possibly expecting too much from her but I don’t even receive the bare minimum from her. Apart of me feels unreasonable because she has mental health problems but I know I can’t use these as an excuse.

I think it’s just a friendship that’s fizzled out. You both had a lot of time for each other before but as the years have gone by you’ve gone down different paths and just aren’t as close. Sadly that happens a lot with friendships.
I think she was using your kindness to get money and I’m glad you stopped giving it to her.
Its entirely up to you if you want to remove her from social media or not. Personally I’d just keep her there but not bother to reach out and would think about replying if she contacted me.

A taker and a user. You are better off without her.

ive been this friend, the one who gets busy etc from my point of view there’s no badness just life gets in the way (I think she’s cheeky to ask for money though) it’s hard sometimes to keep up the same level of friendship but the fact she still contacts you randomly probs means she’s cares but maybe just accept your friendship has moved to a more casual one… don’t take it personally and don’t give any more money. Send £20 in a card for baby on Christmas and bday

I think it happens when you go away to uni, some of my good friends from school had babies young, I moved to the other end of the country for uni, even when I was back the amount we had in common other than reminiscing became less and less. Make sure to send something for the child's birthday and Christmas and pop in if you can when you are home. You just need to accept that this friendship is from a different part of your life. It is sad when I see some of my old friends still socialising together but it's because their circumstances haven't changed, they still live in the same town, most are SAHM or work very part time, some are married to the same boys we were friends with/dated at school who all work in trades and work/socialise together, others were and are now single. I don't live in that area anymore and my life is very different. I think some friends are those of proximity, especially when we were young.

Having said that I met my best friend when we worked together for 3 months when we were young and our friendship has endured for more than twenty years, but our lives were different even when we met, we just clicked. It's a very low maintenance friendship. We've both had periods when we've been busier or going through tough times, neither begrudges the other of that and both of us are there for each other. There were times when younger and living far apart we'd barely speak for a few months at a time for no real reason other than life, but as soon as we were back in touch it was like nothing had changed.
Those are the relationships to hold on to.

I think she has benefited massively from your support but given little back in return. I'd let the friendship fizzle naturally

Don't get all hung up on the role of Godparent.

In this day and age it doesn't often have a lot of meaning, bar showing the level of friendship at the time.

Your "friend" is a user. Now that she has seen you won't be guilted into being overly generous she has stopped putting effort into cultivating you.

YANBU. Some peop!e are just takers. My best friend from when we were 9 years old was my bridesmaid , I wasn't asked to be hers, she and her husband were godparents to my children.They never asked us to be godparents to any of theirs. I was her go to throughout her life whenever things went wrong for her, but she wasn't ever really there for me, although we were close and told each other everything, spent a lot of time with and had fun together etc. One day she to!d me her husband had got a promotion and they were moving out of town. I never heard from her again , this was before internet or even mobile phones existed. Looking back I feel like I was her friend but she wasn't mine.
In future if you're a giving type of person remember to set yourself some limits because takers don't have any.

I don’t understand this need for actively ending friendships.

Friendships change over time contact comes and goes, and they drift, and perhaps in time there are friendships where you say “I used to have a friend” but that doesn’t have to mean you had a serious falling out, it just means that the friendship changed and you moved in different directions.
I think it’s actually not that uncommon to have friendships where it seems that one party is always the one making contact. I have a couple of friends where it’s always me doing the texting or the calling, and it does get annoying to the point of just not calling any more, but I wouldn’t actively tell them to go away if they did call or text.

But all this blocking people and removing them from social media is just so juvanile. You can step back without having to essentially announce it.

I agree with a pp. it’s just a friendship that fizzled put.

You’ve moved in different directions. It’s normal, it’s just life. It’s sad and you’ll look back on the good times with nostalgia, but she’s taken the piss over the years.

No need to remove her from social media or do something "big" to end it. All you'll do is create drama.
Your lives are very different now so just put in the same energy as she does and the friendship will naturally fizzle. This makes it easier to reconnect later when you're both in a different place (which may or may not happen)
This happened with the parents of my Godson, now we rarely see each other but we're on good ish terms and every once in a while will have a nice visit or meal out which is enjoyable. She adds to my social life but I don't rely on her (he vanished completely!!)

Your friend isn't behaving well but removing her from social media is a very "teenage" thing to do.

She's not a friend but you need to grow up RE the social media stuff.

You thought you were a God parent. She saw atm...

The friendship is over by the sounds of it. As someone else has said, don't get hung up on the title of Godparent, it doesn't mean much these days. You've tried your hardest to be a friend to her and be there for her and her daughter but she's rejected you too many times and sounds like she has used you for money and kindness.

The Friendship has fizzled out and that's normal you've moved on and progressed in your life while she has stayed the same. I don't think you need to delete her off social media and everything but I just stop making the effort and stop buying her things as she doesn't appreciate it

The last thing I want to do is create drama because that’s something she specialises in, but I also don’t want to keep her there on any active social media. The only social media that I use is Snapchat/Instagram and I keep a “low” social media presence because of my current career. Anyone I follow, or who follows me, I have met and am acquainted/friends with and even to that extreme my stories are set to close friends only.

Probably should’ve mentioned! Our friendship initially fizzled out around September last year, and we both had a back and forth about the friendship. It came to a head when she ultimately blamed me for “isolating” her after an abortion. Emily told me while I was on holiday (August) that she was pregnant and aborting. I was in another country and couldn’t physical support her but I would almost instantly reply to her messages where I could. I did suggest phone calls but because baby was around there was never an appropriate time. She scheduled the appointment to take the tablets shortly after I returned home so I said that I could call over after work to physically support her, everything was arranged and bought. An hour before I finish work I text to see if she needs anything else and she tells me not to come over, I respected this and said to reach out if she changes her mind. I follow up by text the next day to see how she’s feeling and if she needs anything, no reply, so I leave it until the weekend and try calling but she doesn’t answer because she’s at work. I tell her to call or text when she has the chance and let her know when I’m free to meet keeping my schedule very open. Nothing. About two weeks later, we bump into each other (and baby) in town and we go for coffee where she says that her now boyfriend actually came over and spent the week with her so she had physical support. I was happy that she had someone, checked in on her, but we swiftly moved away from conversation because baby was with us and we were in a public setting. I made her aware she can reach out at any stage!

Around the same time, I left an abusive relationship but never reached out to her for support because she was unavailable and going through her own thing. I stopped reaching out to her because I felt exhausted constantly checking in without response and felt it was no longer my duty as I needed to prioritise my own healing. Roughly two weeks after meeting for coffee everything came to a head, I received a text from Emily expecting it to be a general chit chat but instead it was a long paragraph accusing me of not supporting her or being a good friend during her abortion. She said she felt alone and that I made her feel isolated, even though she said over coffee her boyfriend was with her and spent the week, making sure she had everything she needed and looked after baby when she couldn’t. I suggested meeting rather texting and she declined so we were going at each other over text and things escalated to the extent where I tried to end the friendship, expressing I felt we were no longer on the same wavelength and that our friendship has just fizzled naturally but will always be apart of babies life and she never replied.

It was about a month or so of radio silence and then she asked me to meet early November, I agreed and we went for lunch but never even addressed the elephant in the room. Shortly after Christmas presents came up in discussion so I don’t know if this was a coincidence or if she only reached out prior to Christmas for gifts.

Anyways, here we are.

Another mutual friend of ours is currently going through a breakup after being with her high school sweetheart for the past 7 years. I’ve met with this friend twice since the breakup and she said that Emily has essentially ghosted her. They were suppose to meet but then Emily fell off the Earth and hasn’t been in contact since but has sent our mutual friend the same general snapchats that I also receive. I think Emily’s not capable of being a present friend while in a relationship but expects everyone to be there for. She has previously said before she used to always meet/invite me over while she was with her ex (baby daddy) because she couldn’t stand being with him all the time.

I'm sorry this has happened and no she doesn't sound like a great friend, you're completely justified in letting the friendship go. However, rest assured removing her off all social media and waiting for her to make amends by phone will create drama and will end in tears.

No matter how many more justifications you offer, that solution to your friendship issues just makes you sound like a teenager.

Just quietly let this friendship go, there really is no need for big gestures.

I know you’re annoyed at her but it really just seems like your friendship has gone in two different directions and now you need to leave it be. As another pp said, you don’t need to make any big gestures to end the friendship.
I don’t think it really matters what’s happening with the other friend.

if you don’t want to keep her on social media then remove her. It seems quite drastic if I’m honest, if you barely use social media and she doesn’t see your stories then there’s really no need to delete, just don’t interact with anything she posts and don’t reply to anything she posts on your profiles etc.

She sounds like a bit of a user, and I think I'd let the friendship naturally decline. You don't owe her, or her child anything. I think she's got used to taking from you though. I wouldn't dramatically 'end' the friendship, but definitely don't give her any more money or pay for anything again.

TBH reading back through your posts you sound pissed off that she’s daring to have other friends and support networks.

She had a termination and you expected her to want you to be there for her, instead she was with her bf, which tbh is understandable.

You gave her stuff, paid for stuff but from what you’re saying she’s not been asking you for money, and although I wouldn’t necessarily have accepted at the time, there’s a difference between accepting gifts and actively scrounging for them.

Ultimately friendships change, and yours has.

And real friendship is unconditional, not “you didn’t come to me when you needed a friend so I’m going to delete and unfriend you.”

There’s nothing you ‘be said here that doesn’t still make you look like a petulant child who is stamping your feet because “x won’t play with me.”
I have friends and acquaintances in my life who seem to only get in touch when they want something. If any of them were going through a hard time I would be there for them, and they know that. And generally these people have other friends or family they’re with instead. That’s fine. We’re not those kind of friends, even if we previously had been.

But it’s possible to step back without essentially sky-writing “I’m not your friend any more.”

The fact that you’re all using snapchat shows that you’re all quite young anyway and have a lot of growing up to do.