To feel hurt when a friend suddenly cuts off communication without explanation?

[Silentfriend]

A friend of mine suddenly stopped communicating without any explanation or reason. I've tried reaching out and expressing my feelings, but there's been no response. AIBU to feel hurt and confused by this sudden silence and to expect at least some closure?

I can’t explain your particular situation. But I have done this myself. And the reason - rightly or wrongly- was that I did not feel emotionally safe in confronting my friend about something she was doing that I felt impacted on me. Years later I got in touch and I told her. She saw my point, but at the time I did not trust that she would.

But there could be so many reasons why your friend isn’t responding. It’s always hard to handle the not knowing.

Well there is an explanation/reason, you just haven’t realised it or been told.

Hmm, I hadn't considered that she might be avoiding a conversation she finds difficult. It's tough not knowing what's going on, but I guess your experience shows that sometimes it's more about their feelings than anything I might have done. I do wonder if I'll ever hear from her again and if we'd be able to resolve things like you eventually did.

This happened to me. It hurt at the time and still hurts now, years later. Even if I did something to upset her (and I've wracked my brains and cannot think of a thing), I wish she'd said. I do think it's selfish to leave someone wondering what happened for ever. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding, so my wedding photos are now upsetting to look at. But I don't know why.

Yeah, I've had it happen a couple of times, and years later it still really hurts.

Awww, I'm so sorry. It's incredibly difficult to not have closure, especially when the person was so significant in your life. It's a shame that you can't look at your wedding photos without feeling saddened by it. I agree that it can feel really selfish to leave someone in the dark.

This happened to me twice in a really short space of time, both good friends, who were themselves friends with each other (I don't know if that was a factor). It was and still is horrible. One of them wrote to me and said she never wanted to speak to me again as she'd overheard me say something at a party that she didn't like. Which was nonsense as we only ever saw each other one to one. I never found out what I'd done as she'd never respond.
Who knows what drives people to behave in this way. I would say to anyone, though, that people you have been close to do deserve an explanation when your friendship ends, unless you have really good reasons for not providing one.

Agree. I feel if you've been close to someone you have a responsibility to explain why you no longer want their friendship.

My best friend stopped speaking or even acknowledging me overnight. I supported her through thick & thin and when my DC nearly died and my dad died within the same 24hr period and I asked for support, she dumped me. To my shame I sent her a letter pleading for her friendship back which she ignored and 13 years later, the pain of rejection still smarts. I was completely broken.
I have terminal cancer now and would actually like nothing more than to confront her but I suspect that she would stonewall me but the pain hasn't ever completely gone away.
I suspect that it was partly that she didn't like it that my attention wasn't fully on her any more but mainly because she had a new boyfriend and she told him a different version of her marriage breakdown (and that she was leaving 3 kids alone at night to go and fuck see him) so she couldn't risk my knowledge coming out. She stopped speaking to all her friends at school too at the same time - as in literally blank them to their faces from the same day she dumped me. It was really odd

That happened to me and it still hurts.

Closest friend of 13 years who cut contact 2 years ago.

I tried to be the bigger person and tried again to make contact by email a few months later.

She briefly replied to say she had now left the UK to move back to her home country! so she did not even bother to say goodbye and I still don't know why. She avoided the subject.

She sent a couple of short emails after that and then faded again.

It made me feel terrible that I had thought she was a close friend for 13 years and that maybe I was just being used all that time for being a 'convenient' source of support but was no longer useful once she decided to leave the country...

Same happened to me, and it's awful. We were really close for over 10 years, then one day she just stopped responding to me. No explanation, nothing. I tried but eventually gave up. I wracked my brain trying to work it out but i genuinely havent a clue what i could have done/said to cause it. She moved house close to me a couple of years before that so I see her regularly which results in her blanking me or just dead eyes. My youngest dc and hers are in the same year at the same school so we bump into each other at parents evening sometimes too.
I suppose we have to accept that some people aren't who we thought they were.

I think it depends on the situation. When my child died I went through and blocked everyone who hadn't asked how I was doing about 14 months after. True friends would have cared to ask at some point in a year and a bit and I didn't owe them anything, especially in light of their actions, or lack of. The only person I owed anyone to in that situation was myself and doing what was best for me at that time. If they'd have asked, I'd have told them. I'm only aware through a mutual connection that one posted a sorry for themself post about it on Facebook when they noticed I'd deleted them.

This definitely falls into the 'really good reason' category though - ie they deserved no explanation. In any case they'd know exactly why they were blocked, if they could be bothered to be honest with themselves.
Sorry for your loss.

Thanks. I gather the tone of the whine about it was something along the lines of how they try to be a good person, boo hoo, etc. They could tend to be a bit snarky anyway, so that was also a consideration. They could have contacted me and apologised, but I'm not sure they were aware enough to know why they were blocked.

Ideally these things can be talked about and worked through, but sometimes you just don't have the energy.

I confess I did this to a friend of 15 years after drifting apart for a few years and her becoming a rather rude bad unsupportive friend, and racist without thinking how it offended my extended family again and again. She was just a selfish friend so many times it became too much. Then one time she did something that sided with an abusive ex of mine over me and I just couldn't deal with her anymore so I just cut her off. I couldnt explain the million ways we had grown apart, I had a toddler, baby and PND to deal with and knew she was so abrupt and always right that it's be an impossible conversation that I couldn't cope with. She never contacted to ask why I cut her off though. She never reached out once. Or I might have tried to explain.

A long time ago I dropped someone without explanation. I had some v difficult stuff going on, she was an emotional drain and I couldn’t cope with her needs. I still feel badly but remain unsure that an explanation would have helped, or been accepted.

More recently, I told someone that I could no longer be her friend, as she required more support than my circumstances allowed. I had had a life changing diagnosis and could no longer handle her unrelenting negativity and prurience round others’ health.

Arguably, I managed the second exit better. Was it less hurtful to the dumped friend? I really do not know.

A close friend of over 30 years blocked me on social media.

I was hurt and wracked my brains.

I can only think that, at the time, I was posting a number of things about how well my daughter was doing. I wasn't intending to show off but was just proud of her achievements as she'd come through a lot of difficulties.

I can only guess my friend was fed up hearing about it so I've stopped such posts now.

In hindsight I hate it when people just post continually about their toddlers, so can understand (if that was the reason )!

I did this to someone who'd been a friend and a flat mate. As we grew she just stayed the same and I realised that we just didn't mesh anymore.

Over the few years I'd known her I realised that she never had anything to add to a conversation, she always just said 'yeah I agree'.

She never initiated any social activities, she just waited to be invited to things. She also never reached out to mutual friends, but would complain that others didn't message her.

What initially seemed as her being 'fun' on a night out due to being OTT after a few drinks became tiresome and embarrassing.

She was a horrendous flat mate, she didn't 'see' mess, and made a hell of a lot of it.

But to top it off, talking to her about anything resulted in her losing her shit and screaming at me. I once recorded an 8 minute rant she subjected me to because she fell asleep on the sofa and I went to bed and she'd woken up to the lights being all off (she was sleeping so I turned them off?).

I eventually moved out and ghosted her, and have no regrets. She simply could not see that she was doing anything wrong, and would probably write a similar post to you.

I have a friend who sends around an annual Christmas letter which basically is all about how perfect everything in her life is, how perfect her children are, how well they are doing. I've been through an extended sickness and hard time with one of my children and couldn't deal with it. I was pleased she was doing so well but I didn't need to hear it all the time. I also distanced myself from Christian friends who liked to regularly post about how great God was at the time, as I struggled with a God that would allow a child to suffer the way mine was, and those friends had never had anything comparable to go through. Sometimes it's hard to deal with perfection posting. However, you may be like me and only ever post positive stuff rather than about challenges.

@Silentfriend
I obviously can't know what your circumstances are but as others have said, sometimes the reasons for the change in the friendship are based on a very wide range of characteristics of both friends, rather than one simple action. So no fallout.

I have stopped contacting and putting in the effort with 2 friends over the years. Neither of them had done anything wrong, but friendships evolve and sometimes a person's way of being, their priorities in life become clearer as they grow and you see that not only do they not align with your own, they also make you feel worse about yourself, even if that was never intentional.

I could never tell my friend for instance, that the way she is, both simultaneously irritates me and creates insecurities in me. It's not a small aspect of her character, but a fundamental part of it.

Even though I know that she is a loving person the way she is means that even when we do speak I will feel down and drained afterwards without her having said or done anything awful. I can't tell her that even listening to her every day life and the way she tells me leaves me stressed out.

I suppose the most important part is that she actually is a good person, but I can't be friends with her without feeling bad about myself, and she can't be friends with me because she decides to fill her life so very much with work and children's activities that she has no free time for a spontaneous chat.
We are not compatible, so aren't really friends anymore even though I still think she's a good person.

Do you have any mutual friends who might be able to explain it to you, or to explain to her that you won’t contact her again if she doesn’t want you to but you just need to know why?

No communication is communication and sadly, closure from someone else isn't something anyone's entitled to.

It's not easy to accept, I know.

I had to do this with two people. They both had poor self esteem (one in particular hides this with bravado) and were in hindsight jealous of me, this manifested in so many mean, rude, judgemental comments I got to the point where I just couldn't deal with it anymore.

I saw one of those Instagram reels with Oprah and Michelle Obama recently who were talking about the toxicity of jealousy and how it destroys friendships. This is exactly my experience.

I have ghosted a close friend of 30 years after she once again threw herself into a relationship with a new man, putting aside me and others who supported her during a toxic marriage.

This time she picked a right-winger. I'm done.