Think I've blown it with friend

[spanieleyes22]

So I have a close friendship with a woman I met at school gate must be more than 15 years ago. Posted about this a few weeks ago. Anyway she suddenly just started ghosting me - we used txt every couple of days sometimes every day and as I live in a different country now that's how we've kept
The friendship going. Anyway she's been distant and just not "there" and I've asked her a few times is she ok is everything ok and eventually she said she was busy.

Anyway after another week or more of no contact I txt her tonight and said I'm sorry I have to say something but have I said or done something to offend u. And she replied straight away saying no but that she had decided to detox off her phone so she could do more walks and especially in the evenings she didn't want to be on her phone. I think it's BS one reason being she replied to me straight away so must have had her phone in her hand: something has happened she just won't tell me . She then said I could "check in" on her if I liked. I got so mad. Is she not going to check in on me then? But I can check in on her? I sent a passive aggressive message that I'm not proud of in hindsight saying that I was getting the message and wouldn't bother her any more she knew where I was if she wanted a conversation. And that it was impossible to maintain a friendship without texting.

She never replied.

I know you will all blame me and will land in on me but I just wish she would
Be honest and say what's wrong. Surely you don't throw away a long friendship like that.

Don't be too mean to me. I've a lot of stress atm and am just so sad as I think I've lost her as a friend. We shared so much and I thought I supported her as much as she did me. I can't sleep. I can imagine what you will all say. I wish I said nothing now. But it was too hard for me to say nothing. Anyone any opinions.

Not really; I've done it and friends have done it. Particularly when we're having a bad time with our mental health, or feel we want/need to control our technology usage.
It's just saying I'm having a break from my phone, but it's okay to message if you want; but I'll only be checking it once or twice a day for messages so please don't be offended if I don't answer immediately. It also allows people to know to call for emergencies and important stuff.
It can be 2/3 days sometimes before me and my friends reply to each other anyway because we have housework, kids, jobs etc that take precident in our lives, none of us cry our selves to sleep because of it.

I used to be a little like the OP in that I was over dependent and a bit needy of old friends. Since the pandemic I've both lost and made friends and some of those old friends are no longer in my life which felt devastating at the time but now I'm fine with, they became like a pair of shoes which no longer fitted me.

What I have done is to expand my social network so I'm now a member of a local womens' group, this is open to everyone the only requirement is living (fairly) locally although even that is not a biggie if people from out of town want to travel! It means I don't put all my eggs in one basket friendship speaking and I have a number of casual aquaintanceships to do things with which suits me fine. I also have some older/closer friends but I'm not so dependent on them for my social life which helps with the ole neediness I have to say.

The thing is… moving countries changed things.

You are more fragile than she is because you have yet to settle and develop new meaningful friends and so are depending on someone many miles away who, presumably, you now see rarely in RL?

Meanwhile, despite her longstanding friendship with you, she probably has grown old friendships and found new friends to fill her everyday life.

Friendship can still be strong without daily swapping of minutiae . I have friends that I have known since NCT days, we message occasionally, visit each other from opposite ends of the UK, and pick up where we left off.

But I would feel exhausted and obligated if I felt needed for daily messages with people, almost any people! Constantly being on my phone, constantly pinged, the expectation that WhatsApp gives and demands instant replies…. It’s exhausting. But you simply don’t believe her reply.

I am sorry you are struggling atm. Who knows what might be going on with her, but honestly I think it is unrealistic to move away and expect friendships to maintain the same dynamic.

Which doesn’t have to mean you aren’t still friends.

Apologies OP: I posted that having somehow missed your last update. You do sound stronger… and the likelihood is that she also feels better having been honest. You can reflect (and I think my post here is relevantly) and who knows: maybe your friendship can reset with a different dynamic.

@Sandalsandbreadsticks thank you for your message yes you are understanding what I've been trying to say. It wasn't a one-sided friendship at all. In fact she would often start a convo in the mornings or during the day when I was at work. I used purposely not contact her on weekends as I knew she would be having family time but she'd often txt me so I felt it was ok to reply, I've thought about it a lot and I think if she had just been honest from the beginning I would have accepted it more easily. Instead I feel she just dropped me. Like it was 10 days the first time. I didnt contact her I left her alone although I did think it was weird. And that first time I eventually txt her after 10 days and said is everything ok. And she just said yeh fine and didn't explain it even acknowledge that it was a long time - in comparison. Look if she wanted to back off fine of course o don't want to be chasing a friendship that isn't there but have the courtesy to tell me that you're taking a step back or detoxing or whatever. I think it's a bit cruel to just suddenly change and not tell the person so they start thinking it's something they have done. Anyway it could be weeks or months until she decides if I'm to be in her life any more or if I'm to be discarded. The balls in her court. Can't say it's easy but I just have to stay busy and forget about her for now. I still think it's a bit mean to leave me hanging. I mean I'm glad she told me she's thinking but it does seem like I'm left wondering but I guess I deserve it so. Thanks everyone for replying

@MilletOver tbh we got closer during covid and being in a diff country didn't seem to matter then when everyone was communicating online etc. I tho k if she had been up front with me from the beginning we could have still been friends. I don't have any other friends I would txt this regularly! Lots of friends from over the years where we can pick up over months of no contact . This was just a different type of friendship.

But during Covid she wouldn’t have had other RL contact with other friends. everyone was communicating by Zoom and digital means. Lots of people really wanted to focus on face to face after that.

I understand. Some people are so afraid of confrontation they think they are being kinder by not being upfront but it just makes things worse in the long run. I have had these experiences of being close with someone and it suddenly either dropping or blowing up, and I found the best thing to do in those circumstances was just to focus on myself, be kind to myself, and just try to do the best to feel ok and not think about the other person too much. Work on my emotional independence and see if there are any signs I could have seen for next time - without being too hard on myself.

I often find people will bond with me over being treated a certain way by other people in their life and then go on to treat me the same way - like your friend with 'silent treatment'. I guess most people are hypocrites though they probably don't intend to be, when they find themselves in that position suddenly it becomes much harder to do the 'right thing' when it actually comes to it.

I wish you all the best in getting through this and I hope you are able to work things out with her and have better communication

Thanks @Sandalsandbreadsticks I think we are on similar wavelengths. We had many chats about the silent treatment and how her mother did it to her rather than sorting out whatever the issue was and she hated it. Thanks for the advice about concentrating on myself . You're very wise 😀

@MilletOver yes I know I was just trying to explain. Anyway bottom line for me is if she had just said look I'm backing off the the texting I still wanna keep in touch but I need to do xyz or whatever it would have prevented me wondering and worrying what had I done. Had I upset her and it was at least 3 weeks before she would even acknowledge anything had changed. Bit like gaslighting in a way. I'm wondering now if I just gave her the ammunition to get rid of me legitimately

It would have been better had she been open and honest like that, yes, and saved you a lot of upset and heartache.

But the reality is that in this country we aren’t great at being direct with people. Culturally the Americans, Spanish, others are better. So, so many posts on MN by people who can’t communicate the truth, saying ‘I hate confrontation’, when it isn’t confrontation just honest (if difficult ) communication.

And in this case I think you have been a victim of that.

I hope things work out well for you.

Don’t message her now and don’t show her you need her in your life. They feed off it

OP you are beating yourself up for being annoyed at her for not getting back to you, and expressing it rather than keeping it to yourself. You seem to think this has caused the demise of the friendship. I have to say I think she's bloody rude not to respond to you and it's a sign the friendship was already on the rocks.

I had a friend who stopped responding to texts recently, I sent a few friendly ones and eventually I thought I'd be honest and said something a bit similar to how you responded. Difference is, she immediately apologised and said she'd been 'a bit in her own head' and was so sorry and wanted to stay friends and could we meet for coffee next week. I had been prepared to walk away had she not have said this, but thought fair dos she has indicated she values the friendship and so we are back friends again now (and she is much better at replying)

Sorry to say but it sounds to me like for whatever reason your friend no longer valued the friendship as she had once done, or it would not have ended up like it has done. So please don't blame yourself, what you did (in responding to her as you did) was a symptom not a cause.

I’m sorry you’ve gone through this @spanieleyes22 but you’ve had 3 threads about this situation, all villainising your friend when you didn’t get your own way.

You seem to have a pattern of obsessing about things, building yourself into an anxious knot, catastrophising and making things worse which then leads you to be defensive and huffy and a bit poor me.

I’m not saying any of that to be awful as I used to behave this way myself and it was a symptom of an unmanaged anxiety disorder and undiagnosed ADHD. I was completely unable to regulate my emotions when it came to rejection and would pick at people and situations to try to gain control back. It never worked.

And it’s only since I have been on the other side of it from a friend with the same issues that I realise how exhausting it is to be the object of someone’s else’s anxiety. I am mortified for the way I behaved in the past and how I made bad guys of people I had exhausted with my own issues to the point they had no choice but to cut me off.

All of your threads are about you being the victim in a crisis caused by someone else’s actions when the likelihood of that is slim. Some yes. All? Probably not.

You have to learn that people are not obliged to respond to us in the way we need them to to feel safe.
You have to learn to stop taking things on this deeply to the point of losing sleep for days.

I manage mine through therapy and now habit. If I feel the need to pick at anything or anyone to make myself feel better that’s my sign to walk away and get control of my feelings myself rather than trying to force someone else to. Beating myself up and being poor me I am a horrible person isn’t the answer either.

Life isn’t fair. Sometimes people are shits. Not everyone we want wants us. Sometimes we fuck up. Sometimes other people do. That’s life.