If you have ghosted a friend after a major life event, why did you do it and how do you feel about it now?

[NewHome2026]

Seems to be pretty common - something life changing happens (a break up or divorce usually in my experience anyway) and suddenly people ghost friends they have had for decades right when you would have thought they would have been in the most need of support. It’s happened to me, my husband, my sister in law, my mum, a work colleague - everyone seems to have a story of this and I find it so strange and hurtful.

They are flaky on meeting up, they don’t reply in the group chat, they are suddenly always “busy” and you realise a year or more has gone by without you talking and are you even o anymore?

After a while I suppose it gets too awkward to reach out but I always think it is just so sad.

If you have done this, what made you do it? How do you feel about it now? Do you ever think about getting back in touch, and would you apologise?

This is the same in my case. Certain people constantly finding drama or going on and on about themselves. Talking about other friends, monopolising conversations. I've supported friends though some extremely tough times then realised I barely even got a text in my darkest days.
The final straw for me was when yet another social occasion became focused on one person's life events/drama for hours and i was just done. Faded myself out the chat, left it. Thats it.

I am in a much better headspace now there is absolutely no monopolising and drama with the group i see most. We recognise we all have busy lives and meet up for fun.

Ive had a major bout of depression before related to a relationship breakdown and being bullied at work.

Friends treated me differently afterwards. Even when I recovered fully.

I think you underestimate how much you might be contributing to the friend backing away.

I stayed Friends with the people who acted no different to me during and after.

They also kept saying how proud they were of me and how amazing I was to be coping with it all. Constantly.

Oh @Taztoy they sound truly awful. How dare they.

It was terrible. And I find it appalling to say my “poor friend”.

Oh this happened to me, my best friend of over ten years. Seeing each other every week, holidays together, big part of kids lives to poof! Gone. It really hurt.

I'm exactly like this.

I had a massive tragedy in my life. I noticed that some of the women I surrounded myself with at that time were extremely self focussed. They were needy, demanding and controlling and I was probably attracted to them because that was very like my own mother growing up. Attracting these types of women was a pattern in my life (not exclusively I had some brilliant other friendships).

The massive tragedy really showed up how one sided these relationships were. I stopped behaving the way I had behaved providing endless support to these people and a few relationships got culled through that process.

I think we grow and learn through adversity and that often means the grown version of ourselves needs new people in our lives.

Divorce is a tricky one, OP. I have none of the friends I was close to during my first marriage. No one did or said anything bad, it's just difficult seeing people who knew us both and our history so well. You don't want to slag off the ex, because they were friends of his too. And they don't want to say anything partial either, or if they do sound supportive you can't tell if it's sincere or if they might be just "not taking sides" and saying similar things to the ex... You have no idea of knowing if things said in conversation might get back to the ex... And so on.

Bizarrely in my case, when I left an abusive marriage, I met up once with a mutual friend who joked about how badly my ex was doing in failed romances. Maybe they thought I'd enjoy hearing that, but I really didn't. It triggered all my codependent anxiety about whether he was OK.

Basically it's a bit of a can of worms. Nothing personal, but it's easier to draw a line under that whole part of your life and start afresh.

I think you are assuming malice when she may have thought she was being kind - why couldn’t you just talk to her about it?

I suppose I just can’t imagine myself doing it - I can sort of understand maybe cutting ties if you had a mutual friendship group but in the case of my friend who did this following a divorce, I think we had only met her husband maybe twice - he wasn’t a part of our lives and they hadn’t been together long. My husband’s friend who did this “won” the friend group as we were his friends first and she moved away as soon as they broke up so it was even more bizarre 6 months later when he decided nope, 25 years of friendship doesn’t matter to me.

Someone up thread said it’s not about the person who gets left behind - except it often is. I don’t think being hurt gives you a license to treat people poorly tbh.

I initially ghosted a friend after her husband died, I've mellowed more recently but deep down I want to just slip away and be done. I have moments where I feel terrible and then I remember that I was there constantly for years for her and she really didn't treat me like a friend.

I would drop everything to do anything she wanted without question. After he passed she asked me to take a trip overseas with her. I did. I spent a fortune and made arrangements to move my work to ensure I could be with her. I felt it was absolutely the right thing. She needed me, that's what you do.

Then she announced 5 days into the trip that she wouldn't be returning with me. Instead after another friend who also lived in that country turned up she pissed off with her. I was left to spend the last 2 days alone. I was heartbroken. I felt absolutely used. I had watched her dog for months, helped her with anything she asked, even took her husband to his palliative care home as she got frustrated waiting for hospital transport. I even said that if a liver transplant would save him and I was a match I'd do it. But the truth was when a better offer came along I was dropped like a bag of cold sick. I was devastated. I know people will say she was grieving but honestly I was gobsmacked by her behaviour.

After I got home I just needed time to adjust to the fact that the person I thought was my best friend didn't value me as much as I valued them. I was a filler, a companion, someone to help pass time with, drive, make the arrangements, hold her hand as she was scared of flying. I put her before myself and my own husband and mum. If she needed something I'd there like a shot.

For months afterwards I gave her a wide berth. I didn't reply to texts as much, I didn't say yes to anything anymore, I just withdrew. I was quickly forgotten. She moved onto another friend very quickly. That friend has now left the country and of course she's now messaging me again a lot. Not once has she acknowledged that what happened was shitty. I get she was going through the most horrific period in her life, I really do, but I felt crushed. I've realised she didn't value me at all. I could of been anyone.

We had a couple of trips together that were already pre-booked (again because she wanted things to look forward to after his passing). I went through the motions. I can't look at her in the same way at all, the irony of her favourite phrase that people show you who they truly are is not lost on me. I just feel sad that what I thought we were isn't the case at all.

I miss the good bits of her. I don't think she's a bad person. She's just incredibly selfish. She's shit all over the other friend who filled my place after the trip. I know it's not personal. It's who she is. She makes excuses for cancelling, letting people down and so on. The loss of her husband is her reason for such behaviour at the moment but the hard truth is she's always been like it. She doesn't have many friends as people get sick of being let down.

I feel sad for her. I know she's alone and I can't imagine what it feels like to lose your partner but honestly whilst I have mellowed, I can't forget how shitty she made me feel. I have thought about talking about it but I know she'll just say all the things she thinks I want to hear but now I just see her in a different way and I can't unsee it. I look at her through a different lens.

It's would just be words to pacify me if I did tell her how I truly felt. I would never treat someone the way she's treated me. I miss what I thought we were but my perception was wrong - and I can accept that now as hard as it is.

I wish her no I'll will, she's been through enough but I can't go back to the constant messaging and seeing her everyday. I think it's fundamentally changed me. I don't ever want to be in that position again.

I'm polite and engage with her at points but essentially she doesn't care about anyone but herself - which I suppose in principle isn't unreasonable, you have to look after yourself. I have put myself out a couple of times more recently to help her and she makes promises to me to do things (that I've not even asked for her involvement in) and then cancels last minute. I feel differently now though, I don't get annoyed, I actually anticipate it as she's so flakey. I have to put my own feelings first just as she does.

Don't feel guilty for walking away. You have to protect yourself.

Because I really didn’t want to talk about the man who stalked me for months, followed me home, burst through my door, strangled me til I passed out, woke up to having wet myself and him rapeing me and his hands at my throat holding me in place, my head ramming against the wall and my feet going nineteen to the dozen not able to get purchase to get up multiple times a day.

is that ok with you? Is that enough of a reason?

jesus wept.

I mean talk to her about the fact she was annoying you

I did tell her to stop. As I have already said.

Jesus.

I agree @Taztoy 'poor friend' was in very bad taste. Totally minimising what you went through,

I can’t believe that the op only doubled down and said why did i not tell her to stop.

of course i bloody did. Multiple times.

tbh i can see why someone would ghost with that sort of behaviour.

Apologise to someone for them being so awful I felt the only way to get rid of them was to completely block them from my life?

Er, no.

I ghosted someone who would simply not. fuck. off. No matter how many times she was asked to just leave me alone, and that was after months of trying to get her to just stop lying about everything and dragging me into her weird dramatic shit.

She was fucking nuts, I am just sorry I didn't ghost her sooner.

Unflushable people deserve to be ghosted and it's usually only unflushable people who are ghosted.

OP is one of the unflushables. They always are when they start these threads.

Even saying tell her she was annoying me is minimising. She wanted me to be reliving my trauma and my attack multiple times a day so she could tell people how supportive she was. But the op doesn’t want to see that. Doesn’t want to have to admit that I already said I’d told her to stop. And would rather keep having a go at me.

for why I don’t know but I hope it made her feel good. Because it’s made me feel absolutely shit.

Op is the friend who has been dumped so won't see things from your side.

On the face if it, it does sound lovely to have someone check in on you.

In reality, you were in a crappy situation, obviously worried, and didn't need reminding every two seconds, or to be talking about it so someone else can feel like a saviour.

Sometimes people just need to be left alone to sort things out themselves and come to terms with whatever the situation is, and sometimes it's easier to have that space when you ignore people who don't respect your boundries.

I'm sorry you went through that 💐

I read the 'doubling down' post after I'd posted and had a 'WTF' moment.

I pulled back from a friendship earlier this year following a bereavement because I just didn't have the headspace to deal with yet another of her dramas/attention seeking.

This 'friend' never gave me any space in all of the years I've known her. I asked her so many times to cut down on texts, calls, WhatsApp messages, emails. She would for a couple of days, then it'd start again.

I was always there to support her throughout whatever crisis she was going through at the time, and when I had a bereavement, I didn't think it unreasonable to expect the same support back. She didn't even say 'sorry for your loss', instead just launched into how bad things were for her. That was the final straw. I have not replied to her since.

It's not up to me to educate her about being compassionate, kind, thoughtful. Fuck that. It was easier to cut her off. Why would I invest further in someone who is so self absorbed?

The replies on this thread have made me feel so much better about my current situation. I am going through a major life event that I am finding extremely difficult and pulling away from my friends. It’s makes it harder that they don’t know that I’m going through it but it’s not something I want to talk about and I just currently want to be at home in my family bubble. I feel bad not attending group events etc but they’re just not good for me atm, this has made me realise a lot of people react in the same way as me and I am not in the wrong

A friend of mine did something like this. Just cut me off with no explanation - deleted me from social media, didn't respond to any messages.
I did send them one to say that if they were having a hard time and didn't want to meet up/do anything etc. that was fine but please tell me. If they wanted support I'd do what I could and if they didn't I'd respect that and back off, but I was concerned for their wellbeing {they live alone and have MH issues}

They did get back to me and say yes please - don't contact me, I'll contact you, having a rough time and don't want any intervention/contact/support. I respected that. We are now back in touch and we have a strategy for what to do when any such occasions reoccur.

@TSHconfusion self preservation is so important when dealing with any challenging situation. It's not selfish to put yourself first. It's vital.

Your responses to @Taztoy are completely devoid of empathy and demonstrate a lack of emotional intelligence that is off the scale! I imagine that it's a surprise to no-one that multiple friends have 'ghosted' you, clearly for the sake of their own mental health. Perhaps some self reflection on your part might be more useful than this relentless and tone deaf pursuit of an answer to a question that has quite clearly already been adequately answered.