To be confused about a friendship

[Fawlkdaughter]

So I met my friend 25 years ago at work but it's only been the last 5 years ago we've been regularly in each company. We've been on holiday together in addition to all the coffees and lunches: she's a caring, kind, loyal friend. Here comes the 'but'. Over the past few months I've not been enjoying her company, in fact she is really started to irritate me, and my heart sinks when her name pops up on my phone screen. Now I'm avoiding her and I have no idea how to go forward, I can hardly say 'sorry I've gone off you'. I feel like a right cow........... Should I do the slow fade or should I just suck it up?

Maybe just back off a bit? Become a bit busy and see her a bit less?

Just don’t see her if you don’t feel like it. You don’t need a definitive policy.

Maybe she’s going through an annoying phase, maybe you’re going through an irritable phase, maybe you’re just on different paths - there’s no need to be confused about it, just turn down the intensity of the friendship & the frequency of contact and see how you go.

What is it specifically that irritates you? Do you spend too much time together? Are you generally irritable at the moment?
Most people would irritate me if I spent prolonged periods of time with them. I’m also highly irritable (and self-aware) so I’d suck it up personally.

What’s caused the irritation? Could be something on either side -
sometimes your own life/changes can make friendships not quite right anymore, but equally could be something she did specifically.

I’ve been doing a lot of self development dealing with skeletons of the past over the last few months. At various points I could have binned all my friendships because the shifts it caused in my behaviour (better boundaries mostly) were really disruptive to the patterns we’d built over decades. It took work but we are all navigating a new normal and I’m grateful they love me enough to come along on the journey with me.

Friendship is not always good times. As you get older, making friends is proven hard so you keep who are worth keeping.

No matter what, please don’t ghost your friend. From my experience, it’s the worst feeling and I dont wish it to anyone. Just don’t reply to her text as fast or as often as you would.

Given the timeframe you and your friend has, it’ll be hard for you to just completely ignore her. You have known each other for a very long time and not every friendship lasts that long.

Curious to know why you've only spent a lot of time together in the the last 5 of your 25 years of friendship. Did someone move away then back again? I had a similar situation and found that what feels like a strong friendship when there's hundreds of miles between you is a rather different matter when you suddenly live near at hand. People change a lot over 25 years but you don't always see those changes when you meet up every year or so and just have a big catch-up and a bit of reminiscing. If you're suddenly seeing differences in values, parenting or politics up close, then it becomes hard to sustain a friendship that once seemed close. It's not necessarily anyone's fault when you find it's harder work than it used to be, but at that point it becomes about damage limitation, and not allowing irritation to turn into a big bust-up.

I don't want to scream menopause/hormones, because I think we get oversimplified as women. But...there are periods when we all get less tolerant. But we need people, we're social animals, so unless someone does something really wrong, it's good to try to keep things going. Don't know what other friends/family you have, but sometimes when you lose someone, having another person who remembers is helpful.