Over the years I have fallen out with or lost so many friends.
Have a very serious history of childhood sexual abuse and then long and futile court proceedings in adulthood, also have a disability and am a single mum.
Outwardly I am putting on a brave face but inside I feel broken up as another friendship has failed. My main concern is that I have hurt this friend in breaking up with them but I know that if I have hurt them it's my fault.
Basically over the past year or so I have needed to share abuse stuff with this friend, talking about the way I am making sense of it etc. I would say she was a close friend as she kept in touch over several years and I know she is sympathetic to me but whenever I have talked about the abuse she has not responded at all.
A lot of times this has been my email and she hasn't responded, when I have asked if she even got my email she has said "yes and I read it all". But no emotional response or thinking response at all.
If I have close friends I feel (but maybe IABU) that I should be able to share this stuff with them and have some kind of response.
Another friend has told me "That's what friends are for" when I told her some stuff.
It is not always when I am upset, it's often when I am wondering about the "whys" of what happened to me, thinking aloud but I do need some kind of response.
So I felt very angry with this friend, the anger accumulated over time and now I have told her I don't want to chat any more on the phone and will just be in touch when I can (reading between the lines she will realize I am backing away from the friendship).
She is a lovely person, maybe tired by lots of work and looking after her spouse who is not too well, has always sent my DCs presents on birthdays etc and I feel so guilty for wounding her.
I could have said nothing and just not returned her calls etc. but felt I had to tell her "why" (this is a repeated pattern with me, though, and only ends up wounding friends / ex-friends who do not appreciate my - what is genuinely meant to be - honesty).
I drive myself mad.
If I could have tried saying to her: "i feel sad when I share all this with you and you don't really reply" and things would have changed, I would have. But I have come to realize that she doesn't want to respond, or else she would, and I have to respect that - but I need friends who do respond - so it is really a mismatched friendship.
We live 100s miles apart so it's not as though we will miss out on joint activities, I have said she is still welcome to come and stay as she has done annually, but that I won't be ringing etc and explained why as above.
Just feel very down now though.
Another friendship bites the dust.
Main feeling is GUILTY.
