Lulls in friendships

[Mintyy]

Have known my best friend for 34 years!

But we have grown apart and I just don't feel the same way about her any more.

I think I could happily let things drift and end up not having a relationship any more.

Is that awful? Is 34 years too long to just let it fizzle away like this? You wouldn't end a relationship with a dp after 34 years without a lot of talking and honesty and trying to work things out, would you?

Can anyone relate?

It's not awful, but I wouldn't give up so easily. Good friends are hard to come by.

Why not have her round for a drink this week, and see how you feel about her afterwards? You could come away thinking, 'God we need to do this more'.

Or letting things go might seem more sensible. Best of luck!

I can relate, totally.

It's very sad and I had a lot of guilt but I couldn't deal with he moaning and negativity and put downs continually. It got too much. When I split uo with ex she rang him to find out what happened. When I got married she said it highly likely I could have infertility (I was 32). Then when I had a baby it got worse. She told me I shouldn't feed on demand, to not hold him too much ..blah blah,.

I tried to let things drift and thought the friendship might strengthen on day but she started to wait outside my house, leave notes through the door, call into my parents house to tell them I had depression. Ughhh it was awful. Truly awful. This was a year ago and I got a text the other day and I just dread the whole messy situation starting again.

If you don't get anything out of the friendship, it's hard I justify keeping it.

I can totally relate in that i am in exactly the same position with my oldest friend, also known her 34 years now. In my case, there are reasons i don't really want to continue the friendship, she is not a bad person and i don't hate her or anything like that, but she married my dh's cousin who has abused my dh;s goodwill and generosity, and my friend has stood by and supported this behaviour, which whilst is not surprising, she is hardly going to side against her won dh, has left me feeling like i really do not want to have anything to do with her much anymore, beyond exchanging the normal small talk and civilities that will be required at family gatherings when we come across each other.

her own dh not won dh!

It seems odd - a friendship that has endured 34 years can't endure a few years more?! I am due to have lunch with her this week and all I'm thinking about is ways to get out of it .

I can't relate to the 34 years but I'm in a similar situation with a friend whom I've been friends with for over 10 years....we went to school and then uni together which was great and lived together for about 4 years...but I then met my DH, we fell in love, he proposed, we got married and had a baby all within the space of 2 years. My friend never really liked my DH, as she felt things were moving too fast, we had a small wedding which is what we both wanted but my friend felt it was 'sad' and when I happily told her I was pregnant she asked 'and are you ok with it?'
I still see her every few months for a coffee or lunch but to be honest I never look forward to it. She judges me for all sorts of baby related things (my friend doesn't have kids), or talks about her career in finance (I don't have a clue about finance and so I don't understand half the things she says), or we just sit there in silence.
We've got different interests and priorities in life....they may have been similar when at uni etc but as those have changed we have grown apart.
Not sure if that can happen after 34 years or if this is even relevant but I too have recently been thinking whether it's worth investing time in a friendship I'm not getting anything out of.

I don't have an issue with people realising that they no longer wish to be friends with someone.
But, the problem with just letting it "fizzle" away, is that your friend may be the type of person who will be extremely worried about you if you allow that to happen.
I've been there, although the friendship was only 10 years old. My friend gave me no indication that she was pissed off with me/disliked me/was bored with me or whatever her reasons were. She just stopped calling me, wouldn't answer my calls, wouldn't answer my emails etc. I wondered if she was ill, had some awful problme that she couldn't tell me about. I worried myself sick over her.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I'd been dumped, but it was a heartbreaking way to do it.
I still don't know if I did or said something wrong or she just woke up one day and couldn't stand me anymore, but it's over 5 years now since we last had any contact and it's still quite hurtful the way she did it. And sometimes I still wonder if I did or said something specific that upset her, and if that is the case, I wish she'd talked to me about it.

I can relate to this.

I've been friends with one if my 'best' friends for 22 years. We're in a lull at the moment - our lives are very different right now. We've been here before, it passed after a couple of years and we were best buds again. I'm sure we will home together again at some point, we share a lot of history.

I think having a "best" friend can kind of make things drag on longer than their natural life IYSWIM. It has that label and so you feel you owe it to the person.

A friend of mine had agonies over her best friend's role at her wedding and found it difficult because the friend was quite demanding. This was her "best friend" since schooldays... but she rarely saw her and none of her other friends had ever met the best friend before! It was like she couldn't say "this friendship is over really" but they didn't actually get on. I can understand that, in the past they had been very close, but things can change.

I get the point that if you let it fizzle away the friend could be really hurt and worried, but then they could also be upset if you talk about it. I've done the fizzling away thing with some friendships (though I've never had a "best" friend as such). I feel bad, but OTOH would it be better to sit the person down and say "I'm sorry but I've got tired of X Y and Z behaviour and I don't think I want to see you" that would be worse surely?