Have you lost a best friend? Need a handhold :(

[Thisiswonderful]

Not lost as in passing away, but a loss of the friendship. My best friend of 15 years has slowly but steadily been distancing herself from me - nothing dramatic, just long delays between messages, constant and convenient 'busyness' etc. It really hurts because we were the type of friends to chat every day, to share all of our ups and downs and trivial stuff and now it seems like I'm just not important anymore. Nothing has happened so it's not even like I can raise anything and when I did tentatively try she made excuses about why she hasn't been available.

I feel so awful and am racking my brains to think what I could've done wrong but I really don't think I have, she just seems to have tired of the friendship.

Has anyone lost a best friend? It hurts like a break up but even worse because I can't confront it, it seems like there's no choice but to just let it go

I think an emotional affair is the absolutely perfect way to describe my relationship with my best friend.
We shared our fears, secrets, joys. I supported her through leaving her dh as I knew that was what she wanted (even though I am fond of her dh).
She kept her new relationship a secret from me for 6 months. When I found that out I felt very hurt.
The relationship has floundered since then.
I last heard from her 6 days ago. Since then i have sent umpteen messages. But nothing. I feel so hurt. I just want to cry. This is insane....

Sorry to hear @lovesugarfreejelly63

It's difficult, isn't it @BehindLockNumberNine. Do you know why she's ignoring you?

Gah, getting more messages on a group thread from her and it just kills. Would it be utterly needy to message her and say, why do you keep replying to other people and not me? (I already know the answer to that one, but it's so hard to pretend like I don't care.)

No don’t send her that OP because you won’t get the answer you want. I don’t think she would be honest with you and you would still be in the same position except looking desperate.
It’s so hard not having ‘closure’ but, at the end of the day, if she is a good friend then she will come to you. I would stop contact with her for now.

I know she won't be honest @crappyday2018 because I've already tried - I asked her if I'd done something wrong and she brushed it off and continued chatting as though everything was fine. Which in her mind it probably is - she just doesn't see me as important or a priority. I just don't know how it got to this point when she's still so important to me.

Have you phoned her?

My best friend of 20 years is currently doing this to me because I’m pregnant and she’s not at all interested in kids. It really does hurt like a breakup. I’m trying to focus more on the friends who have shown they are there for me and supportive but I am turning it over in my mind a lot. It’s hard, I really sympathise.

I think I'm slowly losing mine. We have been best friends for nearly 20 years, until her kids started school and she found new freedom and new friends. I don't really drink and am not really a party-er any more so get left out a lot. We went through a phase where I just never got responses to messages, and if I did (say 1 in 7 messages) they would be brief or a decline. I had a baby and apart from one quick visit I didn't hear from her for nearly 3 wks. And that pattern has just continued tbh.

Whenever we did see each other she would talk about how she felt like such a shitty friend, how she felt awful cause I 'must be really lonely' (which I'm not) etc etc. That almost made it worse, as I said to dh...if she cared about me, and genuinely worried like that surely that would make her want to see me?! In the end after yet another ignore I messages and said that I loved her dearly but was fed up with being ignored so if she wanted to hang out the ball was in her court. Needless to say that got a response, so she was obviously seeing the messages but just not responding.

She now responds more, but still normally declines. So about 6 months ago I decided to just step back and invest more in other friendships. Since that she has made more of the running but tbh I'm so used to not seeing her much that I'm too busy really.

Had a half hearted invitation to her birthday lunch earlier, child free which would normally count me out. Might actually be able to go but it is all her new drinking buddies and their partners and none of our old friends so am not sure tbh.

This has happened to me a few times. People who I felt were close friends have suddenly gone cold on me and stop contacting me or replying. I'm not a very good friend, I'm crap at initiating contact or organising meet ups. I've always had trouble with knowing how to conduct and nurture friendships. I got diagnosed with Autism this year which explains so much. It doesn't stop the hurt when someone goes cold on me though, and I ruminate constantly about what I have done wrong, what I could have done differently etc. I usually come to the conclusion that people would be more inclined to stick around if I wasn't me.

One of my best friends went no contact.

It's a grieving process - it would be easier if they would just tell you why they suddenly hate you, so you can either fix it or wear it. The not knowing is worse, because you still worry if they're OK and can't do anything about it.

I've made my peace with it now, but it was really hard at the time. You'll get through this. It's like a more intense way of being ghosted - when you're ghosted by a boy, you probably didn't really know him. When your best friend walks away, it hurts like hell, because you did know them. Or at least, you really thought you did.

MattBerrysHair - you have just described my best friend to a T. She is rubbish at initiating contact and organising meet ups. I do all the running. And it has become a sore point with me not feeling at all valued.
Maybe I should cut her some slack...

My best friend (make, gay, well established friendship before I even met DH) distanced himself after DS was born. I havn’t seen him for 9 years, since DS was 9 months old. I am still quite sad about this.

Another very good friend of mine died last year.

I’m another one who’s lost a best friend: it’s awful isn’t it? In hindsight I did make most of the effort / was there for her far, far more than she was for me which at the time I didn’t mind too much as she did have a lot of issues. But then one day she was breathtakingly awful about one of my children in front of him when he was only 4 years old. It was unreal and I will never ever forgive her for it. There were other circumstances which make it even worse but are a bit outing. She did have form for having a terrible temper but this was something else.

To add insult to injury she’d often bang on about being a “hippy earth mother” whereas the reality couldn’t be further from that .

I haven’t spoken to her in years and have no intention of ever doing so again. I miss her wit and humour. She could be hilarious but half the time you had to tread on eggshells around her. As I said, she had quite a few issues which I did support her with but after she dragged my child into it - no bloody chance.

to all of you going through this.

I’ve lost 2 close friends, both I believe as our lives took different turns.

The first was my BF in my late teens and throughout my twenties. We went on holiday together, were single a lot together, and then had times when one or other of us were in relationships.

Then her relationship broke down and I got married. She didn’t come to the wedding and I found that really unforgivable. I just didn’t get why she couldn’t be happy for me. I bleated to anyone that would listen about how much I missed her, how could we throw away all that shared history etc. It seemed such a waste to throw away something we’d both invested so heavily in.

Then a few years later, I made a great friend when I had my first DC. We were round each other’s houses constantly and felt close even though we’d known each other such a short time. We both wanted another DC and bonded even more as we both tried and failed to get pregnant again.

I managed to but she didn’t and it was never the same after that. I did get this but was so sad to lose her friendship. We see each other about once a year now - 12 years on, and get on fantastically but it’ll never be what it was.

Both of them I accept were friendships of the time - one for my twenties, one for my thirties and couldn’t survive beyond that, much to my disappointment.

I've been on both sides of this. You could be the friend I've quietly slipped away from. I went through a lot of huge life changes and grew enormously as a result. The 'ex' friend hated hearing about my situation (DV) so I had to shift friendships to people who could support me. She stayed static in her life with her head buried in the sand to her own situations - only wanting the benign 'headless' relationship we'd had before. Whilst nothing had gone wrong between us, it was no longer fulfilling to be around someone so unconscious of themselves so I created some distance.

But, I've also been on the losing side too. Another friend cut me off gently because she could see how I've faced the challenges in my life and come out the other side of some truly awful times but she's in that exact situation herself now & unwilling to do anything about it. To be around me is too much of a reminder of the crap she's not facing up to, so she keeps her distance. It's been deeply painful at different times but now I take the view relationships ebb & flow and as some people drift out of your life, new ones come in.

Yes, the not knowing is the worst part. I last spoke to her on the phone a couple of months ago and it was fairly normal and since then she's said she would call but never has. I'm racking my brains trying to think of what I could've done - I do make effort with her, I ask her how she's going etc. I think she just finds me boring and would rather talk to other people. I've never been the 'cool' friend but I always thought we understood each other.

BehindLockNumberNine if you feel your friend genuinely enjoys being around you and appreciates your efforts then maybe cut her some slack. My longest friend is from my uni days and she has persisted where many people have not. I am so very grateful for her. However, if your friend isn't really bothered or uses you if she has nothing better to do then I'm not surprised you feel annoyed.

Sending to all who’ve gone through this. I have a similar situation with a long-standing friend. I had a terrible time about 10 years ago and she was a real rock - but she made herself my support, called me every day, I didn’t ask her to do this. She was amazing. But she decided to be that person for me. A decade on and I’m in a different place (have been for 5 years in fact) and it’s like she can’t accept that. When I see her (rarely) she wants to infantilise me and takes over organising, decisions etc. She herself has had some tough times in the last few years and I’d love to support her but she deflects all questions about her life. She opened up once to me when she was drunk and since then has just closed off. She now ignores messages, is always busy etc. It’s so hurtful. I can only think it’s like the balance doesn’t work for her any more now I’m in a good place and her life is less happy. I am so grateful for her support though that I can’t just walk away, with the result that every time I make contact and it’s rebuffed I feel more and more shit. But calling her out or blocking her feels like a really petty thing to do.

BehindLockNumberNine, I was like that and it was really hurtful waiting for her to contact me. I was so hurt because I've tried to be a good friend to her. But when I moved to a house the same size as hers and she didn't need me for advice on a particular issue anymore, she slowly phased me out. Text messages were less and really short and generally about the weather. She used her dh's back condition as a reason not to meet up, but then went skiing with him and I found out on Facebook. She also shouted at me because I was wearing a necklace and bracelet my dcs got me, because 'I was stealing her style '. But she described me as her sister... I couldn't cope with waiting for a text after the fake excuses not to see me. So I blocked her on Facebook and deleted her number. I'm so sad about it.

I know someone whose best friend and housemate moved out while the person was in hospital after an overdose. No explanation, nothing. I still don't understand what kind of person would do that.

BellMcEnd I could have written your post almost word for word. Still stings.

I recently posted about this very issue in 30 days, through discussing it, it felt clear to me that with this particular friend I had played the role of "rescuer"

Now, having moved on and reinvented herself, she was no longer in need of a "rescuer" and thus dispensed of me

Also in addition, having reinvented herself as a strong, independent woman, I accidentally once reminded her that I knew her before and I think that's what was curtains for me, as she didn't want anyone in her life that knew her full story.

This happened to me in a minor way once I tried and failed to join a friendship group comprised of people I knew growing up, once one of the DWs realised that I had known her much older DH during his "very troubled phase" a phase she likes to airbrush from history, I found myself completely shunned.

Sometimes people want to ditch anyone who knows who they used to be, even if the person, like me, doesn't care about it and doesn't hold it against them

Feeling for you all!

I met one of my closest friends at university, sat next to him in our first lecture. we were inseparable for 4 years, was an usher at my wedding.

but as soon as he'd got his own life sorted, i was no longer necessary. didn't hear from him for years, as he'd moved abroad.

now he's back in the uk, and seemingly a completely different person (religious, textbook family man), which doesn't tally with the person i knew at all.

i don't begrudge him this at all! but looking back at our friendship through more mature eyes, i see that i contributed much more to our friendship than he did.

he seems to be the sort of person that adapts himself to whatever situation he's in/whatever type of people he's with, providing it benefits him.

he's always on FB saying we should all meet up again, but it never translates into action. i've met our other university friends multiple times over the years.

i think some people are just fundamentally selfish, and view relationships from a self-serving perspective.

Nearly ten years ago,my best friend of over twenty years,fell out with me over my wedding plans (nothing major & something that we would have easily resolved in the past).
She said some hurtful things (via email) & as others have said,it hurt me deeply & for a long time,even more than my divorce.
I still don't know why,as she disappeared out of my life completely & I haven't heard from her since.My dh has spoken to her dh (work related),quite a few years ago & her dh had said she had pushed everyone away.I do wonder if it related to MH issues.
I really struggled with it,especially not seeing her dd's,who I had known from birth & who were good friends with my eldest dd.
Eldest dd often shows me Instagram/FB photos of them & I always feel that rush of emotion & sadness again.