Long term friend has ended our friendship but wants to chat to me on a group chat

[meghansparkles]

Very long story short, friend and I have been friends since Uni and have the same group of uni friends.

She and I were very, very close - closer than the others in the group. The last few years we've had a few school reunions going and have all been on weekends away together. As a result there's a whatsapp group of the 5 of us that was used to organise these trips.

Since lockdown as there's obviously been no weekend group away this year we've chatted in the group as a way of staying in touch, seeing how DC are doing etc. All fine.

However, a couple of months ago my very close friend basically dumped me by email. There's not a lot of point going into the ins and out of it, but she essentially said 'bye, see you later and I'll see you at the reunions if we're ever allowed to meet up like that again.'

I hadn't done anything 'wrong' there was nothing for me to apologise for, I just didn't agree with her opinion on my life - which she had spilled out in an email and when I disagreed/put my side across she dumped me.

Anyway, I accepted that. But now, having dumped me, she sometimes chooses to engage with me on the group chat - asking me if I had a nice holiday/birthday. The latest thing was asking me on a group about my DD's school place.

I find it really odd that you would terminate a friendship from them, not respond to their response to this and then chat with them in a whatsapp group as if nothing had happened.

Any thoughts?

Ah. It all seems a bit more understandable in that light.

She (not he) might have actually written the email but he was breathing over her shoulder whispering in her ear the whole time and without doubt she was doing it to please him and reporting back to appease him. She's being gaslit and probably doesn't know wtf is the truth. She almost certainly doesn't want to lose your friendship but doesn't know how.

With that in mind my opinion's changed. Personally I'd keep up the group chat including her and reply to her politely when she asks how you are. No need to proactively force communication but better not to cut her out when your group may be the only route out of the abusive situation she's in.

Has anything further happened OP? I hope the group chat hasn't become strained.

I was just thinking about your reply to her email that she ignored - running with the possibility that her husband has orchestrated her dumping you, I wonder if she didn't ignore the email but he deleted it before she got a chance to even see it.