Friendships and ghosting

[boilinthebag]

I need advice! I have recently had the unpleasant experience of being ghosted by my erstwhile best friend. It has been painful. I'm not a spring chicken! We had been besties for about 38 years, holidays with our same-age kids who are now in their twenties, phone calls several times a week, kept each other going during lockdown, trips together for walks/gardening/with our ageing mothers/just chilling together and sharing our thoughts and emotions. Early in the year (2023), I was in a deep depression due to family issues and I found her not very supportive and I made the mistake of saying so. After this - growing coldness. About 6 months ago she just blocked me on Whatsapp and stopped replying to my messages (which were not in the least about that issue as I had recovered and was back to my usual optimistic self. We had had lots of fun outings and chats in the interim.). So I emailed her today asking what had I said or done to be ghosted. And her reply was "Hi! If you would like to meet up for a light-hearted and cheerful chat then that's fine."
WTF?
She has blocked me and ghosted me and that is her answer. I am tempted to reply saying 'No thanks. Have a nice life.'
I can't believe that after all these years she cares so little. We knew each others' mothers. We went to each others' parents' funerals. We shared mutual parties for our kids. I listened on the phone every time she was in distress about her family and their attitudes towards her. She cried in my living room when she was dumped. I visited her in hospital when she was in for a breast cancer op. when her mum couldn't go.
I just can't believe it.
I suppose I'm best to leave it all alone now. But i do miss her and I feel lonely and rejected and sad.

Of course it’s great when friends can support us in tough times but they aren’t counsellors either.

I’ve had a year of everyone I know having problems and it’s hard to hear all the time - sometimes you do want to just talk about light things

I think Covid and the lockdown period and aftermath put a huge strain on certain relationships and I have experienced problems in my friendship group dating back to that time. It bred a great deal of resentment in all sorts of ways.

Your friend has clearly signalled that she wants to keep things light & superficial going forward so I guess you either accept that (& don’t feel the need to support her when she goes through tough times in the future) or draw a line under the friendship.

Personally, I would choose to go low contact. Just meet for a lighthearted chat as she suggests. Try to adapt to the new way of being friends with her. Maybe one day she will feel able to talk about the source of her resentment towards you or maybe not. She is being cowardly though in not being honest with you so she’s clearly not the person you thought she was.

I understand that this is very painful for you but I don't think she is going to tell you anything that you want to hear. So either you meet her on the terms she has set down or you release the connection.

There is nothing to be gained from a confrontation; obviously you feel wronged and that you are owed n explanation but clearly she feels less than warm towards you too.

The thing with friendships is that they are as strong as the participants decide. There is no obligation attached; we are all well within our rights to put as much or as little as we choose into our friendships.

Whether or not you feel she owes you, try to let it go. The friendship is cracked and any pressure will only damage it further.

Maybe more of a break will help you gain clarity of whether or not you want to invest in repairing the friendship. Maybe, if she hadn't cooled it off, you'd be choosing to let it go too.

2 things, OP:

1. This really hurts
2. It's not about you

Whatever you've done or said, however you might have come across, whatever you might have misjudged, anybody who is capable of a healthy, communicative relationship would not be dealing with this is the way that your erstwhile friend is.

Leave her to her unhealthy communication style, and get on with nurturing yourself through this. You can't fix things up with someone who won't communicate, and you can't trust her now, anyway. Even if you've done something terribly wrong in her eyes, she is the one who has destroyed the friendship for you, by avoiding clear communication. You need to step into your self confidence, and recognise that she has behaved in a way that makes her unworthy of your friendship. You are kind of recognising that anyway, with your 'No thanks. Have a nice life.' so respect that feeling you have. She is not your friend because you have rejected her, following her unacceptable behaviour.

It's such a shame though. It's happened to a lot of people. 'Friends' can be horribly surprising, sometimes, and you can never know anybody inside out, however long you know them for. She may have even surprised herself, not that that makes any difference to you.

She may also live to regret it if she loses a good friend over something that could have been resolved with better communication.

Maybe she’s just feeling strongly about something at the moment. But we can never assume that if we drop friends when they disappoint us, we will be able to pick them up again when we miss them.

The other side of this is- sometimes people are disappointing. We don't know what's going on for them, and I've certainly withdrawn from friendships for a few months recently when depressed and I felt embarrassed getting back in touch but I just hoped my friends understood I wasn't being a crap friend, I had nothing to offer and didn't want huge amounts of contact. I don't think that's unreasonable. Perhaps she was genuinely going through her own troubles and so wasn't able to be a great friend at that time.

I've tended to err on the side of forgiveness if that happens to me, which it has, I've found people ebb and flow in what they can offer and what I can offer them.

The issue here is you raised it and now she doesn't want to hear it or talk about it, though is happy to communicate in passive aggressive messages which presumably are about how you were when you were depressed.

I would leave it myself, but I can see in long friendships it's tempting to keep trying, I do think they go up and down in fortune though and sometimes drop altogether.

Perhaps she was genuinely going through her own troubles and so wasn't able to be a great friend at that time

The respectful thing to do in this situation is to acknowledge it. It can be hard, but even acknowledgment afterwards goes a long way. 'I'm so sorry I've been a crap friend lately, I've had such a lot on my mind...' etc can build bridges. OP's 'friend' isn't doing that. She's trying to direct and control OP's manner of conversation. It's so rude.

Very wise take on the situation and a pleasure to read.

Listen, everyone, it's been such a comfort reading your messages of support and wisdom. I'm really hurting right now tbh, and another horrible aspect of the situation is the way it seems to redefine yourself/myself. I thought I was a happy, balanced and ok person because I had such a nice friend (I thought). I mean, I do have other friends so it's not the end of the world, but I did think we had a special closeness. This leads to such a lot of self-questioning. However I say to myself, and to all you other folk on here who are going through the same thing - we'll get through it and come out the other end a bit sadder perhaps but hopefully with new wonderful friends. I've just written an angry poem. That's one way I am dealing with it! But in writing it and saying in the poem that I wouldn't do all the things for her that I did, I also realise that these things were bringing out the best in me. We must keep on trusting and putting ourselves out there. I was watching a clip from Scumbag the other day where Kirsten Scott Thomas says basically - people can be awful ... but they're all we've got.

I think she would rather tell you face to face op. I would take her up on the offer because writ the n words can be misinterpreted. She may have felt hurt when you said you found her not very supportive and she may have had other stuff going on as well. Listen to what she has to say, don’t make it all about yourself.

Sorry, posted too soon. I meant written messages can be misinterpreted. Been there done that.

I'm sorry to hear this... but it seems like your trauma dumping and depression was effecting her well being and she had to do this.

She was at full capacity and could only handle soo much. She also has problems to be sorted out in her own life as well.

She was already down, and you were bringing her lower...possibly to a spiral.

Also, you insulted and offended her by accusing her of not being there for you, when it sounds like she was...just not in the way that you wanted.

She was there for you the best way that she could be at that time, while juggling whatever was going on in her own life.

No one wants to listen to someone overloading them with their problems. . and someone who is clingy and overbearing.

It was insensitive of you to not take her well being into consideration.

You were demanding of her time and all her energy, and it exhausted her.

Next time, don't continously trauma dump on someone. If you're feeling these ways, it would be best to talk to a professional.

Also, if she was your only friend, it may have been exhausting for her, because you relied on her a lot, and perhaps didn't allow her much personal space over the years.

This is why perhaps you should have a variety of friends and associates. You expected too much out of her.

Just leave her alone, and please don't contact her...especially with any snarky insensitive messages.

Sounds like you were the cause (intentionally or unintentionally) of the demise of things.

From that i would say that you were very negative and she really couldn't cope with ot. Did iu ask her how she was?

I am going through something traumatic right now and I can't tell my friend as she's going through a difficult time but to be honest I'm not coping with my own issues while trying to support her. It's exhausting

Did you forget about the laughs you were missing out on?

You obviously care about her otherwise you wouldn't have reached out.

Why not reply saying something along the lines of

I'm so much better now , must have been tough listening to Debbie downer. Now I'm cheery again. Fancy a wine and giggle?

Why not reply saying something along the lines of

I'm so much better now , must have been tough listening to Debbie downer. Now I'm cheery again. Fancy a wine and giggle

This doesn't really deal with the issue of wanting a friendship where you can tell each other everything, and sets a precedent of 'must stay chirpy when I see this friend, don't want to drag her down again!' It's not realistic. Sometimes people have tough times. Sometimes friends have individual tough times at the same time. It doesn't lead to ghosting, if everybody is respectful of each other.

Sorry this has happened to you, I would ask her. I have started stepping back from people that give me cause to distrust them or that cause conflicts when there's no need for it.

But if one friend can't cope with another's depression it doesn't mean they are a bad friend , it just means they can't cope

It's difficult if she won't tell you what's upset her and l'd also be reluctant to go out with a friend on the proviso that the conversation would be "light-hearted and cheerful." It sounds as though she doesn't feel able to support you emotionally, for whatever reason. I wonder if you made her feel uncomfortable/inadequate by telling her that she wasn't being supportive before, and she's backed away from you for that reason.

I’m sorry this happened to you. It happened to me too in very similar circumstances. As you said, hurt me almost as much as the original loss. Bonkers how much it can get to you, isn’t it. Do you think they realise?

I have reached out over the years to find some peace (not friends again, just so she’s not angrily avoiding me or pretending to be civil if we pass each other in the street) but nothing doing. We’re in our 50s ffs.

Early in the year (2023), I was in a deep depression due to family issues and I found her not very supportive and I made the mistake of saying so.

Is this the first time you've criticised her? She seems to have had quite a reaction to it.

"Hi! If you would like to meet up for a light-hearted and cheerful chat then that's fine."

It sounds like the slight of calling her unsupportive was the straw the broke the camel's back (as she has but up an increasing list of resentments previous to this) or she is so emotionally immature she just can't cope with any criticism at all? The above reply was quite loaded/passive aggressive.

I'm sorry OP - this sounds really hard to come back from if she won't talk about it at all.

@Maddy70

But if one friend can't cope with another's depression it doesn't mean they are a bad friend , it just means they can't cope

Yes, but their way of not coping might be unacceptable to the first friend! There isn't a set of rules we have to live by in order to be 'a good friend'. It's about compatibility. If your method of coping causes pain to me, then we're not a good fit, and we each need to find friends with different boundaries about what's ok and what's not in a friendship.

You are one of these people who make instant judgements about others without knowing the details. Your ‘you you you’ speaks volumes about a lack of insight so perhaps you are dealing with something yourself. I wish you peace.

“No one wants to listen to someone overloading them with their problems. . and someone who is clingy and overbearing. “
Jeesoh! Judgy or what!!

In what way did you find her unsupportive and what were the exact words you used? It's quite a vague description. She could've been having a bad time too.

I think it’s very hard to see your friends perspective for you but the thing that stood out for me is that you told her she had been unsupportive. I think this may have been very unwelcome to her. Whether she was or not, telling a friend this kind of thing is quite intense, emotionally demanding and heavy. I really would not take that well myself. Fine when I was 20 but not from middle age onwards. I would be very careful to not say things like that to friends and family - I only feel able to make that kind of emotional demand on my partner.

So maybe just think of you have been intense and demanding in a way that she may have found a bit too much?

I was in your friends position where I was criticised for not being supportive enough. I made the decision to end the friendship and I wont be reconnecting.