Advice needed on how to/whether to finally step away from a friendship. We’ve been friends for over 10 years. She was maid of honour at my wedding and at one time I would have considered her my best friend. For the first 5 years we were incredibly close but once I had my first child (as things can do) we drifted further apart. We were over an hour away from each other, there were lockdowns etc. I found her putting distance between us painful but accepted that the friendship had evolved and she was perhaps seeing it differently to how I was. I always got the feeling that I valued/put more weight into the friendship than perhaps she did.
I realised by around 2022 that this friendship was not what I thought it was and that we’d only physically seen each other about 2 times in the last few years. At first, we still messaged and interacted on social media and I put the lack of meet ups down to the after affect of lockdowns etc. but I realised it was still me driving any communication and I slowly pulled away.
She had also shown virtually no interest in my children, which is fine (she chose not to have children) but that’s also hard when you have very young kids and you’re at the stage of motherhood where it’s so all-consuming. I didn’t talk about them unless asked. When we did meet up she could only ever meet for about 2 hours and would rush off as she always had somewhere else to be/something to do. She’d never make the effort to travel to me, even when I had babies under the age of 2- we’d often end up meeting half way or I’d travel all the way to her. She has visited my home (that I’ve lived in for 6 years) once, when my youngest had just been born. I think I would have been accommodating about not physically seeing each other had she actually messaged/called but it felt like she didn’t actually want that either?
Eventually, last year (after having not seen each other since the previous August because she was so busy) I pushed for a date to meet up. She wanted me to meet her new partner so we arranged to meet and bring partners/family along (including new partners child). We hadn’t seen each other in over a year at this point and I would have enjoyed a proper catch up just us two…but friendships change and evolve and I’d come to terms with the fact that this was perhaps just a ‘keeping in touch for old times sake friendship’. She was excited about being a step-mum and showing a little more interest in my children.
As I feel that this is important context- when we met I also told her that unfortunately my mum was terminally ill and had at best a year left to live. Since this meeting, at the start of October last year, she has not been in contact once. I very consciously didn’t make any contact as I was tired of it feeling so one sided. I’ve actually found this really difficult as I would naturally have messaged- as I do all of my friends. It takes two minutes to send a quick checking in ‘how are you getting on?’ type message. I felt that at this stage she could get in touch or arrange something herself. Her silence had given me the answer I needed.
However, today she called and left a voicemail saying that she ‘finally had a minute’ so thought she would call for a catch up, that she’s been thinking of me lots and has been meaning to ring for the last 2 months. She has a childfree weekend every other weekend.
I feel so frustrated (and to be honest hurt by her). I have lots of very old friendships that are long distance but they don’t feel like this one. Is it simply because they still make the effort to contact/message? Is it normal to go half a year without speaking to a good friend? Am I being unreasonable and should I go easier on her?