Friend ghosted me after second baby

[Kathleen995]

Hi all.

I had a best friend since I was 18. We went to uni together, lived with each other throughout, went travelling after uni and spent much of our 20s together, despite living in different cities in the UK after our mid 20s.

I then moved abroad for two years (we still kept in touch) and shortly after returning to the UK I fell pregnant with my first child. She was never the best at keeping in touch and it was usually me who reached out first, but I wasn't resentful of this necessarily, it's just different communication styles.

I noticed her contact began to drop even further while I was pregnant the first time round. After a few ignored messages over a period of 2 or 3 months, I called her out on this. She ended up coming to stay at my house for a couple of days and apologised (I wasn't expecting this, I was just glad we were seeing each other!). However she didn't provide much reason for the drop off in contact, just said she didn't know what was wrong with her and why she finds it so hard to stay in touch. Things got a bit better after this, and I became pregnant with my second child a couple of years later. We maintained contact throughout my pregnancy (again, usually me reaching out).

I texted her to let her know the baby had been born and she congratulated me, and said she couldn't wait to meet the baby. Then radio silence. So I reached out again a couple of weeks later to ask how she was doing (bearing in mind I had a newborn and toddler at this stage and keeping in touch with people was challenging for me too!). She never responded to the message and I thought, I'm just going to leave this and not follow up and see what happens.

18 months later I've never heard back. We haven't exchanged a single message, she watches my Instagram stories etc but never engages. I'm finding it difficult to understand how this has happened, and if I should reach out? My gut says no, because her silence is enough, but I'm finding this extremely painful – especially as it happened at such a difficult, vulnerable time in my life.

I suppose my question is – should I be reaching out, or leaving her be? I feel the pattern has always been me reaching out first, and her silence is sort of an answer enough in itself. If she wanted to, she would, sort of thing.

I had a friend who I'd known for years. We were very close. I fell pregnant with my first and she was still there for me, we still met up.

Then I noticed around the time my eldest was 4 the communication was all me contacting her first. We still met up but was all me initiating it. She didn't drive so I drove but in the end she never used to offer to pay for parking or something for me driving her like she used to. There was one incident where she messaged me first during this phase and it was because her boyfriend had cheated on her. That was the only time she contacted me first.

Then when my mother had terminal cancer I messaged her telling her and all she responded with was "oh 😕". When my mother actually died 6 weeks later I posted on Facebook that she had died and the friend never contacted me or commented/reacted to the post. I presumed she didn't see it. When we next spoke about 6 months later I said my mother had passed and she said "yeah I saw your post but I was too upset about it to message you anything" she literally met my mum like twice. And that wasn't recently either.

She's now moved miles away with the boyfriend who cheated and I know this through her posts on Facebook. I gave up contacting her. Ive since had more children and I didn't contact her to tell her.

It's a shame really.

A similar thing happened to me. I met my DH at 35, my close friend of 20yrs was my chief bridesmaid. Had 2 babies close together. I had my second baby at the start of the school holidays and my friend was a teacher. I hardly saw her. It seemed me having 2 babies was the tipping point. I then moved away and she formally ghosted me.

I guess she felt I was a different person. I certainly had less time to hang out and organise her social life like I had done. But I will never know. She has no children and has never been in a relationship that I can recall. She's late 50's now. Happy with lots of friends I hear.

I never reached out and never would. I am way past the point now. For me a pride thing maybe. I'm not that desperate for a friend and I think ghosting is really poor behaviour.

Hurtful op. I would not reach out now anymore. I read on somewhere match their energy. I def find people flaky now or super keen to meet me then no reply. I give up.

I think a few on here are trying to look for malicious intent or label it as a syndrome but it's just two lives going in very different directions.

I reconnected with my childhood best friend but she had kids, messy relationships and ended up a single mum. I'm in a happy child-free by choice relationship with my long term partner and once you lose the common ground it's hard to keep that friendship. The kids are getting into teen years now but when they were younger I really didn't need Facebook posts about their stomach churning vomiting bug details! Thing is it's also the awkwardness of things like, I travel a lot so how can I talk about my adventures and financially comfortable life with somebody whose a struggling single mum? I do also live 40 miles from her which didn't help.

I would leave it. She’s a grown woman. If she wanted to explain, reach out, talk she would. She’s made a choice. Let her get on with it. Plenty more friends in life. If anyone asked tell the truth and say uve not heard from her in ages, she stopped contact. End of.

This is an odd take... I literally said in my post that I have other friends – many, actually – but she was an integral part of my life, we'd been best friends since we were 15.

You seem to think that I'm the one at fault here. Advising me not to 'make things awkward' is a bit odd when I'm on the receiving end of the ghosting... I'd argue the awkwardness should lie with her, but each to their own.

Personally, I'm not friends with people on the basis of whether or not their 'lives' interest me, but rather if the person themselves is kind, thoughtful, interesting, empathetic and outward-looking. Of course people's lives change over time and none of us are living the same lives at 36 as we did at 21, and ghosting someone because their life looks different from yours seems, frankly, immature and actually quite callous.

Theres not much you can do. Im friends with mams old neighbour but feel always me reaching out. Ive parked it for now. Are people just busy op. Its no excuse though you make time for friendships

It's not callous, it's just lives splitting off into different directions. You'll be at home raising your kids but she'll be at work and work consumes a lot of a person's life when it's full time work and you just don't have the time to do everything you want to do. You've got two really young kids so it puts them in a position of what do they talk to you about if they aren't into kids, what meet ups can you do when you've got a baby and a toddler because it's harder now for you to have an adults night out or meet up etc because you've got such young kids and they can be noisy and disruptive.

I also work full time (have done since youngest was 9 months, and was also back into full time work when oldest was 9 months) in a high powered managerial position, and have a supportive partner who looks after the kids when I meet up with friends, including weekends away. So it’s not really an issue. So I really don’t think this is a good enough excuse, unfortunately.

I wondered if friend had ADHD too? Objective permanece challenges?

Most of my friends seem to and they’re really inconsistent with contact, and I’m probably the same too at times… 🫣

If it means that much to you, maybe reach out once more, the leave it open for her to in the future (as in, don’t block).

I would suggest to also readjust your own expectations from the connection, things do change, they can have seasons, invest in relationships elsewhere, and do bear in mind the lack of contact doesn’t necessarily reflect how they feel about you. I’m sure she still often thinks of you, intends to message, then life kicks back in, and months pass again….

I think friendships can be one of the hardest things to navigate in life.

Intimate relationships will have a definite ending, but friendships often don’t, they often just have this slow, drawn out, often confusing and painful, death, and often for no apparent reason….

I wonder if your friend has made some assumptions because you are now a mum of two. A lot of people in this life stage are crappy friends due to lack of free time or interest in anything outside of their children. I'm not saying that this is a fair reflection of you OP but your friend could have experienced this with other friends and this is some sort of self protection response.

Hard to know op. Its hard with young kids. You reached out I would leave her now. My big issue now is nobody commits to anything! So I do alot on my own.

If no fertility issues or past pregnancy loss traumas then I imagine it’s something like adhd with her saying she don’t know what was wrong with her about keeping in touch: it spirals to a point where you think it’s too late to reply or reach out and it’s not personal, it’s (dys)function (executive).

The choice is yours. It depends on how important the friendship is.

I think you've kind of answered it - she isn't very good at keeping in touch; she's admitted it herself. It's perhaps nothing personal on her part, but I wouldn't see her as a really good friend. You could reach out to her with a message though, see if she responds.

Some people are just not that social and let others just take the lead. Or maybe you just have gone different ways now?

Serial accidental ghoster here. It is usually completely unintentional, compounded by stupid anxiety. I am currently doing this to my two best friends and will try my hardest to make contact with both of them later, spurred on by your post.
if your friend is anything like me, she will have fully intended to contact you to arrange a time to come and meet your new baby, but thought to herself that she didn’t want to trouble you when you would be consumed by having a toddler and a new born. Then time will have got away from her a bit, to the point where she will have felt bad for not getting in touch sooner and thought that she would message you when there was a particular reason (birthday / Christmas / etc). She will then have meant to message you on that day, thought about it repeatedly throughout that day, but then been distracted by other stuff during that day and missed the opportunity. Now she will be at the point of thinking your life must be far too busy to be missing her (or you would have been in touch) and she won’t want to put you out by forcing her way back in contact.
Thankfully, my friends are hugely patient with my nonsense and will send an “are you okay, or at least alive” message which will give me the kick I need after months of procrastination - and we will speak again. Alternatively, if anyone messages me because they need me, I am there without hesitation - it’s just the chatty texting that is a struggle.
Of course your friend may be a genuinely bad person and uncaring friend, but speaking from experience, she may just be a bit shit at maintaining contact.
I think you should send her a message!

I think you should stop thinking of it in terms of "being ghosted" - i.e. in terms of your friend having 'done something' to you. It is a relatively new coinage and it seems to have distorted the way in which people think about the evolutions and endings of relationships.

Instead of reflecting on why your friend has "ghosted you", think of the friendship itself, or of your friend herself, and the reasons why the friendship might not be as natural for her now as it used to be.

One possibility is that parenthood has changed you, your conversation, etc a lot. Completely natural, nothing wrong with that, but it just might not be a very good fit for your friend. Another possibility is that things might be going on in her life that make it less natural, or more difficult, for her to continue a relationship from the past with someone who is not physically close.

Friendship isn't primarily a set of obligations and etiquettes. It is the changeable meeting of minds, personalities, interests, lifestyles.

I think you are more invested in the friendship than her. The two of you are in different places in life now and she doesn’t seem interested in your children. I’d guess she’s not that invested in seeing you / catching up but if you initiate and arrange she’s happy to go along with it. There could be an element of her leaving you to let her know what works for you but given she hasn’t once thought to get in touch in 18m it seems less likely.

id put her in the metaphorical box of old past friend and move on. If seeing her stuff on sm bothers you mute her (I always think blocking is such a over kill)

No, I would leave it now, you've tried enough times already.

I've been in this situation and I know how much it hurts but I refuse to chase someone who shows zero effort back, its hurtful and mean and I deserve better and so do you.

In my case, the friend came crawling back a few years later but frankly, it was too late by then, I was done. It wasnt about being petty, it was about the fact that my life had moved on by then and I had made other friends and simply didnt have the time or space for her in my life any more. Also, I didnt trust that she wasnt going to just disappear again after I had re-invested as it were.

Sometimes you just have to accept other people's behaviour - you cant change them but you can change the way you react to it so protect yourself.

You've got two really young kids so it puts them in a position of what do they talk to you about if they aren't into kids

I dont agree with this at all - I have lots of friends in various different life stages, we manage to find loads of things to talk abbot that dont revolve around children. The idea that parents only want to wang on about their kids non stop is a little bit rude. I actually enjoy talking about other topics because I am around my kids 24/7

Youve tried just leave it now. Put your energy elsewhere..
Otherwise it keeps hurting.

I realised once I had kids a lot of my friends have mental health issues depression self esteem, they are sad about their life / embarassed (which i didnt believe but one of my.friends told me they were embrassed how their life turned out) otr they resent yours (although I think this is fairly uncommon) etc.
Whatever they have their reasons.

I did a lot of the chasing and organising.

Once I had kids:

I had 2 under 2
A full time job
My own health problems
A household to run (and it requires a lot more vs my.life pre.kids)
My relationship with my dh
My relationship with immediate family

I do NOT have the bandwidth to be chasing and try to pin down people who cant be bothered to reply to a whats app.
I dont have it in me.
People need to meet me halfway.

I now see some one those friends occasionally but I need someone who can meet me halfway.

Example
We are doing an egghunt organsied by me today the attendees are bringing croissants and fruits and will turn up on time.
My ex best friend would... ignore my initial messages, then say she had to "check with her husband" id chase and she'll say she thought she replied but didnt and yes they can. Then shed turn up approx 50min late having texted me repeatedly saying shes almost there when in reality she hasnt left the house.
I just can't...
so now I say having dinner with mutual (reliable) friend on Saturday night if you want to come we are meeting at x for 7pm. Or we are going to the fair at Y with kids on sunday . I see her 2-3 times per year.

I've accepted things are just different now.

Looks like it’s just you babe 🥰 awkward. Thanks for the kind words though, you sound like you’d be a lovely friend.