Ending friendship with a best friend
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Anonymous
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My best friend and I have been friends for about 13 years (we met when we were 16 in high school and are now 29). She’s always been the type of friend who expects favors and expects you to always be there for her but rarely does the same in return. I pretty much had accepted that that’s how she is and dealt with it but over the last 4ish months, I just can’t take it anymore. She is married with a 2 year old and my husband and I are married and have been TTC for over a year and a half now. I planned her whole baby shower, brought her to it, helped her with her registry and for the first 6 months of her sons life, I helped her out so much. Her husband works night shifts and sleeps during the day so I would help her out and watch him 2-3 days a week while she had work or interviews or whatever. I made myself available for late night texts she’d send me when he was a newborn and she had 100 questions (I worked as a NCS for years so had experience). I was also always there when her and her husband got into a fight or she had issues with her mom or whatever. I moved out of state for a year and just moved back to our home town in November. Since I got back, our friendship has slowly gone down hill. I’ve seen her 3 times since I moved back with the last time being mid January. We got into a stupid fight before her sons 2nd birthday and I didn’t go to his party. (Long story short- I had asked her if she wanted to do some xmas shopping together if she had a babysitter as I wanted to bang out all my shopping and not have to worry about taking a toddler in and out of a ton of stores. Her mom was going to watch him and then backed out. I told her I was going to go by myself and she got all pissy and told me how I act like her kids an inconvenience and a bunch of other BS. Immature fight clearly but we didn’t talk for about 2 weeks. We ended up randomly talking again and never brought it up again and acted like it never happened). Well ever since that, things have just been shitty with us. I’ll text her and not hear back for days but if she texts me and I don’t respond, she will text me 5+ times saying “hello” “why are you ignoring me”, etc. I tried making plans with her and her husband to have them over for probably 5 weeks straight and she would confirm and then back out last minute for whatever reason and then one weekend she never told me they weren’t coming and I asked her to confirm and she ignored me all weekend and then randomly texted me 5 days later saying “sorry I got busy”. The icing on the cake for me really was this last week. She knows we are struggling with TTC issues and I had texted her venting about it and how I was feeling and she didn’t respond. NExt day she randomly texts me “I hate being sick. When is winter going to end? Lol”. I didn’t respond and then a few hours later she texted me again saying she needed a favor. So I’m just done. I’ve realized how one sided our friendship is and I can’t deal with it anymore. She talks to me when it’s convenieny for her or when she needs something but anything I say doesn’t matter or if I need to vent to my “best friend” she doesn’t respond. So last night I deleted her on Facebook and Instagram. I know it was probably childish but I just need a break. I tried to have a convo with her about how I felt a few weeks back and she pretty much shut me down and acted like I was wrong. I don’t need a friend like this. It makes me sad to lose a best friend but I can’t keep being friends with someone like this.
I know this is long and probably stupid and a lot of you will say this is immature shit but I needed to vent and maybe see if anyone had any advice or went through something similiar? I haven’t talked to her since Saturday and probably won’t hear from her at all. I doubt she’s noticed I’ve unfriended her yet but if she has, she hasn’t said anything. Did I do the right thing here? Again, it makes me sad but I want a friend who is here for me and cares about me, not just expects me to be there for them and give me nothing in return. |
Anonymous
| You need to take care of yourself. She is a drain on you and you did the right thing. |
Anonymous
| Your feelings are absolutely valid but unfriending her was childish. Given the length of your friendship, she at least deserves a conversation and explanation. |
Anonymous
OP Here- I can see how it comes off as childish but I just got to my breaking point and felt like this friendship is just done. About 3 weeks ago, I tried explaining to her how I felt like our friendship was one sided and how I feel like she’s never here for me but she expects me to be here for her at the drop of a hat and she pretty much flat out told me that’s not true. Then 2 weeks later when I text her because I was upset about my TTC issues, I got ignored completely and then the next day I get a text saying she needs a favor. No response at all to my text or any acknowledgment of it at all. So I don’t know why I have to do anything else. |
Anonymous
yeah, this is gross -NP |
Anonymous
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The first step is to recognize that you are sad the friendship is ending and that you are also angry for being taken advantage of for so long and not sticking up for yourself.
It will probably take a few weeks or months but the sadness and anger will fade. So she texts you? Just let it go. She can text you 5, 10 times in a row and don't respond. She is used to you being her at her beck and call. Don't fall for the phony guilt trips. |
Anonymous
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I'm so sorry this is happening to you...the ending of a long term friendship and the TTC issues. I've experienced both, but luckily not at the exact same time. I was about 40 or 41 when a VERY long term friendship ended. We had known each other most of our lives but our lives had just diverged to the point that we had really different outlooks and ways of treating people that it just wasn't working anymore. It was sad and I still miss the friends we were when we were young, but it had gotten to the point we just weren't compatible as friends anymore. Perhaps some day out paths will comparably cross again and maybe you and your friend will too.
As far as the TTC goes, I'd cut her some slack on that because that topic is hard to relate to if you haven't been through it. A lot of people don't know what to say so they say nothing...sort of like talking about death and dying. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable. |
Anonymous
| I did something similar. Best fried since we were in middle school and she was always selfish and the taker in the relationship. I was going through a hard time in law school, she got irritable that I was having issues, and I said enough is enough and I cut things off. She reached out a few times to my DH (they were friends too), but got the message pretty quickly. She did text me to say congratulations when we had our baby, a good five years later, and that was really sweet and thoughtful. It's HARD to lose that much history with someone, but toxic friendships are not worth it. |
Anonymous
| You were an idiot to let it go on so long. Hopefully you've learned from this and won't be a pushover going forward. Focus on your friends who are more balanced. |
Anonymous
| Friends are not romantic partners. You don’t have to “end” friendships. Just pull back. |
Anonymous
+1. I think OP had to do what she had to do because she let it ride so long. But lesson for the future- just fade away. |
Anonymous
| You have a lot going on emotionally with TTC. If I were you I’d just let this friendship grow a bit of distance without doing anything drastic. You might be in a place in a year or so when you would enjoy coming back together with her - so don’t officially burn down a bridge - just put a little space in there. |
Anonymous
| Unfriending her on facebook/instagram was really drastic. You didn't need to do that! You could have just kept a distance. Otherwise, she was more of a parasite than a friend. How do these people make so many friends? I am an incredibly stable, risk-averse, low-drama, low-needs person, and I have such a hard time making friends! |
Anonymous
| Paragraphs are your friends. |
Anonymous
| I see nothing wrong with unfriending her. If you're done, you're done. Why leave any routes open so that she can try to communicate with you? Block her number, get on with your life, and forget about her. There are plenty of other people in this world to take her place. |