Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t ask if I’d done something wrong. Minimal chance you did and don’t know. It seems she knows you’d be a valuable friend if she was going through something personal, so that door remains open. Most I would do would be to connect again and leave it in her court. Something like “Miss seeing you around, but life is so much different without the boys around, huh!. I’m always up for coffee if life gets less busy. Give me a buzz anytime.”

This is a good idea

I agree with this. I wouldn’t ask if I have done something to offend as I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t have a clue if you had. I had something similar happen to me with a friend (our kids were friends) and I noticed her pulling away after the kids stopped hanging out as much. I was shocked because we shared so much outside of the kids, so I wrongly assumed our relationship was not due to convenience. However, she started always being busy. I am a firm believer that we prioritize what and who we want to. So I gave her space, lowered my expectations and rearranged the importance of our friendship in my heart. It was hard. I grieved the past friendship but in doing so it helped me not to stress about the current status of the friendship and it kept us in each other’s lives. I am almost certain that had I said anything (confronted her) we would be friends who only communicate when we happen upon each other every blue moon. We went from chatting and texting 2-3 times a day, to reaching out once a week, to now every couple of weeks or so we will check in with one another. We don’t share as many hard/personal things with each other but we both know that we can count on each other.

Also out of curiosity, has your son accomplished more than her son? (Better college or scholarship etc) Sometimes, people can’t handle when they aren’t on top.

OP here. Thank you for this kind post. I relate to your experience.
My son is at an objectively more elite college but ironically her son turned down a school that was just as elite for the one that he's attending (for fit) and by all accounts is extremely happy. Our kids were very much in step academically and athletically in high school and it wasn't a focus of our friendship at all because neither of us are competitive people and both boys always did well, were recognized, had opportunities etc. I guess maybe this could be a trigger now but it just doesn't jive with who I know her to be. And I can tell you with 100% certainty that if the roles were reversed it wouldn't phase me. I can't imagine a situation where I would withdraw out of jealousy. Frankly, I wouldn't have any friends if I withdrew from anyone whose kid is at a very top college or receiving accolades for something very impressive.

I'm going to step away now and go make some storm preparations. I appreciate the feedback.

You both were on equal footing then. Just because her son chose the school doesn’t mean that she isn’t happy with son’s choice to not go to the elite school. Maybe she is wrongfully taking it out on you since your son did go to an elite school.

I have a friend who started to fall back when I started having kids, she was having a hard time conceiving
and it was just too painful for her. I have another friend who remained single and childless. She cut most of her married girlfriends out of her life. I didn’t see either of those friends reacting that way but life has a way of bringing out things in people that aren’t always on the surface.

Your friend could be struggling with empty nest and your friendship makes it harder to cope as she remembers
what she once had with her son being home.


Between my response and several others, you can see that none of us have a real answer for you on why. My suggestion? Take what she is giving and let that be enough. You now be the one to reach out. Perhaps you are now in the role of being 60 and her 40 and that’s okay. Relationships ebb and flow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t ask if I’d done something wrong. Minimal chance you did and don’t know. It seems she knows you’d be a valuable friend if she was going through something personal, so that door remains open. Most I would do would be to connect again and leave it in her court. Something like “Miss seeing you around, but life is so much different without the boys around, huh!. I’m always up for coffee if life gets less busy. Give me a buzz anytime.”

This is a good idea

I agree with this. I wouldn’t ask if I have done something to offend as I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t have a clue if you had. I had something similar happen to me with a friend (our kids were friends) and I noticed her pulling away after the kids stopped hanging out as much. I was shocked because we shared so much outside of the kids, so I wrongly assumed our relationship was not due to convenience. However, she started always being busy. I am a firm believer that we prioritize what and who we want to. So I gave her space, lowered my expectations and rearranged the importance of our friendship in my heart. It was hard. I grieved the past friendship but in doing so it helped me not to stress about the current status of the friendship and it kept us in each other’s lives. I am almost certain that had I said anything (confronted her) we would be friends who only communicate when we happen upon each other every blue moon. We went from chatting and texting 2-3 times a day, to reaching out once a week, to now every couple of weeks or so we will check in with one another. We don’t share as many hard/personal things with each other but we both know that we can count on each other.

Also out of curiosity, has your son accomplished more than her son? (Better college or scholarship etc) Sometimes, people can’t handle when they aren’t on top.

OP here. Thank you for this kind post. I relate to your experience.
My son is at an objectively more elite college but ironically her son turned down a school that was just as elite for the one that he's attending (for fit) and by all accounts is extremely happy. Our kids were very much in step academically and athletically in high school and it wasn't a focus of our friendship at all because neither of us are competitive people and both boys always did well, were recognized, had opportunities etc. I guess maybe this could be a trigger now but it just doesn't jive with who I know her to be. And I can tell you with 100% certainty that if the roles were reversed it wouldn't phase me. I can't imagine a situation where I would withdraw out of jealousy. Frankly, I wouldn't have any friends if I withdrew from anyone whose kid is at a very top college or receiving accolades for something very impressive.

I'm going to step away now and go make some storm preparations. I appreciate the feedback.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t ask if I’d done something wrong. Minimal chance you did and don’t know. It seems she knows you’d be a valuable friend if she was going through something personal, so that door remains open. Most I would do would be to connect again and leave it in her court. Something like “Miss seeing you around, but life is so much different without the boys around, huh!. I’m always up for coffee if life gets less busy. Give me a buzz anytime.”

This is a good idea

I agree with this. I wouldn’t ask if I have done something to offend as I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t have a clue if you had. I had something similar happen to me with a friend (our kids were friends) and I noticed her pulling away after the kids stopped hanging out as much. I was shocked because we shared so much outside of the kids, so I wrongly assumed our relationship was not due to convenience. However, she started always being busy. I am a firm believer that we prioritize what and who we want to. So I gave her space, lowered my expectations and rearranged the importance of our friendship in my heart. It was hard. I grieved the past friendship but in doing so it helped me not to stress about the current status of the friendship and it kept us in each other’s lives. I am almost certain that had I said anything (confronted her) we would be friends who only communicate when we happen upon each other every blue moon. We went from chatting and texting 2-3 times a day, to reaching out once a week, to now every couple of weeks or so we will check in with one another. We don’t share as many hard/personal things with each other but we both know that we can count on each other.

Also out of curiosity, has your son accomplished more than her son? (Better college or scholarship etc) Sometimes, people can’t handle when they aren’t on top.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I met a woman when our sons were both new to 9th grade. Our sons were best friends in high school are now freshmen at 2 different colleges.
They remain close friends but something has happened to the relationship I have with this woman.

We hit it off almost immediately when we met and she would text me all the time: to walk together, have lunch, dinner with our husbands, chats, random texts about mundane stuff. I hadn't been looking for a new friend but this relationship was easy and effortless. We talked about vacationing together, we shared some pretty serious stuff with each other. We had the type of friendship where we would meet for coffee and then end up spending the day together. If anything I was not the driver of the friendship--she was. We both had other friends outside of each other but neither of us are "friend collectors", meaning we don't have super wide circles and value quality over quantity. We reflected on several occasions on how lovely it was to have met each other (when we weren't looking and at a time of life--high school--when you don't expect to) and how we hoped to be close for a long time to come.

Well our sons graduated this year and things have been weird and distant ever since. I thought I imagined it at first (or assumed it was just logistics) but it's become very clear over the past 7-8 months. She doesn't reach out anymore and when I reach out it becomes a "one off" until I reach out again. There is no more back-and-forth exchange. As mentioned above, our boys remain friends. They saw each other over winter break, supported each through breakups with high school girlfriends, and also just hung out doing stupid fun stuff.

This week I saw the friend at a gathering and it was weird. She chatted a bit and said "i'd love to see you again in month or so after X or Y" and I said "oh yes, me too" and that was about it. Then things felt awkward and I said "are you ok?" and she said "yes" and I replied, 'Oh good!" and that was about it. It's been similar to this for the past few times I've seen her.

So my thoughts are:
-in her mind we were close friends for a season and she's moved on. Kind of weird to me because our kids remain friends and our friendship didn't really revolve around our status as fellow parents. We didn't see each other at school (our sons played different sports, etc).
-i misread the place of our friendship in her life all along.
-i did or said something offensive or hurtful that i can't recall (or maybe my son did?)
-as DCUM likes to say: "she's just not that into you"
-she's depressed or sick or...
-she has other hard things going on in life that i don't know about. Could be anything.

For the purpose of this post, let's not debate what is doing on here. It could be any of the above and they would all be valid. The point is that this very close friendship of 4 years is dying. It's fading off into the sunset of life. it bothers me so I guess I want to know what to do. Do I just let this fade away and count it as a brief interlude of close friendship or do I reach out and when I see her next say: "hey, Did i do something to offend you? I miss you and value our friendship and just wonder wanted to put this out there." I guess I want the best chance of rescuing things if that is a possibility. Maybe it's not good to lead with "did I offend you?" Maybe I just say "I really miss you."

Thoughts? Thank you so much.

Ok. Tough love.

I had a couple friendships like this and I did start "slow fading" them at some point because the women both started asking way too much from me and seemed dependent on our friendship in a stifling way. I found myself saying no all the time, because their asks were increasingly extreme.

After a few years of family trauma and therapy I have realized that they both had Borderline tendencies (hallmark of which is intense fear of abandonment) and that because I grew up with a borderline mother, this felt natural to me, until it felt unbearable.

I think the intensity you mention in the OP is actually not healthy. I'm sure you did something at some point that triggered a suffocating feeling in your friend and that's why she backed away. She is not coming back, and you should absolutely not message her asking why, because that will trigger her guardedness even more.

OP here and while I appreciate you taking the time to write this out, but I'm confident that I'm not borderline. I have a long history of healthy friendships with good boundaries and in this particular one the invites, texts, etc were always 60/40 or 70/30 her. I did not start asking anything of increasing intensity of her-- or really much at all. I don't know what caused this shift (and I'll likely never know) but I can say with 100% certainty it wasn't because I became suffocating, inappropriate or asked too much of things.


Thank you to all for taking the time to comment. I think the act of writing this out was what I needed to do. I was trying to explain things to my husband and he doesn't get really get it so that's why I put my thoughts into words. I think I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to reach out in a few weeks for a lunch (and I'm confident she'll say yes) and then keep reaching out at a new interval and give it the rest of 2026 to settle into whatever it will settle into. Ironically I recently had a couple of new friends fall into my path. I met one through a mutual friend and again there is such an ease (no pressure, no awkwardness) to our friendship and we have a lot of interests in common. So I'm grateful for the timing of this and will keep on keeping on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I met a woman when our sons were both new to 9th grade. Our sons were best friends in high school are now freshmen at 2 different colleges.
They remain close friends but something has happened to the relationship I have with this woman.

We hit it off almost immediately when we met and she would text me all the time: to walk together, have lunch, dinner with our husbands, chats, random texts about mundane stuff. I hadn't been looking for a new friend but this relationship was easy and effortless. We talked about vacationing together, we shared some pretty serious stuff with each other. We had the type of friendship where we would meet for coffee and then end up spending the day together. If anything I was not the driver of the friendship--she was. We both had other friends outside of each other but neither of us are "friend collectors", meaning we don't have super wide circles and value quality over quantity. We reflected on several occasions on how lovely it was to have met each other (when we weren't looking and at a time of life--high school--when you don't expect to) and how we hoped to be close for a long time to come.

Well our sons graduated this year and things have been weird and distant ever since. I thought I imagined it at first (or assumed it was just logistics) but it's become very clear over the past 7-8 months. She doesn't reach out anymore and when I reach out it becomes a "one off" until I reach out again. There is no more back-and-forth exchange. As mentioned above, our boys remain friends. They saw each other over winter break, supported each through breakups with high school girlfriends, and also just hung out doing stupid fun stuff.

This week I saw the friend at a gathering and it was weird. She chatted a bit and said "i'd love to see you again in month or so after X or Y" and I said "oh yes, me too" and that was about it. Then things felt awkward and I said "are you ok?" and she said "yes" and I replied, 'Oh good!" and that was about it. It's been similar to this for the past few times I've seen her.

So my thoughts are:
-in her mind we were close friends for a season and she's moved on. Kind of weird to me because our kids remain friends and our friendship didn't really revolve around our status as fellow parents. We didn't see each other at school (our sons played different sports, etc).
-i misread the place of our friendship in her life all along.
-i did or said something offensive or hurtful that i can't recall (or maybe my son did?)
-as DCUM likes to say: "she's just not that into you"
-she's depressed or sick or...
-she has other hard things going on in life that i don't know about. Could be anything.

For the purpose of this post, let's not debate what is doing on here. It could be any of the above and they would all be valid. The point is that this very close friendship of 4 years is dying. It's fading off into the sunset of life. it bothers me so I guess I want to know what to do. Do I just let this fade away and count it as a brief interlude of close friendship or do I reach out and when I see her next say: "hey, Did i do something to offend you? I miss you and value our friendship and just wonder wanted to put this out there." I guess I want the best chance of rescuing things if that is a possibility. Maybe it's not good to lead with "did I offend you?" Maybe I just say "I really miss you."

Thoughts? Thank you so much.

Ok. Tough love.

I had a couple friendships like this and I did start "slow fading" them at some point because the women both started asking way too much from me and seemed dependent on our friendship in a stifling way. I found myself saying no all the time, because their asks were increasingly extreme.

After a few years of family trauma and therapy I have realized that they both had Borderline tendencies (hallmark of which is intense fear of abandonment) and that because I grew up with a borderline mother, this felt natural to me, until it felt unbearable.

I think the intensity you mention in the OP is actually not healthy. I'm sure you did something at some point that triggered a suffocating feeling in your friend and that's why she backed away. She is not coming back, and you should absolutely not message her asking why, because that will trigger her guardedness even more.

OP here and while I appreciate you taking the time to write this out, but I'm confident that I'm not borderline. I have a long history of healthy friendships with good boundaries and in this particular one the invites, texts, etc were always 60/40 or 70/30 her. I did not start asking anything of increasing intensity of her-- or really much at all. I don't know what caused this shift (and I'll likely never know) but I can say with 100% certainty it wasn't because I became suffocating, inappropriate or asked too much of things.


Thank you to all for taking the time to comment. I think the act of writing this out was what I needed to do. I was trying to explain things to my husband and he doesn't get really get it so that's why I put my thoughts into words. I think I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to reach out in a few weeks for a lunch (and I'm confident she'll say yes) and then keep reaching out at a new interval and give it the rest of 2026 to settle into whatever it will settle into. Ironically I recently had a couple of new friends fall into my path. I met one through a mutual friend and again there is such an ease (no pressure, no awkwardness) to our friendship and we have a lot of interests in common. So I'm grateful for the timing of this and will keep on keeping on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t ask if I’d done something wrong. Minimal chance you did and don’t know. It seems she knows you’d be a valuable friend if she was going through something personal, so that door remains open. Most I would do would be to connect again and leave it in her court. Something like “Miss seeing you around, but life is so much different without the boys around, huh!. I’m always up for coffee if life gets less busy. Give me a buzz anytime.”

This is a good idea

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I met a woman when our sons were both new to 9th grade. Our sons were best friends in high school are now freshmen at 2 different colleges.
They remain close friends but something has happened to the relationship I have with this woman.

We hit it off almost immediately when we met and she would text me all the time: to walk together, have lunch, dinner with our husbands, chats, random texts about mundane stuff. I hadn't been looking for a new friend but this relationship was easy and effortless. We talked about vacationing together, we shared some pretty serious stuff with each other. We had the type of friendship where we would meet for coffee and then end up spending the day together. If anything I was not the driver of the friendship--she was. We both had other friends outside of each other but neither of us are "friend collectors", meaning we don't have super wide circles and value quality over quantity. We reflected on several occasions on how lovely it was to have met each other (when we weren't looking and at a time of life--high school--when you don't expect to) and how we hoped to be close for a long time to come.

Well our sons graduated this year and things have been weird and distant ever since. I thought I imagined it at first (or assumed it was just logistics) but it's become very clear over the past 7-8 months. She doesn't reach out anymore and when I reach out it becomes a "one off" until I reach out again. There is no more back-and-forth exchange. As mentioned above, our boys remain friends. They saw each other over winter break, supported each through breakups with high school girlfriends, and also just hung out doing stupid fun stuff.

This week I saw the friend at a gathering and it was weird. She chatted a bit and said "i'd love to see you again in month or so after X or Y" and I said "oh yes, me too" and that was about it. Then things felt awkward and I said "are you ok?" and she said "yes" and I replied, 'Oh good!" and that was about it. It's been similar to this for the past few times I've seen her.

So my thoughts are:
-in her mind we were close friends for a season and she's moved on. Kind of weird to me because our kids remain friends and our friendship didn't really revolve around our status as fellow parents. We didn't see each other at school (our sons played different sports, etc).
-i misread the place of our friendship in her life all along.
-i did or said something offensive or hurtful that i can't recall (or maybe my son did?)
-as DCUM likes to say: "she's just not that into you"
-she's depressed or sick or...
-she has other hard things going on in life that i don't know about. Could be anything.

For the purpose of this post, let's not debate what is doing on here. It could be any of the above and they would all be valid. The point is that this very close friendship of 4 years is dying. It's fading off into the sunset of life. it bothers me so I guess I want to know what to do. Do I just let this fade away and count it as a brief interlude of close friendship or do I reach out and when I see her next say: "hey, Did i do something to offend you? I miss you and value our friendship and just wonder wanted to put this out there." I guess I want the best chance of rescuing things if that is a possibility. Maybe it's not good to lead with "did I offend you?" Maybe I just say "I really miss you."

Thoughts? Thank you so much.

Ok. Tough love.

I had a couple friendships like this and I did start "slow fading" them at some point because the women both started asking way too much from me and seemed dependent on our friendship in a stifling way. I found myself saying no all the time, because their asks were increasingly extreme.

After a few years of family trauma and therapy I have realized that they both had Borderline tendencies (hallmark of which is intense fear of abandonment) and that because I grew up with a borderline mother, this felt natural to me, until it felt unbearable.

I think the intensity you mention in the OP is actually not healthy. I'm sure you did something at some point that triggered a suffocating feeling in your friend and that's why she backed away. She is not coming back, and you should absolutely not message her asking why, because that will trigger her guardedness even more.

Anonymous wrote:I met a woman when our sons were both new to 9th grade. Our sons were best friends in high school are now freshmen at 2 different colleges.
They remain close friends but something has happened to the relationship I have with this woman.

We hit it off almost immediately when we met and she would text me all the time: to walk together, have lunch, dinner with our husbands, chats, random texts about mundane stuff. I hadn't been looking for a new friend but this relationship was easy and effortless. We talked about vacationing together, we shared some pretty serious stuff with each other. We had the type of friendship where we would meet for coffee and then end up spending the day together. If anything I was not the driver of the friendship--she was. We both had other friends outside of each other but neither of us are "friend collectors", meaning we don't have super wide circles and value quality over quantity. We reflected on several occasions on how lovely it was to have met each other (when we weren't looking and at a time of life--high school--when you don't expect to) and how we hoped to be close for a long time to come.

Well our sons graduated this year and things have been weird and distant ever since. I thought I imagined it at first (or assumed it was just logistics) but it's become very clear over the past 7-8 months. She doesn't reach out anymore and when I reach out it becomes a "one off" until I reach out again. There is no more back-and-forth exchange. As mentioned above, our boys remain friends. They saw each other over winter break, supported each through breakups with high school girlfriends, and also just hung out doing stupid fun stuff.

This week I saw the friend at a gathering and it was weird. She chatted a bit and said "i'd love to see you again in month or so after X or Y" and I said "oh yes, me too" and that was about it. Then things felt awkward and I said "are you ok?" and she said "yes" and I replied, 'Oh good!" and that was about it. It's been similar to this for the past few times I've seen her.

So my thoughts are:
-in her mind we were close friends for a season and she's moved on. Kind of weird to me because our kids remain friends and our friendship didn't really revolve around our status as fellow parents. We didn't see each other at school (our sons played different sports, etc).
-i misread the place of our friendship in her life all along.
-i did or said something offensive or hurtful that i can't recall (or maybe my son did?)
-as DCUM likes to say: "she's just not that into you"
-she's depressed or sick or...
-she has other hard things going on in life that i don't know about. Could be anything.

For the purpose of this post, let's not debate what is doing on here. It could be any of the above and they would all be valid. The point is that this very close friendship of 4 years is dying. It's fading off into the sunset of life. it bothers me so I guess I want to know what to do. Do I just let this fade away and count it as a brief interlude of close friendship or do I reach out and when I see her next say: "hey, Did i do something to offend you? I miss you and value our friendship and just wonder wanted to put this out there." I guess I want the best chance of rescuing things if that is a possibility. Maybe it's not good to lead with "did I offend you?" Maybe I just say "I really miss you."

Thoughts? Thank you so much.