People Divulge The Real Reason They Drifted Apart From Their Ex-Best Friend
Reddit user Macburgh asked: 'What pushed you away from your ex-best friend?'
The concept of a life-long friend or "Best Friends Forever" is beautiful, but few of us realize just how difficult it is to make a friendship last that long.
As people grow and change over time, often their friendship doesn't have the flexibility it needs to endure those changes.
And like the many complexities of a friendship, there are many reasons why the friendship may eventually fail.
Redditor Macburgh asked:
"What pushed you away from your ex-best friend?"
The Transactional Friendship
"When I realized that the only time she ever got in touch with me was because she wanted something from me."
- Tinlizzie2
"I did this too. I 100% thought of him as my best friend, but then, when I was going through some s**t (for months), he couldn't be bothered to return my calls."
"It made me realize the relationship had always been all about him. So I dropped him."
"And f**k me, because I still grieve the loss of my best friend."
- So-I-Had-This-Idea
An Outside Perspective
"I got a new friend and hung out together with them a few times."
"Then my new friend mentioned how my old friend treated me like absolute s**t and I didn't seem to notice."
"As soon as my new friend mentioned it, that's all I could see."
- dankest-dookie
The Absolute Energy Suck
"When I realized that they just brought negative energy and drama with them everywhere."
"Something or someone always had to be wrong and they desperately needed to be the center of everyone’s attention."
"It just became grating and I found myself less happy around them. So I had to remove myself from the friendship."
- tmw1102
The Enabling Parent
"My ex-best friend and I were both about 33 at the time."
"I met her daughter (12) for the very first time, and she was a complete b***h to me the entire lunch, saying things like, 'Wow, you’re really ugly,' and 'That’s so stupid,' after I would say something."
"Also, 'Your hair looks like a witch,' 'Your clothes are gross,' etc."
"And she said everything loud enough that other tables kept looking over."
"My ex-best friend never once scolded her or even told her to stop. Instead, she’d sheepishly laugh and say, 'She’s just a little headstrong,' and 'Don’t pay attention, she’s always difficult with new people,' and 'She doesn’t really mean it.'"
"I did make a couple of attempts to make her stop, but I wasn’t about to scold a child I didn’t really know, in front of her actual parent. I’d say things like, 'Geez, what a cruel thing to say,' or 'It’s odd that you’re being so mean for no reason,' but my ex-friend ever even added anything to that."
"A couple of years later, I was organizing a formal, black-tie party, and I sent her an invite with a plus-one invitation."
"She asked if she could bring her daughter since it was her custody weekend to have her, and I. SAID. NO."
"The event was child-free, at an upscale wine bar that was reserved for the private party."
"My ex-best friend begged and pleaded with me to make an exception, she was older now, blah blah."
"I held firm and said this was an important event to me, I would have professional peers from my industry there, and based on a) her daughter’s behavior two years prior and b) her lack of discipline, I didn’t feel confident that nothing similar would happen."
"I could just picture her insulting my dress, the food, the music, the location… and as this was an unofficial marketing event, I could NOT allow that."
"She exploded. She said I was a pretentious b***h, and that I was choosing being fake over being her friend. There were some other choice words."
"It was kind of the first time she’d ever spoken to me like that in our entire friendship. And of course, her daughter was just joking, she really did like me. Yeah right."
"She immediately blocked me on everything. This was in 2016. We haven’t spoken since."
- mnbvcxz1052
The Third Wheel
"We were best friends for about ten years. I finally distanced myself because I couldn’t handle her relationship. It was very unhealthy, in my opinion."
"She literally couldn’t do anything alone; if she showered, he showered. She went to work, and he went and hung out there for her shift. This was true of EVERYTHING."
"It got to the point of me telling her that he wasn’t invited so he would stop showing up with her to our hangouts."
"And at that point, she would either refuse to come, cancel at the last minute, or she would come and rush through whatever we had planned so she could meet him outside, where he would loiter, waiting for her to finish hanging out with me. Or she would come, and he would 'show up' about ten minutes later and act like it’s a coincidence that we’re at the same place and then join us. Very annoying."
"He also never had a job. And it was not that he was unemployed and looking, but he was unemployed and planning to stay unemployed and let my friend work for their household money. When we managed to get some time alone, she constantly complained about their lack of money and how she wanted him to work and stop smothering her."
"I encouraged her to either talk to him and work it out or dump him. She promised to talk to him but never did. And dumping him was not an option according to her because she couldn’t be alone."
"I just couldn’t watch her disrespect herself anymore when the solution was so simple."
"We still have mutual friends so I know they are still together, about 13 years now. They have two kids. He still doesn’t work but he’s not a SAHD either. From what I’ve been told, now that she’s not in retail anymore and he can’t loiter inside, so he sits in their car outside her office every day."
"And from what I’ve heard, that togetherness extends to parenting. If the kids are sick or have a dentist appointment or something, the boyfriend doesn’t take them. Ex-BFF takes time off work so they can do it together."
- Steffie25
Complaints Only
"She only wanted to talk to me about her relationship problems with her crazy boyfriend. My advice to her fell on deaf ears and I couldn’t handle hearing about how poorly he treated her over and over."
- mrsyandy
A New Perspective
"I got therapy."
- Protomorfid
"It’s super, super common that as you heal you find yourself moving on from relationships that no longer serve you because they were premised in your previous unhealthy behavior and belief systems. I’m experiencing this currently."
- 06Gleity06
The Convenient Friend
"She ignored me whenever we had other people around, but when she didn't have anyone else to hang out with, she would text me, and she would get mad and try to make me feel bad if I couldn't hang out with her."
- ParticularTomato5537
The Boundary Crosser
"I realized I’m a people pleaser and started setting boundaries. They apparently didn't like that, and the rest sorted itself out…"
- PJpittie
The Overly-Critical Friend
"My ex-best friend left me when I got engaged to my now husband. We were both raised Mormon and were not getting married in the temple. Big deal in the Mormon church."
"She thought we should 'wait until we were worthy' and that we were only getting married to have sex."
"I walked away from that friendship. My husband and I have been together 11 years now, are no longer Mormon, and, for the record, got married because we love each other."
- imaginarybat567
Partners Before Friends
"He got a girlfriend and doesn't need me anymore. His personality has changed a lot, and I can't recognize him anymore. Also, he started ghosting me."
"I miss my best and only friend."
- WaldiIO
Lack of Reciprocation
"I realized how many times I had to ask her to hang out and make plans and remake them when she canceled last minute before we'd actually hang out."
"And every time we did, she was going through a crisis and needed to cry and vent. I was happy to listen and help."
"But the TWO times in our whole friendship I asked for help, she couldn't make the time or just flat out ignored my texts."
"I realized she'd never once gone out of her way for me for anything. I stopped asking to hang out, and she still hasn't. Guess that's that."
- eatsmyfridge
The Friend with Back-handed Compliments
"My sister and I were friends with her together."
"She was never a great friend to me, she was closer to my sister. They’re the same age (a year younger than me), went to school together, and knew each other longer. She always treated me at the third wheel, but I just wanted to fit in with my gorgeous sister and her gorgeous friend."
"I think at first we both had blinders on to her. She was always giving half compliments or very backhand compliments. She ALWAYS copied everything my sister did or wanted to do. It got to the point where she was constantly putting my sister down, putting her relationship down, making snide comments about how she looked (my sister is a f**king goddess and I am not just saying that), and it seemed like my sister just didn’t notice."
"One particular weekend, my sister and I were in town and staying with her and I had had enough by the second night. My sister noticed my mood change and asked what was up. I asked her if she even realized what this person was doing. She said she hadn’t noticed. But then she thought about it and she realized I was right. I just told my sister she deserves way better than that."
"I distanced myself after that weekend, but she and my sister remained friends for a while longer. They finally had a falling out a couple of years ago where my sister finally stood up for herself and stopped putting up with this girl’s bulls**t."
"I know that we are both better off for it. This person is the most toxic person I’ve ever met in my life."
- schmidt_onyourface
So Quick to Leave
"We had a group of four of us that were really close. The guy that has introduced us all to each other started dating a girl a decade younger than him."
"I knew her from school and warned him she was a pathological liar, but he decided I was the liar and jealous and turned the other two against me. They all stopped talking to me."
"Six months later, sure enough, they realized she was full of s**t and tried making amends with me, but I couldn’t get over how quickly and easily they all turned on me. So I just did my own thing. F**k them."
- blah_shelby
The Inactive Listener
"We're not ex-friends, but I wouldn't consider him the best anymore, even having known him for over 20 years."
"He talks just to talk and will only respond to anything else with 'Yeah' or 'Uh-huh' until he has the chance to talk again. He will hijack conversations entirely, and before I know it, he's talking about himself again."
"Also, he only ever seems to tell stories of our time in high school and college, and only the same four or five over and over."
"At first, I thought it was a social thing, but it happens every time without fail regardless of where we are. It's incredibly frustrating to be talking to a group of people and being interrupted."
- medieval_saucery
There are all kinds of reasons that a friendship might come apart, and these make sense as to why these friendships were not able to lost.
As much as we might love them, sometimes the best thing we can do is to let our best friends go.