"She Still Insists That She Didn't Do Anything Wrong": People Are Sharing The Wild And Brutal Reasons Their Friendships Ended
A few months ago, I wrote about why some friendships end. So many people shared personal stories in the comments that I decided to do a post on those. Here are 17 more stories about why people had to sever ties with their friends.
These entries have been edited for length and clarity.
1."I got tired of always being the one to initiate conversations so, one day, I decided to let him make the first move. I haven’t heard from him in over a year."
2."A high school friend of mine left her cats with a mutual friend and ghosted her when it became clear that one of them had a medical issue that needed treatment. They eventually became the mutual friend's cats, and they lived full lives, but it was totally unexpected and out of character for the person who had abandoned them. She's tried to reconnect with me since then, but I'm just not interested. She still insists that she didn't do anything wrong."
3."After years of selfish behavior, I have recently decided to step away from a friendship, and I am so happy I did. She canceled on me multiple times over the course of two years, citing various excuses that were always some sort of life-changing emergency. The last time, she sent me three paragraphs about how she was soooo sick, she needed to cancel bc she had a heat stroke. I found out that she was just hungover again. She would post 100 stories of her night out and would assume I wouldn't find out bc I'm not on Instagram."
4."I had to redraw some boundaries around which jokes I find funny, what political opinions I may disagree with, versus ones that are dangerous, weird, and invasive questions regarding my sexual orientation. Plus, there was so. much. trauma dumping while my own mental health wasn't good. It took me three years, thousands of dollars and crossing state lines, but I found some peace. It's a day-by-day thing, but I'm glad I made space for the people who genuinely like me when I'm being me!"
5."I cut off a long-time close friend because, basically, it got to the point that his words meant nothing to me. He would repeatedly ask me to go to a sporting event but wouldn’t follow through and I would be left hanging. It finally dawned on me that I was just his backup plan in case someone he would rather go to a game with couldn’t make it. After the last time he did it, I started the gradual process of backing away from our long and close friendship, and as I am typing this, we have not had any contact for a little over a year. I am hoping it stays that way."
6."I stopped being friends with this girl when I found out the items she gave me and my family were stolen. She gave me a MacBook, my brother an Apple Watch, my mom a coach purse. Plus way more. All from her dad’s credit card that she stole when he wasn’t looking (he was sick and she was his caregiver). She lied and said her brother got it for free because he works at Google. One day, the cops come banging on my mom’s door requesting to confiscate all of the items for evidence. We were pissed. And then found out later her damn parents dropped the charges 🙄"
7."UK resident here....I'm a parent and had made friends with others at the school since I was new to the area. One of them was really good to me at first but then started doing weird stuff like unfriending me on FB cause I didn't 'pity' her story. She also said she would come to my brother's funeral to support me but never turned up and never mentioned why."
"She used me for a while to take her kids to their school since she doesn't drive, and I do. I blocked her on FB in April, and despite still seeing her at school, she hasn't asked for anything from me. She also hasn't contacted me this holiday (the UK is still off til Sept). I know I'll see her then, but I can be friendly rather than friends, and it will be bliss."
8."All my friends had a fancy dinner party on my birthday and didn't invite me and one of my other friends. I spent my 21st birthday consoling my friend about not being invited. I never got an apology, but she did."
9."We went to see Pink live — a dream of mine — a couple of years ago. She waited till we got there to tell me she had no money for the hotel, food, or anything, and she still owed me money for her ticket. She knew if she told me before the 8-hour coach trip, I would have given her ticket to someone else."
10."On more than one occasion, she was over an hour late and never said anything about her ETA or why she was late. She just expected me to sit there at dinner and wait for her. She never apologized or anything. When I called her out on it, she would say, 'Oh well, l did say I would be late.' Telling me after you're already 35 minutes late that you're looking for parking and then not showing up for another 25 minutes is just lying to my face."
"The last time she did it, I would have just left, but coincidentally, I ran into another friend I know and didn't feel like calling her out in front of someone I hadn't seen in years. Since then, I decided I would only meet up with her for something that's a timed event like a movie (coincidentally, she seems to be able to be on time for these things) and not the dinner beforehand. Or I'll invite her out with someone else, so it doesn't have to be a one-on-one."
11."I cut off my aunt because she thinks BLM is a racist organization. I'm half Black, as are my siblings and cousins. She countered the argument by saying that she always defended us to her friends for being black. BITCH??!! Who are you associating with???"
12."She got a divorce and became a completely different person…lying, stealing, trauma-dumping like crazy. I tried helping her and gave her solid advice, but she would ignore me and any other reasonable person out there. I think the divorce is final now. The last time we spoke, she came to my house and did nothing but talk shit about my mom who had been graciously letting her stay at her house while the divorce was going on… honestly really relieved she’s no longer part of my life anymore."
13."I became her therapist and not her friend. She never asked how I was, and when I tried to gently put some boundaries in place because my mental health was awful at the time, she just went off at me. I spent about three months in the most peace before she reached back out. Then she went and turned her nose up at things I was sharing before making snotty comments. I left that meeting and never bothered again."
14."A few weeks after my boyfriend died unexpectedly, we met for lunch. She was upset that she found out about his death on social media. I spent lunch justifying the worst day of my life. We are still friendly, but no longer friends."
15."Not as bad as any of these, but I had a friend I'd known for 10-15 years. We were best friends through middle school, high school, college, and beyond. After college, I started realizing I was always the one calling to hang out. I decided to stop calling and see what happens. It's been 10 years, and I never heard from him since. Not too broken up about it."
16."I had a friend who was friends with me since 7th grade. I had a lot of stuff happen to me in my life, and she and her mom were never really supportive. Her mom once loaned me quite a bit of money when I told her that I was having a bad time of things. I had told her at the time that I didn't know when or if I could pay back the money. Long story short, after years of harassing me for the money, my friend's mom cut me off. Then my so-called friend, her mom, AND my friend's husband cyberbullied me and called me horrible names and said horrible things to me."
"I retaliated by saying things back. But it was three against one, and I got to the point where I had to block them all. This happened just before Christmas of 2004. Merry Christmas to me!!!"
17.And finally, "I've had major health problems for the last couple of years, and my husband died five years ago. I had someone who I had considered one of my best friends tell me that I needed to get over his death and stop being sick because she didn't need the negativity in her life."
"I stupidly let her back into my life after that, and went to her birthday party. A friend of hers asked me how we'd met. I told them, in one word, that it was in a psych hospital. I then chatted to them about my mental illnesses. Ex-friend cracked it with me the next day because her son wasn't aware of her diagnosis, and she claimed that my talking about my problems was the reason someone else left early. I didn't know what she'd told her son about how we'd met, or that she hadn't told him about her diagnosis."
What do you all make of these situations? Have you ever personally had to cut off one of your friends? Let's talk in the comments.