Breaking up is hard to do
Posted by Magdelyn on August 10th, 2009. Filed under: Help!, complaints.We’ve all been there. In that awkward phase where you know it’s not working anymore, but you don’t quite know how to end it. Here’s my dilemma:
Don’t fret everyone, Chris & I are fine. The kind of breakup I’m referring to is the friendship kind.
I have ended friendships before, but they were usually over some blowout or geographic intervention where things just drifted apart. As I get older, I’m less likely to be confrontational and just let things go. Part of me just wants to slide off the radar and never look back, but that doesn’t seem right. She has done things that have shown me she has no real interest in a friendship, and I don’t think I can let things go unsaid.
things have been building up for a while, but some examples of why I need to end this friendship:
- the classic “I have a boyfriend and I don’t need friends anymore” syndrome. I thought we all grew up & left that behind in high school.
- not bothering to tell me she couldn’t take care of my cats until the day before I went to go on vacation when I asked her when she wanted to do the key exchange. After she had already agreed. Claimed to have “mentioned it to my fiancé” but definitely didn’t.
- constantly flaking on girl evening with another mutual friend. We eventually stopped inviting her altogether.
- RSVP’ing for a party, then telling me the day before she probably wouldn’t make it because she didn’t get out of work until 8 (party was scheduled to “end” at 9 but didn’t). This wouldn’t have bothered me so much except for the fact that another friend who had called off work from being sick still made an effort to come out for an hour.
And the top reason I simply can’t ignore:
- knowing she had a depraved relationship with my fiancé and neither he nor she ever felt the reason to tell me. omitting the truth is very close to lying in my eyes.
I would have liked this split to be amicable, but at this point it’s clear it won’t be. I’m trying very hard not to send out that scathing email that simply says “You’re a dirty whore and a bad friend. Enjoy your solitude when you have no one left but yourself”, so help me out– how should I end this? Should I just walk away, or should I give her the same laundry list I have just shared with all of you?
so I implore you, dear blogtarts, how do I end this friendship?
August 11th, 2009 at 12:37 am
unfacebooking always works. but that’s extreme.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:30 am
I had a very similar thing happen to me with a friend. She was always so busy and calling off on plans we made. So I just stopped making plans with her. It was subtle and didn’t seem to hurt any feelings. Good luck. Sometimes breaking up with friends can be harder than breaking up with boyfriends.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:47 am
The end of a friendship is awful because it’s so awkward. My experience is similar to Melinda- just stop making plans and talking to the person. You’ll both move on and save the argument.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Gah. I am having a similar situation, except this friend is also someone I work with. So, I can’t just tell her off…our classrooms are across the hall from each other. Plus, she’s such a psycho that she’d go out of her way to make my life miserable. I’m at a loss for what to do!
But for you, I think you can just go the distancing route. Stop calling, stop making plans. Eventually, it will just fizzle out.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Ending friendships is always hard but you don’t need that extra stress in your life. There are WAY to many fabulous people in this city to worry about just one.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Hey, Maggie!
I would just recommend slowly losing touch, as it seems this person is not worth your time. Don’t keep in touch—if she tries to contact you, don’t call or e-mail or Facebook or Twitter or text message or Digg or Yelp or MySpace or Flickr back. Eventually, she should get the point. I know I would (and I have).
August 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
i think you just need to let this one fade away. clearly she’s not making any effort so it seems like you shouldn’t have to as well.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I agree with everyone else, just let it fade. And tempting it is to send a nasty e-mail, it won’t solve any problems. It may possibly escalate the situation and just bring on more stress.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Being the bigger person is always difficult, but personally I try to take it. If she doesn’t realize she has an awesome friend in you, then it prob not be worth your time or effort to get into some back and forth with her. I say just do your own thing and if you want to confront her, tell her you want to talk. I dunno. End of friendships are always difficult. Good luck!
August 14th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
“the classic “I have a boyfriend and I don’t need friends anymore” syndrome. I thought we all grew up & left that behind in high school.”
This has happened to me twice now! I need to start making friends who aren’t single, who are already with someone so I know they won’t ditch me whenever someone new is in their life.
Anyhow, I’m currently going through very close to the same thing. She is blowing me off to the point that when my dad passed away 6 weeks ago, and she said she’d take some point to listen to my speech for the funeral (just on the phone, not even coming over) she hung up on me to go hang out with her exboyfriend instead. Harsh, right?
But, I’ve done this before. I did the friend break up three years ago. I tried to talk to them about all the problems, because I just wanted it out there. I needed closure, I guess. I don’t mean to be terribly discouraging, because I know how badly I needed to do it then (and how much I keep thinking about it now) but when I did it, it was terrible. She said nasty things to me and then told all the people in our hometown that I was mean to her. The things she did after I tried to bring things up with her still bother me to this day. It was a terrible, terrible experience.
I’m so sorry you’re losing a friend, I know how terrible it was/is going for me.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
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