Hi all
I (40f) met my best friend J (42f) twenty years ago at university. We hit it off right away and were completely inseparable throughout our 20s. Obviously at some point you grow up and have other responsibilities and we just couldn’t sustain a friendship where we saw each other daily or weekly, but we continued having a tremendous amount of closeness and connection over the years.
Over the entire time I knew her, she had great difficulties in romantic relationships which I put down to some pretty significant trauma growing up. Her parents divorced, her father died, and she lost the attention of her loved ones in a really significant way. She had a pattern of becoming very possessive and jealous, starting arguments that I would say bordered on emotional abuse, and then would very suddenly end all her relationships, usually over really minor slights. During every heartbreak, every meltdown, every time her life spun out, I was there. I encouraged her to go to therapy to work on things. I was at the hospital following every suic!de attempt. Fortunately things did calm somewhat during our 30s and she was able to work through some past trauma and get to a better place.
What shocked me in the past is how easy it was for her to end important friendships. She stopped talking to a high school friend of many years because of a really dumb argument they had. She cut off her college roommate of many years because of an argument about dishes. I could probably list up to ten close friendships she ended over the years, over things that to me (and them) was nothing. She confided in me about these break ups and did become quite self conscious about it – she wondered why she continually pushed people away, but then felt hurt and abandoned by them.
She considered me a stabilising force in her life, and kind of “proof” that she could sustain a long term friendship. I didn’t find our friendship to be one-sided at this point: I think it’s important to show up for your friends, not just during the good times. I saw it as my duty to be there for her during personal crises.
Meanwhile, I had been in the same relationship with a guy since high school, loved my job, had a great family, and was generally very stable and a low conflict, low drama person. But I did believe her that if the time ever did come, she would come through for me. And a few years ago, that time finally came.
I made the very difficult decision to leave my fiancé and partner of over 15 years. After five years of being engaged there was no sign of a wedding or any true commitment to me at all. He started saying he didn’t want kids, and I felt tricked and betrayed. J was amazing during this time. She talked to me for hours whilst I was agonising about leaving, she let me stay with her for a few months after the breakup, when I fell into a depression she took me out drinking with her friends… she was incredible. I survived that period of my life purely because of her and it brought us even closer together.
Over the next few years I changed careers, built a new relationship, bought a house, and started a family. But as a result the social element of my life definitely dropped off, and all of my friends already had kids etc. however, i always made an effort to include J in this phase of my life and wanted her to continue to be part of my family. When I had my baby I did experience some baby blues, and felt very socially isolated, which I expressed to J. She felt similarly: that all her friends were having kids and were too busy for her. So we figured there was an easy fix for this, that we’d make more of an effort with each other during this period in our lives and not drift apart.
As the months went by I saw very little of J. I started feeling like I was always initiating contact, always the onetexting her, always making plans, always available; whereas she became busy and never had time to catch up, and was becoming distant. The only times she reached out to me was when she had problems in her relationships or at work. Again I was happy to help, but i sensed she was no longer putting effort into the friendship. And this was after I let her know that I really needed her, felt lonely and wanted to make sure we didn’t drift apart.
I realised this year that she seemingly forgot my birthday. I didn’t even get a text. And I honestly felt a bit embarrassed to even say this to her. Then she couldn’t make it to my engagement party at the last minute – I was planning to ask her to be my maid of honour. Then the final straw for me was that she went to Japan with some new friends and we had been talking for years about going to Japan together. So I texted her and we got into an argument about Japan: I know it’s unreasonable for me to expect to be invited on this trip, and ultimately that’s not even what I was angry about. I have felt neglected and forgotten about for years. Her response, via text, was that I was crazy for demanding to come to Japan (which I did not do), that this is why I don’t have any friends (also not true, but hurtful given I had expressed to her that I had been feeling isolated since the baby), and that she was exhausted by our friendship and doesn’t want me in her life anymore. She wasn’t even open to talking about it face-to-face, it was just “get out of my life”
I feel completely heartbroken. Part of me wants to call her and repair this because I don’t want to throw away a friendship that has literally lasted half my life, but part of me is incredibly hurt by the treatment I received.
Should I try to patch things up? Or is it time to let go? Am I being unreasonable in asking her to stay in contact with me?
TLDR: long-term friendship feels one-sided which eventually led to an argument and "breakup". Not sure whether to try repair or let go