Sometimes ending a friendship is just as hard — if not harder — than ending a romantic relationship. The BuzzFeed Community recently shared the exact moment they decided to say goodbye to a friend and some of the stories are very sad but relatable. Here is what some people shared.
1. "My friend agreed to be one of my bridesmaids and her fiancé was one of my ex-husband's groomsmen. She ghosted me about the one thing I asked my bridesmaids to do — get a (cheap) dress. I had to ask her multiple times about it for months with no response and she didn’t tell me she couldn’t afford it until the deadline to get dresses by."
2. "For me, she'd been rather toxic for quite a few years but I kept making excuses for her, as you do, until finally she did a shit thing that hurt me that I felt like telling her. A minor thing, that I thought I'd say 'Hey, this was shitty and hurt my feelings' and she'd apologize and we'd move on."
"Instead she blew up, attacked me, and threw every insult and accusation under the sun at me. So I told her I wouldn't be spoken to like that and when she was ready to have a grown-up conversation we'd try again. She told me if I didn't let her berate me our friendship was over. I said I didn't cater to threats and ignored her. She left me dozens of hateful emails, voicemails, messages, etc. which I ignored.
A month later she called me asking for a pretty big favor, no mention of her behavior, no apology, nothing, just 'do this for me,' so I politely said no. She tried to contact me a few times after, but I ignored it. It's sad how much happier I am now."
3. "I just got back from a trip to Vegas. Turns out my friend was a messy and mean drunk, ended up having to leave her in the hotel to make the flight home because she refused to get up. She made it home okay but I spent the weekend being bullied for being broke and having to babysit her. I blocked her number and that’s it."
4. "Earlier this year, I was struggling as I grieved the loss of my sibling. It was a vulnerable and difficult time for me. Therefore, I decided to share this with friends who knew about my situation, including my inability to show up in the friendship the way that I did before my sibling's death. Many were compassionate and empathetic."
"However, one friend I've known for a decade responded differently. They mentioned my inability to show up in the friendship making it a one-sided friendship. That part stood out the most to me and I immediately withdrew from them. Months after unpacking other moments in our friendship where I felt unseen and emotionally unsafe, I decided to officially disconnect from them. I can appreciate the great moments we had, and also decide what is best for me, which is closing that chapter of my life."
5. "A little over two years ago a formerly close friend sent me a crazy, angry, out-of-nowhere text message that I think I only looked at twice, and I hate that I have it memorized. We hadn't seen each other in several months at that point, and she said all this stuff about, 'We don't have much in common, I don't want you in my life anymore, do with this information what you will, but this is not up for debate. Do not contact me again.' It's really sad to see someone you used to be close with turn to the dark side like that."
6. "My friend got pregnant by a guy she had a fling with for several months. She kept the baby but didn't want him to have anything to do with her or the baby. She legitimately told me the only reason why was because she was embarrassed by him (he wasn't the best-looking dude but was a really good guy). He repeatedly tried to talk to her and started leaving money in her mailbox."
7. "I dropped my best friend of 31 years after she cruelly ignored me the day of my brother’s funeral and after because she was mad that I (supposedly) didn’t say 'Hi' to her at the service. No joke. When I asked if she got all my texts, days later she replied, 'Yeah.' I told her how much ignoring me for unknown reasons hurt during this time. She didn’t answer again. Months later, she finally replied with many texts about 'How much I hurt HER at MY brother’s FUNERAL by not saying hello to her and that I’ve always been selfish, ignoring HER feelings, always thinking of myself.' She never bothered to ask me what happened. I was trapped in the front with 30 people, while she was stuck in the back of the room. I kept waving her up, I guess she didn’t see. Instead of walking through the crowd to find me or waiting around like a normal person, she just left early out of anger — 31 freaking years of her."
8. "I recently had a situation where blocking someone was the only option. I feel better and worse all at the same time. But having my boundaries is more important than feeling second-best."
9. "I reconnected with a former work friend on Facebook. We had socialized outside of work as well several times. She told me she was looking for work and I offered to refer her to my company where I was in a position of leadership. That, plus her background, would have gotten her the job except she somehow forgot to tell me she now had a criminal record due to her conviction for stealing from her former employer. I was embarrassed because I had just promoted someone unsuitable and she wasted an application. Her omission of this important detail and willingness to set me up for a fall on her behalf was not friendly. Her record reinforced the likelihood that she was generally untrustworthy."
10. "I hesitated to post this because it's still one of the most painful betrayals in my life. I had a friend who was closer than a sister. We were homeless together, often brought half our food home from a date so the other could have a meal."
11. "I was stuck on the side of the road in a very unfamiliar area on a pitch-black night. I called my friend who was a 10-minute drive away for help. She was hanging with her boyfriend and didn't want to drive. My phone was dying and I couldn't afford a cab. So, I started walking."
"It took a while (and dodged several cars that couldn't see me), but I managed to get home. I took a shower to relax and as soon as I got out, I was hit with a barrage of texts about how I was a bad friend for not letting her know I got home. She knew I was scared about the area and she never asked if I was okay. I was over her hypocrisy at this point and cut communication with her soon after."
12. "I ended a friendship recently and it surprised me how much it didn't hurt. Short version, I grew up and she didn't. I was always trying to help her, whether it was trying to get her counseling to deal with her abusive ex (they have a child together so she still has to deal with him) or trying to help her get a full-time job with sick/holiday pay."
"She was always asking me to 'lend' her money to pay her bills but somehow always had money to go to raves and buy drinks and whatever drugs she could get her hands on. I didn't want to go to raves or do drugs anymore and she started distancing herself because of it.
The last straw was when she brought her new boyfriend to my house. He talked down to me the whole time (when he wasn't staring at his phone) then asked her in front of my face if she wanted to go to a rave 'after this.' She looked at me and asked if I minded if they left early. I knew it was done then, like you have no fucking respect for me at all and all you care about is partying. She messaged me 3 weeks after that, I never responded. She sent one more message saying 'I hope life is good.' In the space of the previous six months my grandad died, I had to have surgery and my dad got diagnosed with cancer, all of which you knew about! Just showed me how shallow and selfish she had become."
13. "I considered this friend close like a sister. But at a coffee get-together, she insinuated I might have gone back to a bad personal habit. I had not. Soon after I attended a get-together with my good friend and another person I could include as a friend. These two people spent the time mostly ignoring me or accusing me of past bad habits. I realized the 'close friend' talked behind my back and the other person had an attitude about me. It was so hurtful and unexpected that I haven’t spoken to either one of them in years. I miss my 'sister' but I can’t take the terrible hurt again over any false assumptions. Sad."
14. "I took my friend of 20 years out for a nice brunch. After two glasses of champagne, she proceeds to tell me that she resents me for the way my life has turned out. I was completely caught off guard. After. After a couple of years of little contact, she messaged me about why don’t we see each other anymore. I responded with the above and she denied it. That was 2017 and I will never forget it. She obviously did."
15. "I had been very close to a friend for about a decade. We created a friendship very quickly and became close. She was always there for me. I like to think I was there for her too but things got a little strange and I was shocked. I am very extroverted and social. She is not and has some social anxiety. I got a very long text from her one day after she saw that I had gone to dinner with two of our coworkers the previous night on Facebook. She was furious asking me how I could be so insensitive to post being out without her. I couldn’t believe it was such a big deal but felt terrible. I talked to her in person the next day and she acted like it wasn’t a big deal but this was a 4-5 paragraph confrontational text. I decided to just apologize and move on. Later that day she texted me scolding me for confronting her in public (the break room at work). I had never experienced something like this."
16. "I had this friend who I’d known for several years. I started distancing myself from her because she was a stay-at-home mom who complained that she and her husband were struggling financially (her husband made a high-six-figure salary but she couldn’t manage money, which she and her husband fought over constantly. Such as the fact that she insisted on having a brand-new Lexus yearly). She was also flaky and would cancel plans last minute. We fell out of touch a few years ago but then reconnected during Covid. She seemed different, but soon the annoying, whiny part of herself came to light."
"Long story short, she confided in me that she was cheating on her husband with an ex-boyfriend and expected me not only to tolerate the fact but also condone it. My husband’s dad cheated on his mom when my husband and his sister were kids, and I couldn’t be friends with someone who had no regard for her marriage. I just stopped talking to her after that. It’s been a year and I don’t miss her at all."