u/Any-Fox8333

So my question is am I holding onto a friendship that emotionally stopped being mutual a long time ago?

This is really long, but please, I genuinely need someone’s outside perspective on this.

I have a friend I’ve known since middle school. We’re both around 30 now. She’s always been more of a homebody and never really the type to initiate contact, but over the years — especially after living in different cities for a while now — it’s become a situation where I’m always the one reaching out first.

We’re part of the same close-knit group of four girls, and she often talks about conversations she had with one friend or another, things they discussed privately, random updates they shared, etc. Meanwhile, if I don’t message her first, we basically don’t talk at all.

During one especially hard period in my life, I was overwhelmed with studies, on sick leave, and honestly struggling a lot. She knew what was going on, but because I didn’t really have the energy to message people first, we barely talked at all during that time. We still saw each other in group settings occasionally, and I think that was enough for her to feel like we were staying connected. But for me, it mostly reinforced this feeling that if I stop putting in effort one-on-one, the friendship kind of disappears.

In the last 5 years, she has sent me one Snapchat memor and one goodbye text when I had to leave friends birthday party early. If I look at our message history, I’ve made every single initiation. She does reply and she’s always friendly, but she has never once started a conversation herself in past years — except for practical things like asking if we could borrow a car from my parents or similar.

Meanwhile I’m the one periodically sending memes, asking how she’s doing, replying to stories, trying to keep the connection alive in some way.

The confusing part is that she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids last year.

And that made me suddenly realize that we actually haven’t spent time one-on-one in 4 years. Last time was when she invited me to visit her in new hometown. The other bridesmaids didn’t seem to have this issue with her.

I’ve also asked her a few times over the years if we could spend time together one-on-one. Not constantly, but enough that I feel like I’ve tried. Usually there’s been some reason why it didn’t happen.

For example, during Christmas she wanted to spend time with family and said we’d already see each other soon on our New Year’s cabin trip anyway. A short walk didn’t fit into the rest day’s schedule, even though we were barely 10 minutes apart over the holidays. Another time I invited her to stay overnight at my place because we were supposed to make decorations for her wedding that weekend. Instead, she decided to go on a summer trip to another city with a different friend the night before. She still came over the next day to do the wedding decorations — the “mandatory part” — but she never invited me to join them the previous evening while I stayed home preparing everything.

I’ve also brought up my feelings of exclusion both with the whole friend group and with her individually. I talked to her directly about how I was feeling like the friendship had become very one-sided. She responded kindly and said she would try more, that she’d be open to having more contact, and that she’s just bad at texting during everyday life. She also emphasized how much she values our friend group.

But despite that, I still feel deeply insecure within the group dynamic.

Up until a few years ago, one of the main ways she bonded with me was by bringing up old memories, drama, and embarrassing stories from when we were younger. When I was younger, I was in a partially abusive relationship, and both she and another friend ended up turning parts of that situation into an inside joke that she would bring up almost every time we met.

Over the years, I’ve really tried to move away from that role and set clearer boundaries. There has never even been a drunk apology from either of them.

But I think because of all this, even small moments have started feeling emotionally huge to me.

For example, there was one moment when we were arriving at my apartment with bags and supplies, and even though she had earlier offered to help carry the heavier things and knew there was only a short staircase up to my place, she still immediately followed our other friend to wait for the elevator instead. Another time, I intentionally took the bus going near her home so we could spend more time together and I could walk her home afterward, but then she noticed another close friend on the bus and immediately rushed to sit next to them instead.

And I know these sound like tiny ridiculous things. But emotionally they start to feel like repeated little rejections that confirm this underlying fear that I matter less to her than she matters to me.

Now she’s about to have a baby, and we talk about future family cabin trips together and things like that, but honestly I’m scared this friendship is just going to quietly die. Because what happens once I’m also busy and tired and stop being the only one remembering to reach out?

I also don’t want to pressure her or place expectations on her to keep in more contact during such an important time in her life. I’ve already mentally prepared myself to be the one carrying most of the communication once the baby arrives, because realistically I know she’ll have even less time and energy than before.

But I still find myself wishing she would randomly send me a message, a meme, or even just tag me in an Instagram post once in a while.

I cry about this regularly, honestly almost every week, and I genuinely can’t tell if I’m holding onto a friendship that emotionally stopped being mutual a long time ago?

Am I holding onto a friendship that emotionally stopped being mutual a long time ago?

This is really long, but please, I genuinely need someone’s outside perspective on this.

I have a friend I’ve known since middle school. We’re both around 30 now. She’s always been more of a homebody and never really the type to initiate contact, but over the years — especially after living in different cities for a while now — it’s become a situation where I’m always the one reaching out first.

We’re part of the same close-knit group of four girls, and she often talks about conversations she had with one friend or another, things they discussed privately, random updates they shared, etc. Meanwhile, if I don’t message her first, we basically don’t talk at all.

During one especially hard period in my life, I was overwhelmed with studies, on sick leave, and honestly struggling a lot. She knew what was going on, but because I didn’t really have the energy to message people first, we barely talked at all during that time. We still saw each other in group settings occasionally, and I think that was enough for her to feel like we were staying connected. But for me, it mostly reinforced this feeling that if I stop putting in effort one-on-one, the friendship kind of disappears.

In the last 5 years, she has sent me one Snapchat memor and one goodbye text when I had to leave friends birthday party early. If I look at our message history, I’ve made every single initiation. She does reply and she’s always friendly, but she has never once started a conversation herself in past years — except for practical things like asking if we could borrow a car from my parents or similar.

Meanwhile I’m the one periodically sending memes, asking how she’s doing, replying to stories, trying to keep the connection alive in some way.

The confusing part is that she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids last year.

And that made me suddenly realize that we actually haven’t spent time one-on-one in 4 years. Last time was when she invited me to visit her in new hometown. The other bridesmaids didn’t seem to have this issue with her.

I’ve also asked her a few times over the years if we could spend time together one-on-one. Not constantly, but enough that I feel like I’ve tried. Usually there’s been some reason why it didn’t happen.

For example, during Christmas she wanted to spend time with family and said we’d already see each other soon on our New Year’s cabin trip anyway. A short walk didn’t fit into the rest day’s schedule, even though we were barely 10 minutes apart over the holidays. Another time I invited her to stay overnight at my place because we were supposed to make decorations for her wedding that weekend. Instead, she decided to go on a summer trip to another city with a different friend the night before. She still came over the next day to do the wedding decorations — the “mandatory part” — but she never invited me to join them the previous evening while I stayed home preparing everything.

I’ve also brought up my feelings of exclusion both with the whole friend group and with her individually. I talked to her directly about how I was feeling like the friendship had become very one-sided. She responded kindly and said she would try more, that she’d be open to having more contact, and that she’s just bad at texting during everyday life. She also emphasized how much she values our friend group.

But despite that, I still feel deeply insecure within the group dynamic.

Up until a few years ago, one of the main ways she bonded with me was by bringing up old memories, drama, and embarrassing stories from when we were younger. When I was younger, I was in a partially abusive relationship, and both she and another friend ended up turning parts of that situation into an inside joke that she would bring up almost every time we met.

Over the years, I’ve really tried to move away from that role and set clearer boundaries. There has never even been a drunk apology from either of them.

But I think because of all this, even small moments have started feeling emotionally huge to me.

For example, there was one moment when we were arriving at my apartment with bags and supplies, and even though she had earlier offered to help carry the heavier things and knew there was only a short staircase up to my place, she still immediately followed our other friend to wait for the elevator instead. Another time, I intentionally took the bus going near her home so we could spend more time together and I could walk her home afterward, but then she noticed another close friend on the bus and immediately rushed to sit next to them instead.

And I know these sound like tiny ridiculous things. But emotionally they start to feel like repeated little rejections that confirm this underlying fear that I matter less to her than she matters to me.

Now she’s about to have a baby, and we talk about future family cabin trips together and things like that, but honestly I’m scared this friendship is just going to quietly die. Because what happens once I’m also busy and tired and stop being the only one remembering to reach out?

I also don’t want to pressure her or place expectations on her to keep in more contact during such an important time in her life. I’ve already mentally prepared myself to be the one carrying most of the communication once the baby arrives, because realistically I know she’ll have even less time and energy than before.

But I still find myself wishing she would randomly send me a message, a meme, or even just tag me in an Instagram post once in a while.

I cry about this regularly, honestly almost every week, and I genuinely can’t tell if I’m holding onto a friendship that emotionally stopped being mutual a long time ago.