Childhood Friend Advice
My childhood best friend and I have been drifting this past year and I’m struggling to figure out if I’m being unfair or if my feelings are valid. We have been best friends from childhood to recent, even roommates for a few years in our 20s, and we are in a close group of friends including our partners as well etc.
For context: I’m an only child, and my dad VERY unexpectedly passed away this year. Around the same time, I was also dealing with postpartum after having my first baby. It was honestly one of the hardest periods of my life and I told my friends multiple times how much I was struggling.
At the same time, she has been going through infertility for the last few years. I genuinely have tried VERY hard to be understanding and give her grace because I cant imagine how painful that must be.
What’s making this difficult is that she has barely shown up for me emotionally through my dad's death. She visited me about a month after my daughter was born and then again about a week or two after my dad passed, so I absolutely give her credit for that. But after that… almost nothing. Hardly any check-ins, no real follow-up after I told her I was struggling, and things have stayed very surface level.
I’ve also gone out of my way to try to make things easier for her given the infertility piece. For example, before a mutual friends baby shower in March, I told her I could either meet early for a bite without my daughter there, or I could bring my daughter if she wanted to see her since it had been months since she saw her last. She chose the option without her, which was totally fine with me!
Part of me keeps trying to excuse everything because I know infertility can make friendships with moms really hard. I’ve read a lot about people needing distance from friends with babies. But I also keep coming back to the fact that my dad died unexpectedly and she’s my oldest friend. She also knew my dad since we were kids, like she went on trips with us growing up and knows very well I’m an only child. I just really thought my dad passing would override the baby thing a bit.
I think what’s bothering me most is not that she avoided baby stuff, it’s that she didn’t really show up for me as a friend after my dad died. At the same time, I feel guilty for being upset because I know she’s going through something huge too, and I probably could have checked in on her more as well and I really haven't.
Am I being unfair here because I didn't check in either? Or is it reasonable to feel hurt that my oldest friend emotionally pulled away during one of the hardest times of my life?