r/lostafriend

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Ive had a friendship breakup a few months ago, me and this girl were really close, we shared the same interests, views, personality etc. i really thought she was my soulmate, but then we had a fallout, its complicated but i thought it had ended in a truce, she said she wanted to take a break from social media for bout a month, i agreed thinking id get to see her again, bout a month later i found out she was talking to all her friends and it was only me that she had stopped talking to, it hurt and i may have lashed out a bit, she didnt try to reach out further, i told her i was incredibly upset with and didnt know if i could forgive her, because she had obviously displayed signs she did not like or want to talk to me again, now, a normal person would probably back off and move on after this, but i just missed her too much, i swallowed my pride and tried to reach out multiple times, i told her if i had hurt her in any way i was ready to take full accountability and apologise i just wanted to know what i did that made her avoid me so much, recently i unblocked her and texted her just to get blocked.

I don't want advice on getting her back, because shes made it clear she doesn't wanna associate with me anymore. And i dont want to keep harassing her.

I just can't seem to move on, i miss her everytime our favourite artists release new music, or if i have a rant about the current state of the world, or when i want someone to talk about our culture together.

I have many great friends but no one in my circle to fill the role she played.

I wish things hadnt gone the way it did, i agree in this situation i may have done things i shouldn't have, i agree i was wrong, but i just wanna know what i did to be punished so severely.

I keep hoping this is a temporary fallout, that ill find her again in the future, her and my other friends are still in contact and i get updates every once in a while from them.

And honestly I feel jealous when i see them having a relationship with her that i cant.

I just pray for one of two things

Either she forgives me

Or i finally forget her

​I (36F) have been best friends with "BFF" (36F) for almost 20 years. Over the years, we became as close as sisters. We used to joke about being neighbors in a nursing home one day, and we always planned to be each other’s bridesmaids and godmothers to each other's future kids. ​Four years ago, I moved to Italy. Naturally, distance makes things harder, but I always put in maximum effort to stay connected—texting regularly, calling for birthdays, and making sure she knew how much I cared about her. ​During my visit to my home country last year, I felt a shift. She seemed distant, and it felt like my visit wasn't a big deal to her at all. I felt like I was constantly chasing her just to hang out, and I actually cried over how hurt I was by her coldness. ​Fast forward to the last 8 months: ​She has only reached out to me 4 times. ​Meanwhile, I kept sending regular messages and "good morning" texts, only to get met with minimal effort or silence. ​For her recent birthday, I sent her a thoughtful, lengthy message. Her entire response was just: "Thanks." ​She knew months in advance that I was coming back for another visit. I texted her the exact second I booked my flight, and we mentioned it at least three times after that. Yet, in the weeks leading up to my trip, she never once initiated a plan, asked when I was free, or said she wanted to see me. ​Tired of feeling like a burden, I decided to leave the ball in her court this time. I made a rule for myself: I wasn't going to make the first move or chase her. I planned my entire vacation without her, though I intentionally kept space open in my schedule just in case she reached out. ​She never texted or called the entire time I was there. ​I'm pretty sure she's going to be mad when she realizes I was in the country and didn't reach out to force a meeting. I’m no longer angry or heartbroken—just exhausted, and I feel like I deserve better effort in a 20-year friendship. Still, part of me wonders if I should have just dropped my pride and texted her. ​So, Reddit... AITA for not contacting her during my trip?

I'm 21M and honestly don't know where to start with this, so sorry if this is a mess.

There's this girl, 22F, who has been my best friend since we were about 16. For the sake of the post I'll call her "M."

When we first met, I was honestly kind of an asshole. I wasn't necessarily going around trying to hurt people, but I was cold, sarcastic, constantly making fun of people, and generally didn't care much about anyone. I also wasn't really comfortable with affection at all.

Then M. started doing this weird thing where she'd just randomly hug me.

Like, we'd be walking between classes and she'd just come up behind me and hug me. Or she'd see me in the morning and immediately go "there's my favorite person" and hug me. The first few times I basically stood there like a malfunctioning robot because I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do.

Eventually she told me something along the lines of, "You know you can hug me back, right?"

So I did.

And somehow that completely changed me.

I started becoming affectionate with her too. We'd tell each other "love you" all the time, send stupid memes, sit together during lunch, that sort of thing. But it was always completely platonic. She sees me as a little brother and I've never seriously wanted anything romantic from her.

She's basically my sister.

The problem is that I think I got way more emotionally attached to that relationship than I realized.

She's genuinely the first person I've ever felt completely safe being emotionally vulnerable around. I've never really been a huggy person with anyone else. I've never had another friendship where saying "love you" felt normal.

A couple years ago she started dating her current boyfriend. I actually really like the guy and think they're good together. I was happy for her.

But I did notice I felt jealous.

Not jealous in a "I want to date her" way. More like this horrible little feeling of "things are changing and I'm losing my place in her life." Looking back, I think I was terrified of losing the affection I'd gotten so used to.

Fast forward to recently.

I've been doing pretty badly mentally for the past month or so. Instead of dealing with it properly, I started dumping basically everything on M.

I'd send her these enormous messages at like 1 AM. I'm talking walls of text. I'd tell her about everything I was feeling, what happened that day, why I hated myself, etc.

She rarely responded.

At the time I took that personally and thought she didn't care anymore.

Now that I've actually thought about it, I realize how ridiculous that was. She has her own life, a boyfriend, university/work/whatever, and I was basically handing her a second person's emotional workload every single night.

Eventually I snapped.

I sent her some genuinely awful messages.

I told her she was a terrible friend. I told her my mental health problems were basically her fault. I told her meeting her was one of the biggest regrets of my life.

I don't even know why I said those things.

They're the opposite of how I actually feel about her.

She was probably the person I cared about most in my life, and I managed to weaponize that closeness against her because I was angry and overwhelmed.

She told me she needed space.

She said she still respects me and considers me a friend, but that she doesn't feel comfortable being affectionate with me anymore.

And honestly, I understand.

I've apologized multiple times since then, but she's basically stopped responding to me. If she sees me in person, she keeps her distance.

I know I need to stop contacting her. I know she asked for space. I'm not going to chase her around or have other people contact her for me.

But I'm absolutely devastated.

And this is the part I feel stupid admitting.

I don't just miss her. I miss being loved by her.

I miss the random hugs. I miss her calling me an idiot and then immediately saying she loves me. I miss being able to tell her stupid things about my day. I miss knowing there was one person in the world who I could always go to.

I've basically spent the last few days alternating between feeling guilty and wanting to somehow go back in time and undo everything.

I know I'm not entitled to her forgiveness or affection. I know she doesn't owe me friendship just because we've known each other for years.

But do you think there's any chance of repairing something like this if I genuinely give her space and work on myself?

Or is this one of those situations where I've crossed a line that can't really be uncrossed?

And if I should just leave her alone indefinitely, how do I actually deal with losing the only person I've ever been this emotionally close to?

I don't want to make her responsible for my mental health anymore. That's probably the biggest thing I've realized through all of this.

I just wish I'd realized it before I hurt her.

I know Reddit usually hates posts where someone says "I was mentally unwell so I did something terrible," because mental health isn't an excuse. And I agree. I'm not trying to excuse what I did.

I just genuinely want to know what I should do now.

TL;DR: I've been best friends with a girl for years and she's basically the only person I've ever had a deeply affectionate, completely platonic relationship with. I became extremely emotionally dependent on her, dumped a ton of my problems on her, and eventually lashed out and blamed her for my mental health. She asked for space and doesn't want to be affectionate with me anymore. I've apologized, but she's avoiding me. Is there any realistic way to repair this, or should I accept that the friendship may be over and leave her alone?

Long post: I (28F) had a bestfriend (also 28F) since kindergarten, over 20 years of friendship. We went through all the worst and all the best together during these years. I’ll preface this by saying in high school, we had about a year where we didn’t speak or hangout too much as I dropped out due to some serious family issues and an abusive ex. Then we had a small absence when I was in my early 20’s with another abusive ex (I know. The pattern has been broken now, thankfully).

We spent SO much time together. Traveled, shared families and homes basically, hung out every single day. Texted so often. I was also this close with her younger sister (25F) for the same amount of time.

Come May of 2024, I met a man while on vacation with her in PR, over the next few months we all hung out together, had a great time, partied, etc. She loved him for me. Fast forward to the end of December 2024, I was planning to move out of my dad’s house into my own apartment. When I moved, I was seriously depressed. I moved into an apartment that had a bug infestation, I was dealing with my anxiety ridden dog who I couldn’t leave home alone, starting my last semester of college and juggling a job all at the same time. I told my friends I’d be a bit quiet for a couple weeks as I got my shit together. They offered to help how they could, but I just thanked them and didn’t take them up on it since I didn’t see an area where they could have helped.

New years comes around (2 days after I moved) and I let them know I was going to skip a party at our other friends house because I was just overwhelmed and couldn’t leave the dog home. My boyfriend came over to stay home with me. January 7th, they stopped by my apartment where I cried in their arms because I was just sad. January 9th was my friends birthday, I didn’t go on her birthday trip which I told them well in advance. But said the usual happy birthdays to her, etc and said we should grab dinner soon to celebrate.

After that…radio silence for 3 weeks. On both ends. I didn’t hear from them, and they didn’t hear from me. They were also moving out of their childhood home so I figured everyone was just seriously busy. I didn’t think anything of it.

Come February, my boyfriend offered to take me on a get away trip just to ease my mind and celebrate Valentine’s Day early. We went. A day or two into this trip, I notice one of them deleted me off all social media. The other removed me from a friend group chat. I waited a couple of days, then texted and asked what happened. I got a very vague answer of “I feel like this friendship is always on your terms and I’m kinda just over it” explanation. I defended myself but also apologized as I didn’t realize these feelings were even a thing and felt blindsided. This girl then proceeded to turn the rest of our friend group against me, many of them individually claimed they had no idea what happened but that the two girls didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.

This was two years ago. I still think about them, dream about them, literally yearn to make amends and figure out what happened to cut off 20 years of friendship. I feel like I never got a solid explanation. I did SO much for them, I was there at every beck and call. Drove, provided financial help, fully funded trips, dinners, etc. I feel like as soon as I couldn’t do that anymore, even just for 3 weeks, they discarded me. I’m not sure if they thought it was due to my boyfriend. If the trip I went on was a final straw of some sort, or wtf happened. It’s like I never existed to them. And I wonder if they ever think about our lifelong friendship and miss it.

Sorry this is so long, this is the only place I’ve ever told the entire story to. I’m married now to that same boyfriend, and moved states a couple of months ago. But through all of the life change, I still wish they were there or there could be some sort of amends. Never sure how to approach it or if I even should since they both can be abrasive. Just always sad about it and always thinking about it. I feel wronged, but still feel like I must of somehow did them wrong?

Anyways - if you got this far, thanks for reading. 🩷

EDIT: forgot to add - on the January 9th birthday trip, an ex reached out to me saying one of them scammed him for money, claiming to be me, lost and stranded in FL with no money or phone and needed him to Venmo one of them money on my behalf. Just so strange.

Last year, my best friends partner told me he had been in love with me for over a year. I forced him to tell my best friend, and I told my partner. Obviously this was a shock to everyone but I sort of assumed that this betrayal would mean she would break up with him. Unfortunately that was not the case, over the year me and her have drifted and shes told me that her and her partner are stronger because of what happened, which kind of felt like a slap in the face. He said a bunch of inappropriate things, he lied, and he was a terrible friend to me and my partner and an even worse partner to my best friend. I told my best friend everything that he had said to me, I had screenshots and all the proof of what he said to me and yet somehow he explained it all away which has left me and my best friend in a terrible spot. I feel angry that she has put this man over me, How could anyone forgive someone for such a horrible decision? When he confessed his feelings for me, he said that he had never felt this way about anyone before, how has this not affected my best friend? Im just so angry and upset that I no longer have my person in life, we had been best friends since high school and now we see each other once every couple weeks for an awkward lunch or dinner where we ignore the elephant in the room. Theres moments where we are those 13 year old girls laughing, and then I remember the terrible situation we’re in and it truly breaks my heart. I miss my best friend and Im wondering, would any of you guys able to look past this? What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Pata hai aaj Kya hua.

Pata Haai Aaj Kya Hua

Yeh so after the great crisis event(which was a phase of mine previous year where my life fully fucked up and I lost my social life meaning my friends every fucking one other than 4.... including cousins...

Which was still good becouse they are good friends than this one guy got into relationship....his whole behaviour changed and slowly slowly he became distant and now baat chit band

Then there was a girl which i also have a good crush plus she was good friend, she said she got a bf...today..and her text become slowly slowly distant too....crush ka dukh nhi it was kind of funny...but I know...we can't hangout like before

Finally have only two friends left🥀one is kind of furniture ghar ata aur pata rehta and second one is long distance...🥀 Bc inn dono dosto ke alawa everyone just leave...

Hello… today I'm gonna rant about my ex best friend who I'll call petal, and I want to know if I was an ah for cutting her off…. Okay so it all goes back to when we became friends in 2021  Petal was always quiet and submissive but fun and we were inseparable. Everyone knew that we were best friends. I was mostly quiet but louder with her. I also do admit, I was always a bit "controlling" until around 2024 when I finally woke tf up.
By controlling, I mean always deciding what games we’d play during recess (I was in elementary…) though she never really said what she wanted to  say if i remember correctly. That was until the summer of 2025.

I hadn't talked to Petal much that summer so I decided to text her. She normally responds really quickly (she’s a freaking phone addict) so I thought it was odd after she hadn't responded in two days. I was playing roblox a while after that and I wanted to see if Petal was online so we could play together like always. When I checked my friend list, I didn't see her username. I even searched it up, nothing.

I was frantic (a bit of an overreaction now that I rethink but oh well) so I searched up her username outside of the party chat and I saw it. She had unfriended and blocked me. I told some friends about it and they were also unfriended and blocked. I thought she was mad at me for whatever reason.

This really and I mean really broke me (to the point where I did some things…), as she was my first real friend. I was trying so hard to figure out what I did wrong but nothing… We had orientation for the next school year and I knew she'd be there. I was terrified to see if she didn't want to be my friend anymore and I was constantly looking around for her when she walked in.

Petal comes in and sits down with my friend group, waving and being all friendly like nothing happened…i was honestly shocked. Later I asked about it and she told me that we were stressing her out when I had hardly texted her… she apologizes (I THINK! I don't remember this part well) and invited me and our other friend (lets just call her Bow) who was also worried to hang out.

I was still pretty shocked and shaken but brushed off that feeling. This is where I meet my other friend who we’ll call goldilocks (you’ll see why…) I met Goldilocks during the orientation and we were instantly friends. We had all of the same interests (im not even joking-) and a similar personality. We'd always joke that we were twins.

Within the first few weeks of school, I was admitted to the hospital (actually for no reason…) my vitals were fine, my weight height and everything was fine. And this all happened because I vented to my doctor who just wrote it all freaking down and told everyone. So of course I told her on a call with Bow, because she was my best friend. The first thing she asked me was “did you eat?" while my other friend asked if I was okay. I was shocked because she knew how insecure I was and I think that was the reason I was admitted.

I straight up ended the call and had to survive a week in the hospital. I just got out around the same time as an important event that I did not want to miss. When I got out, all my friends knew and some asked if I was okay, while others said nothing, including Petal. I eventually forgot about it and everything was fine until winter break. I was telling Petal something and she dismissed it as she always does, because she thinks I'm so immature and incompetent.

I was so fed up so I told her of course you dont believe me and it spiraled from there. The argument ended with a message from her saying some horrible things that I won't repeat (one of the things she said was that I thought her autism was a quirky trait. Funny because I have it-). Breaking up over an argument was 10x worse than before.

When we went back to school, I’d thought that she might have gotten over it, but she ignored me. One day in study hall, she wrote an apology and I hugged her and we caught up. Things were going smoothly until April first where she admitted herself to the mental hospital. She didn’t even bother telling me though, as if I hadn't been there for her when her cat and grandmother died, and as if we didn't vent to each other all the time.

I was hurt that she didn't tell me and not to make it about me, but it was a week before my birthday lol, and she never remembers it, though i do hers. That was pretty selfish (on my part) but I didn't really focus on that. And to make it worse, she told Goldilocks everything and me nothing, so I had to do some digging. I sent her a bunch of messages hoping she’d get better, though I know it's not easy since it was a mental illness.

I tried to push the fact that my best friend was in a hospital and spent time with my other friend, and we got closer. During the week of testing (I LOVE TESTING YAY), she tells us she is coming back to school, conveniently on a friday where we have testing all day and like 5 outside breaks. I got super excited and on the day she said she was coming, I waited for her to walk into the school doors.

When she walked in I screamed and jumped on her and hugged her. We both said we missed each other and we went to testing (in the same room too!) At the first recess, she was talking to all our other friends (normally, she was very quiet and liked doing whatever our group was doing, but now she was so talkative and just idk) and talked to me like twice, so I just thought okay. The second recess we (me, petal and goldilocks)  had the option to do an activity. We WERE all therians so ofc we picked the activity where we walked around outside. We had SO much fun and to  me, that was the highlight of the day.

WE EVEN GOT TO CLIMB A TREE. The day soon ended and I was scared that next week, she would be quiet again and to my dismay, I was right for most of the day. But I noticed she was only being loud and talkative with everyone else, but being quiet and serious with me which I felt hurt by because I'm always funny and loud with everyone. During the last month of school, Goldilocks and Petal keep going places without me and saying oh… sorry you cant come (mind you, i introduced them to each other and Goldilocks might not even have had any friends here if it weren't for me tbh…).

One day, we were at study hall and I was sitting with Petal and Goldilocks. I decide to take Goldilocks’s pencil (because my dumb ah adhd brain does not understand boundaries) and she crashes out. Petal asks me things like “why do you do this” “why are you like this” basically asking what is wrong with me because I took Goldilocks’s pencil. I ofc eventually give it back, and they leave the room together and don't come back.

During that study hall, Goldilocks says she liked Petal more than me which I was very hurt by. That weekend I got into an argument with Goldilocks online but I noticed some things that sounded like Petal was saying it. I ask goldilocks if she was with Petal, she says no. I ask again, she says no and I'm not convinced because I've known her for about 7 years.

Goldilocks called me toxic (I swear the only thing I did was take her pencil AND give it back.nthe only excuse she had as to why I was toxic is because i jokingly call her blonde [MIND YOU SHE LAUGHS TOO] when I asked her what I did that was toxic she said you have to figure that out by yourself…).

During the argument, i know petal is there, she keeps saying things like you’re so corny (mind you, the only thing she sends me are these corny ah ai videos that are freaking weird, and videos about gloving and nose pulling…) she also says this is why no one likes you and things like that, which i was taken aback by because petal is usually so kind to everyone, even during arguments.

Petal eventually leaves and I make up with Goldilocks. But Petal’s mom send a message to my mom saying that “she’s worried for my mental health” and that i said i was going to kill myself slowly. I started laughing because I never said anything like that. And if she was so concerned, you should maybe talk to me about it… The rest of the year, Petal keeps bullying me almost, saying things like, you’re so corny you’re always doing too much (im sorry you just don't do anything-), this is why no one likes you and just other things like that.

By then I'm very insecure and decide to cut her off suddenly just like she did to me (bc im just petty like that). But hey, as she says, “It’s okay to stop talking to someone if they are stressing you out.” so BAM KARMA. Looking for advice about what i should do, what I did wrong, and if I was right or wrong to cut her off. I understand that I'm a bit narcissistic and I've been working on changing that.

I also feel bad becuase it feels like she’s gained a lot of confidence (maybe a bit too much…) and I just stopped talking to her because I wasn’t the center of attention (that’s not why I cut her off tho).  If you’ve read up to here, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to hear my story. Also i know that the grammar was pretty bad but oh well… ;-;

she genuinely used to be the sweetest person and looking back on old photos stories and texts, I do really miss hee but it’s really whats best for both of us. Also looking back at our old texts, she was damn right when she called me corny….

I’m looking for outside perspectives on the breakdown of a long-term friendship, because several months later I’m still struggling to understand how we ended up here, how much responsibility I should take for it and if it's even advisable to repatch things up later on.

My friend and I had been close for years, I met her during high school, then we lost contact during higher education (no conflict was at blame here, it just happened) for several years and reconnected 7 years ago. We became rapidly very close, texting or calling almost daily despite living in different cities and then countries when I moved abroad (still living abroad now). Last year, she became pregnant very quickly after starting to try (second cycle). I was genuinely happy for her, but pregnancy is a complicated subject for me. I have one living child, but before we got him, I’ve also had a missed miscarriage and shortly after had to terminate for a severe fetal malformation in the second trimester. She is historically a very anxious person (and characterize herself as such) and we mostly shared our troubles, giving support to each others. She was very supportive during my MMC but decided to distance herself during my TFMR and medical complications that followed. I never really got an explanation from this really besides that it was "too much for her at the time and she couldn't handle other things in her life at the same time".

When my friend got her positive test, she was extremely excited and sent me a lot of messages about how quickly it had happened, how unbelievable it was, family fertility, etc. I initially shared her excitement, but after several days I started finding the spamming messages difficult. I was also much more cautious about early pregnancy because of my own experiences. For example, I would naturally say things like “if the pregnancy continues” rather than talk immediately as though there would definitely be a baby nine months later because that's simply not something I can even tell myself. She told me that this kind of language made her anxious and that she needed positivity. I respected that and stopped making those comments. At the same time, I asked her to moderate the repeated bursts of very enthusiastic pregnancy messages with me. I wasn’t asking her not to talk about her pregnancy or not to be happy. I was basically saying that I wasn’t the best audience for completely unrestrained pregnancy excitement given my history, especially if I simultaneously couldn’t respond in my naturally cautious way.

Unfortunately, this upset her much more than I expected.

What makes this confusing in retrospect is that she later described herself as having been extremely anxious during this period. Her partner actually contacted me after this first argument and told me that, with him, she was almost constantly talking about fears that the pregnancy wouldn’t work out, that she wouldn’t make it to the birth, etc. He described what he saw as roughly “95% anxiety and 5% excitement.” I was genuinely surprised, because that was almost the exact opposite of what she was showing me. I told him at the time that she had barely shared those fears with me and that I actually would have been much more comfortable supporting her through anxiety and doubts. Historically, that was something I had often done for her and she had appreciated it. Even early in this pregnancy, she had called me about a medical worry and later told me I had reassured her enormously. Her partner explained that she didn’t know how to talk to me about the pregnancy without hurting me and was afraid of sharing the positive parts. But from my perspective, she seemed to have interpreted my fairly specific boundary (“please moderate the repeated intense excitement with me”) as something much broader (“my pregnancy hurts her”).

Our communication never completely recovered.

Over the following months, she increasingly shared less with me and very filtered, positive view, of how she was doing. I felt irritated because that is not how she usually shared things with me, exactly the opposite of what I asked and just felt "fake". There were other smaller conflicts. One that I regret happened when she described pregnancy-related pelvic pain as a “pregnancy pathology.” Based on what she had told me, I didn’t understand how severe it was and replied that I wasn’t sure I would call it a pathology, although I acknowledged that it sounded very unpleasant. In retrospect this understandably felt dismissive to her. Then she basically stopped messaging after this message for 6 weeks straight. I was annoyed she didn't even bothered telling me it upset her and just ghosted me so I didn't initiated contact either. During that time, she didn’t wish me happy birthday (which was unusual for her), and largely disappeared from social media despite celebrating her own wedding in the middle of it.

About 3 weeks after my birthday, I contacted her partner because I was worried something was wrong. That was when I learned that her situation was much worse than I had realized: she could barely move because of the pelvic pain, was mostly confined at home, her mental health was very poor, and they had had hospital/ER visits. Her partner also told me she was barely talking to anyone, not just me. I immediately messaged her and apologized. I explicitly said that I had underestimated how much she was suffering based on our recent messages and that I was sorry my comment had hurt her. She replied that the previous months had been very difficult and that since becoming pregnant she felt our relationship had changed. She said she had experienced negativity and comparison from me and felt she had to restrict how she experienced her pregnancy around me. She said our conversations about pregnancy and anxiety were doing her more harm than good and that she needed “calm and positivity” and wanted to stay in her bubble until the end of her pregnancy.

I was hurt, but I took this as a clear request for space and did not reply or contact her again.

She gave birth in July. I didn’t receive a birth announcement. I assumed she still needed space. About two months after the birth and 4 since our last text, I decided to reopen the door once. I was also pregnant again by then and past the stages at which my previous losses had occurred, so I was in a much better emotional place. I sent a friendly message telling her I was expecting another boy and asking how she and her family were doing. She initially replied very warmly. She congratulated me, told me about her baby and said the birth had been wonderful, although postpartum had not always been easy and she had withdrawn from social media for her mental health. We exchanged several messages. She explained how terrible the end of pregnancy had actually been and then specifically asked me how I had coped during the beginning of my current pregnancy. I answered honestly that I had been anxious initially, but that life had kept me distracted, all my scans had been reassuring, I had now passed the gestational stages of my previous MMC and TFMR, and I was much more relaxed. Then I immediately asked about her return to work, her baby, sleep and feeding.

Her next message completely changed tone.

She said that there had been a real rupture between us since her pregnancy and that our conversations had caused her enormous anxiety. She cited a phrase she remembered me saying along the lines of “congratulations if it sticks,” which upset me because I never wrote that and even double checked in our text history. We did have conversations about implantation and “sticking,” but this sentence never existed and these conversations happened separately than when we were discussing her first pregnancy tests and when I congratulated her. She also said she had been afraid to tell me certain things, including her opinions about breastfeeding, because she feared I would judge her. This was completely new information to me. I breastfed my own child and enjoyed it, but I have no issue with people choosing not to breastfeed or being unable to do so, and she had never previously told me she feared judgment from me about this.

She then said she had been hurt that I sent no message for her wedding and no messages during the end of her pregnancy, even messages that required no response. This was probably the part I found hardest to understand. Her wedding was during the period when she had already largely stopped talking to me (and was the day after my birthday, which she had not acknowledged). More importantly, her last direct message to me had explicitly said that talking to me was doing her more harm than good, that she needed calm and positivity, and that she wanted to stay in her bubble until the end of pregnancy. I genuinely thought I was respecting her boundary by leaving her alone. She finished by saying she had surrounded herself with family and “kind/supportive people,” had spent months building this protective bubble, did not currently want to reconnect with me, and did not think she could give me the kind of support I might expect from her. The last part also confused me because I had not asked her for support. She had asked me how my pregnancy was going, I answered her question, said I was currently doing much better, and then asked about her and her baby.

I sent one final reply. I acknowledged that some of my comments had hurt her, but I also explained that I didn’t share her interpretation of everything that happened. I clarified the misremembered quote. I explained that I had not contacted her during late pregnancy because I believed she had explicitly asked me not to. I explained why I hadn’t known how to handle the wedding when we were already not speaking for weeks. I also told her that some of her behavior had hurt me too, particularly feeling that my perspective was repeatedly interpreted as judgment or negativity, and the distance she had imposed between us with filtered information on her part. I said that when I contacted her postpartum, I wasn’t expecting anything from her; I was simply reopening a door after several months. I told her that I respected her decision and would stop contacting her. I also said that a relationship involves two people and that I couldn’t accept a version of events in which only her hurt mattered. I had tried to contextualize some of her behavior because I now understood that she had been going through a much harder pregnancy than I realized, and I had hoped she might similarly contextualize some of my reactions in light of my MMC and TFMR rather than assuming they came from judgment, comparison and negativity.

I don’t plan to contact her again unless she reaches out herself.

What I’m struggling with is that I can absolutely identify things I did wrong. I was probably too pragmatic at times when she wanted uncomplicated enthusiasm, and my comment about her pelvic pain was dismissive because I badly underestimated its severity. I apologized for those things. It seems she expected me to be someone I just couldn't be (naive enthusiasm about her pregnancy?). But I also feel that over time I became responsible in her narrative for things I couldn’t reasonably have known or controlled. She didn’t tell me how badly she was doing because of the positive filter she imposed on her texts, then felt unsupported. She explicitly asked for distance, then felt hurt that I gave her distance. She developed fears that I would judge choices she never discussed with me. And some of hurtful things she accuses me of saying that I never said. I’m also confused because when I texted her partner at the beginning of the pregnancy, he told me she was sharing enormous amounts of anxiety with him while showing me almost exclusively excitement, even though historically I had been someone she regularly came to for support when she was anxious. I also find very strong that she accuses me of negativity while I was simply my cautious, pragmatic self and comparison while I never compared to her but yes, my trauma have an influence how I view pregnancy in general and I can't erase that. I would really like to be able to but it's not something I can.

I’m not looking for validation that she is a bad person. She went through what sounds like an extremely difficult pregnancy and possibly a difficult postpartum period (I really wonder if she doesn't have a postpartum depression?), and I believe her when she says some of my words genuinely hurt her. I’m trying to understand whether I’m missing something important about my own behavior, whether her expectations of me were reasonable, and whether there was realistically anything I could have done differently once we got into this cycle.

My partner has said to me multiple times I was better off without her since "she always had problems" because of her anxiety and was asking my support much more often than provided it to me. He is also angry she kind of "dumped" me during her pregnancy because I couldn't be positive, while she was perfectly aware of how traumatic my own experience with pregnancy was, and that it's really not fair to ask this from me in the first place. He thinks she wanted to "win" something against me and that she started unilaterally this comparison and was then upset when her own pregnancy didn't turn up as perfect as she wished... But this is of course a very biased point of view since he is my partner.

From an outside perspective, does this sound like a friendship that broke down because of incompatible emotional needs and poor communication on both sides, or am I minimizing how hurtful my behavior was? Does she minimizes how hurtful her behavior was (and still is) to me as well ?

I know she may not recontact me ever again and never go back on social media (even if she was very active on it so it's unlikely I would say) but I let the ball in her camp now so who knows...