You have less in commmon than you once did. It’s normal for friendships to change
The question Two years ago, my closest friend of 20 years stopped messaging me. Until then, we’d had almost daily contact. I was worried that something had happened to her. About a week later she replied and said she was “taking a step back from our friendship”. There was no explanation and no invitation to talk about it. It hit me like a bereavement, and I began to go over the last months and years of our interactions in my head, searching for what might have gone wrong. My mother died five years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child. My friend was a rock for me. I did rely on her heavily at that time.
About a year after her message, I contacted her again asking for more clarification, seeking to understand what had led to it and whether she envisaged our friendship continuing in the future. I wanted to understand her perspective and wanted closure if that wasn’t an option. Her response said that I’d leaned on her too much and that it had felt like a one-way street with me not supporting her. It opened my eyes to the fact that grief is selfish and I apologised for not having the self-awareness to see that perspective for myself, but I never received a reply. Another layer to this is that our lives have developed differently. I’m married with two children, while she is single and doesn’t have kids. And I guess my husband and I are more materialistic than she is.
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