Dear Roe,
How do I deal with an ex-friend? I have experience in dealing with romantic exes, where I cut contact to heal. Generally mutual friends will also be aware of a break-up so they know you no longer talk to the ex, won’t ask intrusive questions and so on. But for a friendship break-up, there’s no rule book, and the end is often less clear-cut. In short, a close childhood friend gradually ghosted me. It hurt like hell, especially as I was going through a period of what I now see was depression and anxiety linked to deep, hidden family grief. The ghosting was also confusing and awkward with mutual friends. Some time ago she reached out to explain and apologise. I can see that I overburdened her. I didn’t have the support I now know I need. I am separately working on my codependency and apologised for the part I played in the unhealthy relationship. She said she would like to build a friendship again, and I agreed, with hope and some caution. We met alone and a few times in groups and I found it hard but manageable. More recently she had exciting news around engagement, pregnancy and so on. I’m happy for her but I’m at a different life stage and know it might be hard to rebuild now. Still, I reached out to check in on her. I wasn’t expecting to be ghosted again! It makes the former apology/reconnection feel very hollow. I wish her well but I am through with the friendship, at least for now. I deserve to focus on my many friendships where I feel valued. Right now I don’t really want to have any contact with her. Is this allowed? How do I communicate with her/mutual friends, if asked, in a way that’s respectful of her but also feels respectful of me? For example, I dread both being asked and not being asked to her wedding.
I wish you’d explain what “ghosting” means in this second context, because in a friendship – particularly one where you aren’t firmly established as regular presences in each other’s lives – the boundaries are blurry. Did she not respond to a message? Several? A message after several ignored messages expressing concern or frustration that she hasn’t responded? The reason this matters is that she could indeed be giving you a brush-off and not responding to multiple messages and ignoring you in a prolonged, pointed way – or she might be busy with big life developments and not have responded to a single message from a very recently reconnected friend, and instead of seeing that objectively, you’re now reading a huge amount into it because of your past experiences of her.
[ I ghosted a friend nearly two decades ago – should I reach out and apologise?Opens in new window ]
It’s not that not hearing from a friend who recently expressed a desire to reconnect can’t feel hurtful or exasperating, of course it can. But there’s a sense that even while you admit treating her with caution and not fully relaxing with her, you’re still holding her to an oversized expectation of contact and commitment. When you reconnected, you were creating a new friendship based on where you both were in your lives now, both with other friendships and relationships – but also with the awareness of what had come before, in that you both understood that for your friendship to work, it needed some mutual understanding and boundaries. She didn’t want the responsibility of being centred so acutely or being “overburdened”, and you understood that her emotional capacity and ability to expressly articulate boundaries was lacking and she can flake. Basically, you were establishing a more casual friendship than you had attempted before, one with less emotional responsibility.
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However, you don’t seem to have carried those lessons through to your current understanding of her. You’ve hung out a few times, get on fine in group situations – but now that she’s distracted while having some pretty huge life changes happening, you’re taking it very personally and seeing it as a direct insult to you, rather than her being, well, a bit flaky and closer to other people. I wonder if you aren’t again holding her to a standard she didn’t sign up for in terms of frequency and intimacy of contact. Depending on people who cannot give you what you want – and, importantly, never said they could – is setting you both up to fail. You’ll end up feeling hurt and disappointed, and they’ll feel obliged and like they failed a test they didn’t sign up for. Unspoken expectations are recipes for future resentments.
Again, you’re not wrong for feeling frustrated or for wanting to focus on friendships where there’s more consistency. That makes sense. But there’s a difference between recognising that there are different kinds of friends and different levels of friendship and accepting those limitations, and taking people’s lack of availability during big life events and more casual level of friendship personally. There is a difference between people being malignant and simply being busy, and I worry about your jump to conflate the two.
You have two choices now. One is that you mentally note that this person is a casual friend and should be treated as such – enjoyed in group settings, occasionally met up with but not relied upon or centred in your emotional world. The other is cutting her out to the point where mutual friends have to be alerted and all contact between you is forbidden. The latter choice is allowed, of course – you can avoid events where she’ll be and send polite regrets about her wedding if you’re invited. I am in favour of cutting people off if they have actively harmed or disrespected you. However, in reality, ignoring someone or cutting them off – particularly when you have a lot of people in common – takes work and energy. You need to weigh up if that energy is serving or hurting you. So the real question isn’t if cutting her off is “allowed” but rather which decision is going to take up more energy in your life and feel more upsetting?
I suspect that cutting her off is going to take up a huge amount of head space, be more upsetting in the long run, and ironically keep her very centred in your life as you have to check in about her presence at social events, put limitations on your mutual friendships and spend a huge amount of energy stewing about her and trying to avoid her.
On the other hand, not taking her actions personally, mentally noting that she’s not someone you can rely on, deciding to be polite and refusing to let her affect your other friendships and ability to attend social events will feel like it will be far more freeing.
Not everyone will be everything for you. Not all friends will be bosom buddies; some people will be casual friends or polite acquaintances or people you only see in group settings. That’s okay. Do follow your instinct to focus on friendships where you feel more valued – but you don’t have to close yourself down to other connections. You can expand your social circle, knowing that some people can only fulfil particular or casual roles. But don’t hold people to unspoken expectations and then punish both of you when they don’t live up to them. Don’t shrink your life and spend a lot of time and energy being angry at someone who’s just a bit flaky and not central to your life any more. That doesn’t mean dismissing your hurt – it’s valid – but it does mean you don’t have to keep handing her the power to wound you.
