How to handle being ditched as a long term friend - when do you ask why?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by this quote in this thread:

Yep, I’ve been there too and agree that the silent treatment is much worse than even the most hurtful explanation. And when I’ve found myself in situations where I’m getting the silent treatment, it raises a conundrum: when should I say something about it? There are three options as I see it; here they are and the arguments for each one.

Sooner-the-better option: From my perspective, it gets everything over with, one way or the other. If it is possible to do so, I can get right to work with repairing any damage and start making nice. And if the relationship isn’t salvageable, it’s better to know that up front quickly than to spend several weeks with the growing certainty that you will never speak to (former?) friend again.

From my friend’s presumed perspective, it’s a signal that I do care about the relationship enough and want to take care of my friend’s needs.

Chill for a few weeks option: Perhaps the relationship would benefit from a little bit of space. From my perspective, I have time to think things over myself, and develop a more full and compassionate understanding of what was wrong with what I did (if anything).

Also, my friend may need time to think about, and get over, whatever might have happened. If I push the issue too soon, friend could get madder and say a few things that he or she will regret later, but cannot take back.

Never say anything option: The problem with the first two options is that making a good decision requires understanding what my friend is really thinking and feeling right now, and the thing that’s maddening about the silent treatment is that I can’t know those things.

The better choice is to respect my friend’s wishes to not speak to me, and if my friend’s wishes are not to let me know where I stand, I have to respect that wish too. The day that my friend is ready to talk to me again - if it ever comes - is my friend’s decision, not mine.

So… do I overthink things a bit sometimes? :dubious:

FWIW, I am not in a situation like that right now. But I’m familiar enough with life to know that I someday will be again, and for that time I would find your insights very helpful.

2

Well, having once received a 7-page single spaced letter itemizing my faults as a friend and a human being*, I do not agree.

*from a college friend who tried to sleep with my boyfriend! This proved I was a bad friend! True story!

3

I would much rather know what I did wrong rather than being left to guess.

The spouse and I had this happen to us a few years ago with an online friend we’d met through Usenet newsgroup. We felt comfortable enough with him and his wife to accept an invitation to stay at their home in England when we were over there on vacation, and it seemed like we had a great time. Shortly after that, though, he was posting nasty things about the spouse in the newsgroup and generally being an utter asshole. We never found out why. A mutual friend apparently knew and said there was a reason, but she wouldn’t tell us what it was because it was told to her in confidence. To this day we have no idea, and since the mutual friend has since passed away, we probably never will. It still bothers me sometimes.

4

As I mentioned in the thread before, not knowing is misery. I forced him to admit he didn’t want to hang out with me anymore because he was too cowardly to even come out and say it. I outright asked him why and he refused to tell me. It was only six years later when I e-mailed him stating something casual along the lines of ‘‘no hard feelings’’ that he told me – and that was only after a mutual friend of ours called him and told him it was shitty not to give me an explanation. And his explanation was bullshit too. It still doesn’t make any sense. Not knowing is the grief of death without the validation that it’s okay to grieve. You don’t even know what you’re grieving. It’s terrible. The loss gets easier with time, but 8-9 years later, I still grieve.

As painful as Hello Again’s experience may be, she can look at that letter and think, ‘‘What bullshit. X is obviously not true because of evidence Y. This girl was nuts.’’ Not picking on you HA, I just am trying to say that when you have something concrete to fight against, you can at least put it in some kind of context, learn from the experience, come to conclusions about what happened. I still have no fucking idea what happened, and therefore it’s been very difficult to learn from this experience. This is a guy who still actively hates me to this day. We haven’t spoken in years, but we cross paths occasionally. He won’t even make small talk with me at parties. He refuses to acknowledge that I’m a different person from the 17-year-old I was when I pissed him off. Now at least I can say, ‘‘Wow, that’s some gold standard of immature right there.’’

5

I always went with the ‘right away’ option. Mostly because it’s always caught me off guard and I’m in the “Wait what??” state of mind. What’s worse though for me is constantly fighting the temptation, years down the line, to email the person just with a “hey how ya doing?” sort of thing in the slim hope they’ve ‘forgiven’ me for the mysterious transgression.

6

A very good friend let me go a few years ago without saying why. I said, “I’ll call you sometime when your kids aren’t visiting,” and he said, “Yeah, do that,” in a way that let me know he didn’t want to talk any more.

I don’t know for sure why he decided that but I had some pretty good guesses. For instance, we no longer lived in the same area and I think I was part of his past…he probably figured it would hold him back, given associations to me with old times that he’d rather forget, e.g. his divorce. It seems to me that if you were really good friends, you’ll have some idea why.

I’d take him back as a friend in a hearbeat. I think that I was goddamned lucky to have him as a friend in the first place. We helped each other through some rough times. Being angry because the friendship ended seems like being ungrateful to God/Og/the universe…like I would have preferred to go it alone for the time we were friends? No way.

It isn’t really that different from a romantic breakup, IMO: if the relationship isn’t working for both people, then it isn’t going to work. You may not agree with the reason, or like it, or agree with it, but there it is.

I hope he’s doing well.

7

I went through this almost exactly two years ago. A long term friend just dropped out of my life. I was sad at the time, but I chalked it up to the ebb and flow of friendships and I let it go. Everyone asks about her, but I don’t know what happened.

8

Wow, I didn’t realize this was so common. Having friendships fade with time and geography is to be expected, of course, but when one of my closest friends for six years suddenly and abruptly cut off all contact (with me and all our mutual acquaintances), I had no reference points for such a thing. It happened three and a half years ago, and I’ve talked to him a few times since, but I’ve never gotten an explanation, and it’s clear the friendship is never coming back. I still sometimes feel all torn up over it, and wonder what happened there.

9

I just think it’s the essense of cowardice. No one is going to force you to confront your friend, and to reveal things that maybe don’t reflect so well on you, though you still want to break off with your friend for your own reasons. So instead of giving him a reason to think ill of you, or at least to see that you value things in a different way, or whatever, you avoid your friend completely and leave him wondering what the hell he did to you. Despicable chickenshit. If you want out of a relationship, you can always get out, but it seems to me that you have responsibilities as well–some people just choose to evade them.

10

This has happened to me a handful of times. Friends of five years or more who suddenly kicked me out of their life. Knowing these people as well as I did, after some thought I really didn’t have to ask why.

Nothing horrible; the new girlfriend who Did Not Approve, or they moved 3000 miles and just didn’t think it could still work, or she got married and things are different now, stuff like that. It was kind of a bummer but really no hard feelings. I’d buy beer for any of them if we should meet again.

11

I had a colleague at a job 20-odd years ago, a woman. We were friendly and there was a brief time we were dating but it never caught fire so we just remained friends.

A month or so later I started noticing that she was treating me differently, even to the point of nastiness. We both had a mutual friend so one day I brought up the fact that “Sue” seemed to hate me now. My friend hesitated and said yeah I think she does. I asked if he knew why. I speculated that maybe she wa mad beacuse maybe she had maintained an interest in me and I didn’t feel that way anymore. He laughed and said my theory was so off-base. I pushed him for the reason and he seemed embarrassed.

He said, “Well she thinks your a jerk for stalking her.” I was flabbergasted.
“I never stalked her, what the hell is that all about?”. My friend laughed and said ,
“Come on you know what you did”. I’m totally at a loss at this point.
“What am I supposed to have done?”
“There was that night you parked in front of her house and just stayed in your car and watched her apartment”…

I sit for a minute and all of a sudden I realize what’s being referenced. There was a night (just before the attitude change occurred), when I had spent an evening out getting rather drunk. I let myself sober up somewhat and started driving home (a stupid thing to do). The thought popped into my head to stop at “Sue’s” place to say hello. She had recently moved and the location of her new place was not too familiar. Anyway I find the place and stop the car. I had a moment of lucidity and realized I was still drunk and that I would look like a total asshole if I knocked on her door in that state. So, I sat in my car and listened to the radio for a while (duration a bit uncertain). When my head cleared up more I drove home. I basically forgot the whole incident and chalked it up to stupidity.
Turns out she saw me in my car in front of her place; just sitting there.

Well I explain this to my friend and he pauses. He says “You know Bwana, I believe you, but I don’t think “Sue” will.” I was mad and sad at the same time.

If “Sue” would have asked for an explanation that following work day I would have gladly fessed up. Since I had no idea she had seen me I felt no reason to even mention it.

But by now the relationship had been poisoned.

My friend did attempt to setthe record straight but he called it correctly; she wouldn’t hear any explanation other than that I was stalking.

Of course I then started to dislike her as well.

And all of this over basically a non-event.

People get set in their world-view and will not let facts get in the way.

12

One of the cruel ironies of these situations is that considerate, introspective types (such as Dopers :)) tend to dwell on matters, while self-absorbed, superficial types will not give matters a second thought. If it makes any of you feel better, your long-term suffering is indicative of positive personality traits.

13

Marilyn Vos Savant, in a Sunday Parade magazine question, was once asked what he did when her head wanted one thing and her heart wanted something else. She replied that she went with her head, knowing that the heart would catch up in time.

That approach works for me.

14

Ok, I’m going to weigh in on a number of sides here, after first giving a situational/cultural example;

If you’ve ever read a gaming site, most notably a D&D site, you often see posts about “we hate this one guy, what do we do about it?” Tragically, a lot of the suggestions, which are considered “tried and true” are to lie to the poor bastard that you’re not actually playing anymore, then reconvene the group, minus the ostracized member, at a new place and time. I’ve never been a part of this kind of bullshit. But it’s fairly common. The same goes for friendships. A great many people hate experiencing negative emotions of any kind, and hate being involved in confrontations about how they feel about other people. So they “run away” from them and refuse to deal with them.

Now, that being said;

I’ve ended friendships with bitter, angry, excessively honest letters describing all of the multiple reasons why I’m ending the relationship. Primarily because I don’t do things for a single reason, it’s usually several reasons. One can be dealt with, several gets to be a chore. In a couple of those cases, I sent copies of those letters or e-mails to other, associated parties.

I never got a response from anyone, not even the associated parties. In most cases, the associated parties tended to cut me off in retaliation. They called me all sorts of names for how I was allegedly treating the other party, and in retrospect, since they didn’t feel the same about that party, who can blame them? I didn’t follow the cultural norm of passive-aggresive avoidance and silence. I became the villain by bringing those negative emotions into the open, by involving other parties.

I’ve ended a number of other friendships by merely ceasing to contact people who never seem to reciprocate. I got tired of always being the one to initiate contact, to maintain the friendship. In my dotage, I’ve come to believe that if the other person isn’t making any effort to contact me, there isn’t any real friendship there.

A couple of times, I’ve heard through third parties that the other person has expressed remorse that they don’t hear from me anymore. In both of the ones I can think of off the top of my head, I told the third party that it was a two way street and that I never heard from the other party either, so it wasn’t just me who walked away. That I’d be glad if the other party called me. In neither case did I actually hear back from the fallen friend, so I have to believe that there was no real desire on their part to get back in touch with me.

I’ve had a number of people end friendships with me over the years, for a variety of different reasons. Given the negative person I used to be, I’ve never really blamed them, even if they did hurt. I’ve had a couple of people call me names, say bad things about me and tell me never to contact them again. The last one who did it seemed oblivious to the fact that he was just as guilty of what he was attacking me for as I was. But that had been the pattern throughout our long relationship. He could flip out, be insulting and offensive toward ME, but these were always little things I should let go. While on my end, it was my attitude toward certain others that he couldn’t let go. We as Humans tend to do that sort of thing a lot - “When I do it, you should forgive me. When you do it, I won’t.”

Would it have helped me if they’d have made a laundry list of my faults? No.

I had a lot of people walk away from me in total silence when I separated from my ex-wife. That hurt a great deal. I heard through one third party how a couple had, after telling me that it wouldn’t change our relationship, almost immediately decide that they didn’t want to hang around with me anymore because I was too emotionally unstable (in the middle of a divorce filled with false charges and lies :rolleyes:). That hurt most of all.

Would it have helped to have a list of reasons why? No. I heard some of them and they made no real sense to me, or they were highly partisan, or they were excuses for avoiding dealing with my negative experiences of the time. To this day, some of it still hurts me bitterly. But would I take those people back into my life? No fucking way. In those moments, they showed the true content of their character. They showed that they were not true friends, that they didn’t truly care about me.

15

Thing is, Chimera, some of it comes down to “I thought i was more important to you than I actually was.’” I remind myself to think of that as a blessing.

16

A very good friend dropped out of my live about five years ago. (We are both straight women). She was more then a friend; I met her when she was 15 and I was 26, and came to feel about her like a younger sister with hints of a daughter, and that was at a time when she very much needed someone in that role.

The weird thing is, two months ago she called again and wanted to hang out. The meeting went okay, allthough I’m still very cautious. I asked her why she never told me what bothered her. She said that whatever it was, and she wasn’t really sure herself, it just had stopped mattering and vanished.:confused::dubious:

I still don’t know what to think about the whole thing.

17

Well, I suppose I’ll weigh in on the side of the dumper first - I’ve ended friendships by just not contacting people anymore, or returning their calls. I refuse to write up a laundry list of reason why I won’t speak to these people to present them, because I know how the list would look:

Person A: You’re an unstable, emotionally manipulative, trainwreck of a human being. You sleep with married men and expect me to support it, you cheat on your own partners and expect me to condone it, you generally act like a horrible, manipulative bitch. I think you have borderline personality disorder. I don’t know how you managed to glom onto me in the first place, but now that I’m free of you, I’m sure as hell not answering your calls.

or

Person B: You’re an obnoxious, racist, alcoholic, psycho. You drink etirely too much and then become abusive to anyone in the area, including me. You don’t think non-white people should be surprised or cocerned if they wind up in GitMo. Both you and your husband are trouble with a large T.

Now, are either of those descriptions constructive? No. However, they are the truth. FWIW, I have been the dumpee in two situations before - the first is when a member of our ‘group’ started seeing a new guy (who she wound up married to), she cut off contact with ALL members of our group. She had a reputation for being wild, living hard, drinking too much, sleeping with strangers, etc, and didn’t want new guy to know about it, so she basically extracted herself completely from the people who were witness, and knew all the stories. She contacted me (and others) about a year later, once the relationship with new guy was failry solid, and said we were now welcome back in her life. I told her I was too busy.

The second person just cut off contact. I didn’t know why. I never got an explantion. However, when I examined my own behaviour in our relationship, I found things that I had done that I could have done better. I used it as an opportunity to be reflective on myself and improve. That person has also made attempts to contact me in the years since but again, I’m too busy.

Really, if someone doesn’t want to hang out with you it’s either something going on with them, or something going on with you. I use it as an opportunity to think about both, make improvements in myself where I can, and move on.

Seriously - they’re just not that into you - no point in dwelling on it, or getting what will surely be a hurtful laundry list of your faults.