People Are Revealing The Details Of Their Most Drastic Friendship Breakups, And It's An Extremely Emotional Rollercoaster Ride
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community, "Have you ever had a friendship breakup? Why did it end?" Here are the emotional stories people shared:
1."She didn’t even call me when my mom died but used it as an excuse to get sympathy. She’d tell people, 'I’m having a bad day because my friend’s mom died.' WTF?!"
2."I had a super clingy friend who did not respect my time or space consistently. The final straw was when she and her boyfriend showed up in the same location where my family was vacationing and essentially crashed our family trip, completely uninvited. I cut off communication after that."
3."She didn't believe I was sexually assaulted. She was my best friend, but the person who assaulted me was a friend of her boyfriend at the time, and she chose him over me. It took a while to cut it off because I kept thinking she would change (I know that's foolish, but that's just the type of person I am), but now we're done."
4."My friendship of nearly 15 years ended after we made plans to meet up in another state (we were long-distance at this point since I had moved) where she was supposed to be participating in an event to promote her small business. This was planned months in advance, and I reconfirmed all the details a few days prior. She called me three hours into my 12-hour drive there to let me know that she was notified THE NIGHT BEFORE that her accommodations for the event fell through, so she decided not to go. Even after I offered for her to stay with me in my hotel room instead (free of cost), she still bailed on the trip. Then she got raging mad at me for being upset that she not only flaked on me at the last minute after I took time off work and paid for travel and accommodations, but she also could have/should have notified me ASAP about the change of plans the night before but instead waited until the next day when I was mid-travel to do so."
5."A friend of several years recently sent another friend and me a 1,600-word' breakup letter' documenting everything we've done wrong to her over the last year, including the exact dates for a lot of it. She then sent it to several mutual friends asking for help 'proofreading' after she'd already sent it to us. She never communicated the things she had issues with in the letter as they were happening. She let it all build up. The kicker? We are late-30s/early-40s women, not high schoolers."
6."She was my best friend of 14 years and my maid of honor. She cut me off completely when I told her my husband and I were divorcing. Her sibling was also going through a painful divorce at the same time, which may have factored into her decision. Perhaps it all overwhelmed her. But that's no excuse for absolutely refusing to even speak to me. I had been there for her time and again. Not a very good friend. I suppose, in hindsight, I dodged a bullet."
7."I found out he had been saying horrible things about me to nearly everyone I know. It was so bad that my other friends wouldn't tell me specifically what he said. I gave him another chance a few months later, and he immediately did it again. He was secretly my biggest hater for almost 10 years of my life. Good riddance. I am doing so much better since we stopped being friends."
8."My best friend of 10 years told me I wasn't mentally healthy enough to move across the country when my spouse got hired at his dream job. I sent a birthday card a year later after no contact. No reply. Six months after that, I found out she had been cheating on her spouse, so I cut her out completely after that. If she'd break her vows, she'd have no problems lying to me. It really hurt to lose the friend I thought I had. It hurt worse to realize she was never really that friend, to begin with. Now, I feel really good about cutting her out of my life."
9."The one that stings the most is my childhood best friend, who is actually now my sister-in-law. We met when we were 10 or 11. We were best friends, and I always imagined we would be family as adults, even though there wasn't really a way for it to happen. Throughout middle school and high school, we had our fights, but we always came back together. She got married just out of high school to her long-time boyfriend and an old neighbor of mine. I was at her wedding and was introduced to her new stepbrother. We hit it off and now have been happily married for 23 years. A couple of years ago, I got a call stating that she had fallen down some stairs, broken some bones, and had brain damage. She was incoherent. I was devastated. Out of concern, I contacted her husband via messenger to see how she was and ask if he needed help with anything (particularly their children, my niece and nephew)."
"He said no, he had it covered, and he would keep in touch with updates. About a week later, the last update I got thanked me for my concern but said if my SIL wanted me to know anything, she would contact me. It wasn't sent just to me but to a whole group of people. That was the last contact I had with her or her family.
I saw her at a funeral last year, and she made it very obvious that she did not want to talk to or even look at me. I have read the messages I sent to her husband repeatedly, trying to figure out what I did that upset her so much that she broke the family apart, but I can't figure it out. She has always been very toxic in how she relates to me. She's said things like I have stolen her boyfriends, and she even tried to break my husband and me up a couple of times, but I always overlooked it because we always had fun. I want to clarify: I never stole any of her boyfriends. She dated five of my boyfriends after I did, but I never dated any of hers after her."
10."I lost my best friend because I got into my dream college and was moving out of state (one state and a three-hour plane ride away). She posted these passive-aggressive Facebook status updates and eventually blocked me. It's still painful."
11."During senior year of college, we lived together with some other girls and became instant best friends. We continued to live together after we moved to a big city post-grad. The only difference was I now had a boyfriend. She started to get weirdly jealous of him. He and I were long-distance, so we only saw each other every other weekend. She lost her mind one night over me spending all my time with my boyfriend. She threw her plate of food everywhere, lay on the ground, flailing around like a toddler, and eventually left screaming. I avoided her after that. Then, the pandemic hit, and we parted ways."
"It's worth noting that she was a highly entitled, Trump-loving, flighty person from the jump. But, in college, it was fine to be like that because we could still party together. Not so much once it got time to settle down a little."
12."Things deteriorated after finishing high school. She was a religious zealot who told me I was going to hell for stating that evolution was a fact. This was not an isolated incident either. We weren't that close, and I haven't heard anything from her in years, so I still don't consider it a loss."
13."I built a great friendship with an older colleague over almost a decade. We hung out together most weekends; she was great fun. Her husband of 25 years asked her for a divorce completely out of the blue, and I supported her through it as much as I could. I stayed with her while she navigated it during the early days, but after a while, she started to become a different person. She'd start ditching me to go clubbing and bring home different guys every time. There's not much wrong with that, really. It's how some people deal with heartbreak (including me), but one of the men was a total sleaze. Whenever he was left alone with any of her female friends, he would try it on with them, and eventually, it was my turn. He groped me, and I told her immediately, but she didn't believe me."
"I started to back off from her then because this guy was clearly wrong, and she was so besotted that she wouldn't see it. He moved into her place after a few months, and she threw him out when she caught him red-handed trying to seduce her daughter. We eventually reconnected over Facebook, and she seemed to be back to being the person I knew all those years ago. She found a lovely man who couldn't do enough for her, and they got married a little while ago. I was very happy for her right up until she started tagging me in nasty, racist memes. My husband is Asian, and the memes she would tag me in targeted people of his particular ethnicity. I didn't say anything to her; I simply blocked and deleted her from every platform. It's been a couple of years now, and I can say I don't miss her one bit."
14."They were my best friend for 25 years, and we had many meaningful moments together. I lived abroad for a couple of years, and she came to visit me. She came out as a lesbian, and her family shunned her. I was there for her. About seven years ago, she started practicing some sort of yoga/religion. After that, she changed. Her new friends and family from the foundation decided that we (her friends from school) weren't good enough for her and limited her potential. She changed from a girl who enjoyed going out and enjoying BBQ to someone who questioned you about money, diet, life, and family choices. Needless to say, when my first child was born, she only came to see him at five months old and tried to sell me a breathing yoga course because I had bad energy. I cried a lot because I lost the best friend I'd had since I was 6 years old."
15."My oldest friend became close friends with my sworn enemy. He and I grew up down the road from each other, but he moved away to another town just before high school. My family visited his family twice a year. We were very close. As luck would have it, we both were in the same class at a military college in the South. We were close for the first two years, even in the same first-year company. But my first year there was rough, and it was made rough by my two bully roommates. Well, my friend became close friends with one of my old roommates, who had treated me like garbage. He used to kick the crap out of me and choked me out a few times. The guy had almost 100 pounds on me."
"They were friends because they both became cheerleaders on the same squad. I never forgave him for that. I had known the guy since we were kids, but I'm never available if he's in town now."
16."We started as coworkers, but then she became my supervisor. You'd think that's what made things go south, but it really wasn't. We continued as friends for a few years after her promotion. The friendship ended when I was fired and lied to about the reason. I live in a right-to-work state, so they didn't even have to give me a reason but decided to lie about it instead. Not only did she know I was getting fired beforehand, but she refused to be in the meeting and made others do it. As my direct supervisor, she should've been there. As much as I was hurt, what made the whole situation unforgivable was her son telling my son I was fired at school the next day. We worked at the school (in childcare) where our kids attended."
"I hadn't told my kids yet because I would need to pull them from school/childcare and needed to have a plan in place before I upended their world. When confronted, she had 'no idea' how he would have known. That was the last time I spoke to her. It's been five years."
17."A former friend made fun of my PTSD symptoms because they were 'making her anxious,' and she wanted me to stop doing them in front of her. I said, 'I can't help it. It's not voluntary.' She knew that I'd been through a long recovery and still was recovering. We argued, and she left me stranded. I called someone to help me return to my car, drove home, and never spoke to her again."
18."I was on a bike ride with my friend when I got a call from my dad saying that he fell and was in the hospital — nothing too serious. He was released after a few days. My dad told me not to say anything to anyone because he didn't want people to worry. My friend overheard the conversation, so I told him not to say anything, and he promised he wouldn't. Well, he blabbed! By the end of the day, my phone was blowing up, and people were calling and asking about my dad. Many of them were upset with me for not telling them. I was furious! I called my friend to say WTF, and he acted like it was no big deal."
"Seriously, he couldn't get why I was so upset with him. I was like, 'If you don't understand the concept of confidentiality, we can't be friends.' I still see him occasionally and am cordial, but I'll never be as tight with him as before."
19."After a rough first year of teaching, when my friend was hired and put on my department team, I thought she was a godsend. We became close quickly and hung out weekly outside of spending every free moment together at work, just being silly and laughing off the daily stress. By March of that school year, she was escorted into the principal's office and forced to resign for a blatantly racist Instagram post. She tried to justify it, but her logic was mind-boggling. I was deeply disappointed, scolded her, and then tried to forgive her because, unfortunately, she was allowed to work until the end of her contract. At that time, I realized she was a narcissist, and she was harder to shake than I ever imagined. That summer, she got a DUI after swiping not one but two parked cars on two different streets, then called me to justify herself once again, to which I replied, 'You could have killed someone, and you want me to agree it's just not fair to you? Nope.'"
"She showed up to campus that fall and somehow got past the front office, even though she wasn't supposed to be allowed in the school. She walked into my classroom as I was teaching with a gigantic, smug smile and approached the podium to introduce herself to my new crop of students. I think she thought she was besting the school that fired her. I was in disbelief and utterly mortified. My principal lectured me, and I just took my scolding. But I eventually called her, chewed her out, told her to get help, and blocked her on everything. She's currently a skincare influencer on Instagram and a flagrant Flag and Faith 'patriot' and PragerU fan. So much for being an educator, let alone a humble Christian, who never meant to be racist or reckless."
20."She was my best friend in college, and we were both mostly single throughout. After college, we moved into an apartment together. I started dating a guy I met through work and was really happy, but things changed the second that relationship started. I stopped seeing her as much and stopped getting invited to places with our other friends. I felt awful, like she was mad that I was spending too much time with my boyfriend, so I made a point to make more time for her. This was when I realized she couldn't handle my life focusing on things other than her. Realizing she wanted a sidekick, not a best friend, was painful. She didn't need me around if I couldn't be her sidekick."
"That relationship didn't last, but I could never look at the friendship the same way again. I still care about her very much, but I have friends who treat me as an equal now, and those are the friendships I focus on."
21."My best friend of over 15 years met a boy just back from his mission. She was told to no longer see me because I wasn't in their religion. I kept up with her through mutuals. While she was pregnant with her third kid, he cheated on her, filed for divorce, and left the church. It seems to me like she picked wrong!"
22."I found out my friend was having an affair with her husband's best friend, AND I found out she would lie to her husband and say she was with me when she was really with the best friend. Oh, also, she then cheated on the best friend with some married guy!"
23."I had a friendship break-up sometime between mid-2018 and early-2020. For the life of me, I don't know what I did! We had been friends since college! She was a bridesmaid at my 2004 wedding, and I was a bridesmaid at her 2016 wedding. She lives about two hours away, so we hardly ever visited with one another, but we seemed to be OK with that. She had her first child in 2017, and I congratulated her, of course, and I was very happy for her. One day in early 2019, I went to contact her on FB, only to discover that she had deleted me as a friend! I was completely shocked, and I contacted her through Facebook Messenger and text to find out what had gone wrong. Or maybe one of us mistakenly deleted the other? I was met with complete silence."
"Not only was I blocked from contacting her through text or phone, but she also blocked me from contacting her on Messenger! The only thing I can come up with is that she became part of an MLM, and I had said that I don't purchase anything from any MLM groups. It was nothing personal, just a policy I stuck to, but I wished her the best. Now, if that was the reason for our breakup, then I have to question whether we were really friends at all. It's been years, and I still have no clue, and she has never bothered to clue me in whatsoever. I have no closure and no true idea of what happened. Breaking up a long-standing friendship without even giving the other person a hint is one of the meanest and rudest things a person can do, in my opinion!"
24."I've had two friend breakups, unfortunately. The first one: We were friends for over 15 years and had endured many hard times together, but COVID broke us. He was already a bit of a 'free thinker' before it was a thing, but I knew it was over when he raged at me for two days because I stuck to COVID protocols. It's been three years, and I miss what our friendship used to be, but the person he is now is not someone I will allow in my life ever again."
"The second: My best friend of 20+ years just ghosted me. She blocked me on everything the day after we had a fantastic girls' weekend. Things were starting to get rocky because of some of her views, but I thought we'd work through them as we normally did. I just found out from our mutual friend that ever since my daughter's (her goddaughter) autism diagnosis, she's been telling everyone that autism doesn't exist and that I'm just making things up to make my life harder. I guess she blocked me because I told her I was also autistic. Until I heard that, I had a glimmer of hope that we could discuss things. But now I'm in the process of deleting her from my life. I'm heartbroken and mad as hell. But I'm glad she showed me who she truly is so I don't have to waste another second on her."
—mysa
25."I suddenly realized they only ever asked me questions as an excuse to talk about themselves, only asked me about my life to find ways to one-up me, and actively wanted to know about the not-so-great things in my life so that they could feel better about their own. I thought they were interesting and knowledgeable when we first met, but at a certain point, I noticed that they would talk confidently about things they had no idea about. Once I realized that, I couldn't get past it!"
26.And: "I stood by my best friend of 10+ years even after she cheated on her ex (a really nice guy), broke up with him, and proceeded to try homewrecking another relationship. Her therapist supported this behavior because she withheld details that would have prompted different advice. The straw that broke the camel's back was when she told me, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to start seeing her therapist, too, and we could not be friends until I 'worked on myself' as well. NOPE."
Have you ever gone through a difficult friendship breakup? What happened? Why did you end the friendship? Tell us in the comments or share your story anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
