cutting people completely out of your life

blaming his therapist is a dick move

outside of shared substance abuse or infidelity/unrequited "feelings," i can't think of any reasons why he would do something like that

^^ agree

he still said that his therapist thought it best if he cut contact with me too

this is ridiculous (xposts)

btw I wrote about it a little upthread but I had a friend do this to me once before. He was very supportive through that whole ordeal and knows how much her doing that hurt me (I've never heard from her since). This whole thing just made me feel the pain of that all over again and I would have hoped he'd realize how unfair this was based on what I went through with that other person. All I wanted was an explanation so that maybe I could understand more.

and if he had harbored feelings for you without telling you and then forced himself to go cold turkey
that's baaaaaaaaaaaaad behavior imo

infidelity/unrequited "feelings,"

I was "friends" with someone with whom he was inappropriately involved and apparently I reminded him too much of her and the temptation to ask about her was too great. Bear in mind I have not seen or even spoken to this other person for months before this and not once since. That seems like such a BS reason that I have wondered if "feelings" for me weren't somehow involved. I agree that the therapist thing is ridic. Even my therapist said that sounded sketchy.

Sorry sorry. The whole thing was complicated and I don't want to say any more about another person's life but, yeah, no drugs or anything like that. I think the whole thing was handled really poorly and I feel like I was treated unfairly but the thing that hurts the worst is that I miss my friend. A lot.

reading that without knowing the circumstances and allowing for the fact that there might be a number of other reasons, the most obvious interpretation that jumps out is that it is strong feelings for/about you which prompted this extreme, and immature or melodramatic behaviour.

wot la lechera said.

but that is exactly what it looks like.

agree
some people can't seem to understand that being friends with a woman isn't like having a supplemental romantic partner

you do deserve better
if he pulls the "i'm an idiot/asshole/bad friend" routine, i think you should accept a return in friendship on a probationary basis. he doesn't get to jerk you around like that!

Yes, absolutely. I will make that really clear. I just really hope he does contact me one day.

this friend is married, right? could it be his wife putting pressure on him to no longer be friends with you bc of feelings?

Yes. That's occurred to me too. Or just that she was v angry because I was still in contact with this other person (who I haven't seen in person in over a year mind you) and didn't want him associating with anyone who had any connections to her though that makes less sense considering that I offered to completely sever any ties I had with her. I think maybe the issues of inappropriate feelings came up with the counselor and maybe it came to light that he had complicated feelings for me and they decided they had worked on things more he not be in contact with anyone for whom is had nothing but strictly platonic feelings. Again, this is only a theory so idk.

his therapist thought it best if he cut contact with me too.

ugh

It just sucks because it doesn't make much sense and I miss him and his laugh a lot.

I did, however, recently make an awesome new friend at work and I like her so much. I was in need of some local female friendships so it's been pretty awesome.

Thank for letting me vent, guys.

that's good!! i wish friendship weren't so fraught for some people but i guess it is

I'm going through something kinda similar but from the other side ... and it's sad and it hurts ... so ... sympathy

ime if someone is married and cuts contact with a friend of the gender they are into, it is because the spouse has basically forced it to happen. i've been the cutter-outer. i hate that i did it, but i have learnt my lesson now.

In some ways, I wonder if it's not BETTER to be cut off completely as opposed to ALMOST cut off, where the other person is hanging onto friendship by the tips of fingernails - giving all indications of giving it up but just not quite. This has happened with someone I thought of, for years and years, as my best friend in the whole world. Granted, we life far apart and she's had some trauma in her life, but sometimes I wish she'd just never respond to my emails, or would just not email me outta the blue to see how I am.

i really have no problem if people feel a friendship 'isn't working' and sort of let it lapse, for lack of a better term. i just don't quite understand the need to say 'i'm not going to talk to you again', like not even in an angry sense but this manner. it seems even more hurtful than the angry friendship breakup.

*a gender, let's not be biphobic

(This is someone who I once could write huge emails to about anything. Now writing her a birthday card or Christmas card is hell because I have no idea what to say.)

xp well it comes from a place of "i can't handle talking to you (for an undisclosed reason)" rather than "i don't have time/energy for you right now or possibly anymore at all"

the former is selfishly motivated imo, the latter more humane
i'd rather be irrelevant than toxic!

I repeatedly told him that his "explanation" didn't makes sense and asked for more information. If his wife was the reason I honestly would have preferred him telling me so rather than just saying "this is just something I have to do for a while. Please don't be mad at me or blame yourself." That's just . . . mean. I guess I just feel like if you're going to do that to me after nearly 20 years of friendship at least explain yourself especially 6 months later when I write you an email telling you how much it's hurt me.

R Cummings - I'm really sorry that you're going through that. It also sounds very hard.

We live in the same part of town ffs. It hasn't happened yet but how weird would/will it be if/when we run into each other!

I guess maybe I felt like I was too upset about this whole thing and it wasn't as big a deal as I was making it out to be. Thanks for making me feel a little better.

i'd be pissed tbh!

he will be divorced in 2 years tops. then he will crawl back. your call thereafter

xps your theory sounds like the most likely, enbb. it's the only one that makes sense in this situation, and maybe it's a marriage therapist, not a regular therapist, suggesting the friendship-ending. idk, i think i'd take a pretty long hard look at exactly why my therapist was telling me to end my friendship with my bestfriend of 17 years, and how much good that was really going to do me.

yeah, the lack of honesty about his feelings/choices is the most perplexing thing to me. Like, my first thought is ... the "explanation" is that it is something that he doesn't really want to do, and there is probably some messy arguments and resentment that brought it on, and he doesn't want to open that can of worms and tell you everything. But, this guy is an adult and presumably not an idiot, so he could come up with something diplomatic and kind.

ENBB, thanks, and I'm sorry for what you're dealing with too. The vexed spouse thing - I've been there too.

It's less painful than it used to be though, which I attribute to having made other close friends over the past few years.

i think about this sort of thing literally every day because my brother cut himself off from my family years ago without any explanation & i don't know if i'll ever have the chance to see him again. i really hope your friend comes around, E. <3

sorry ENBB, this really sucks.

i'm so tempted to speculate that there's something super serious underlying this, but it's just as likely if not more that it's something moderately serious and he's handling it in a really cheap and bullshitty way

Justine I think you're very otm and sarahell - you too. It's just sad.

Thanks, Goole. Yeah, idk. Maybe I'll find out one day.

Aw man, crut. I'm sorry. Thank you. <3

if was going to go to the trouble of flat-out telling you you couldn't be friends anymore, he should have told you the full story instead of half-assing it. he clearly acknowledged it wasn't your fault, so the very least he owed you was closure.

i think my strong negative reaction to this type of behavior is partly based in my distaste for melodrama. everyone's got a different threshold, but mine is very low. i do hope it all works out for you ENBB! actively losing friends is so much worse than losing them passively, through attrition or w/e

yeah melodrama is dreadful.

I don't think anything any friend has ever done to me has hurt more than this. I emailed him a couple weeks ago explaining how bad this has felt and how I felt like I deserved an explanation. Still nothing. I'm so fucking angry it's not even funny. I keep having dreams involving him and the whole thing just sucks. If he contacted me and apologized and explained why he went about this the way he did then I would love to be friends again despite the fact that I think he's acted selfishly and cruelly. I think the worst part is not hearing from him even after I wrote that email. It just makes it seem like he really doesn't give a shit how I'm feeling or that I'm hurt which seems to indicate that he never really cared about me to begin with.

i have gone through something like this, on the side of the (your) friend, so on his behalf i have to say, he could easily have cared a lot, but not known how to repair things. i had a pretty good friendship, sort of a professional/intellectual one, as those things go, that went bad when our lives diverged and i was in a very vulnerable and dependent position (unemployed at the time), and he got so caught up in his own life that he effectively neglected me for months, in the wake of a time when i had particularly wanted his friendship. i just sat with my feelings, got bitter, resentful, etc., all while knowing that a lot of the fault was mine (even though we never really had a really emotionally open friendship where i could have just come out and been like, you hurt my feelings etc) but not knowing how to get over that. so when there was an opportunity to make moves toward restoring things, i couldn't do it; he was so oblivious that it just infuriated me and i wasn't able to bring the appropriate sense of perspective and proportion to the matter. i was eventually able to let him know that i felt i'd been wronged, and that i was not happy, but that hasn't permitted me to really try to explain things to him. in a way i feel like an idiot, because i know so much of it was on my side, just feelings i failed to deal with appropriately, but now that that is so, it doesn't seem like such a simple matter to set right. it's less painful just to let it be. so we haven't exchanged any words in months, or really talked at all in a couple years or more.

i don't know the specifics of your friendship, but i do want to say, i think it may be hasty to suppose that it's all about not being respected, not being given what you're owed if the friendship was really important. since friendships involve our making ourselves emotionally vulnerable to our friends, i would wonder (ESPECIALLY if it's dudes) whether it's not more a matter of this being too hard for your friend to deal with.

it's hard to tell someone your relationship is over.

e the feelings/spouse thing had def occurred based on previous descriptions of this from you, but even as an explanation for behaviour its not any excuse for lack of explanation or honesty and it sucks, def

Oh yeah I think I posted on the borad thread when this first happen but I forgot. Life, man.

It just makes it seem like he really doesn't give a shit how I'm feeling or that I'm hurt

Some people are very, very inept at friendship and their insecurity around others stymies them from doing anything at all when they get into an awkward situation. Not sure if this is the case here, but it happens often enough to mention it.

>> Benson and the Jets (ENBB)
Just wanted to say I read your original post, and I identify - you're not alone. I (had - so hard to type) a really close friend from college/post-college that lives in same city as I do that did this to me and another close friend (former '3 muskateer' group of friends) and we're just super sad and still in grief since we have had 'radio silence' for close to two years now. It sucks. I, too, have dreams/nightmares about the former close close friend, and just can't figure out what/why/how/etc. went wrong. The feelings that accompany are some of the saddest I've ever had. I totally empathize.

I think more than anything it's a sign that your friendship was a lot more asymmetrical than you thought? It's usually more evident in those weird relationship break-ups where you figure out one person has been on the way out for a while and you've been getting more invested.

You can have shared experiences, but sometimes the friendship or relationship you thought you had meant something very different to the other person and when that becomes evident, it's really hard to understand or reconcile.

On a more upbeat note, completely cutting off an ex of mine years ago was probably the best decision I've ever made

x-post - Oh, thank you for saying that. I'm sorry that you went through something similar.

The dreams are the weirdest because I can't help them and I always feel so strange when I wake up.

I had dreams like that for ages after a couple falling outs (fallings out?) with people, a girl who I was best friends with and we quickly drifted apart, and a bf I never properly broke up with and he snubbed me for a couple years after. They were always really weird and affecting and difficult to deal with when waking up. Unfortunately in my case it took reconnecting with the individuals in question to make the dreams stop :/ I hope yours don't persist and that you can eventually get some closure about why your friend is being weird and non-communicative.

Read most of this thread just now, and, MAN, so much of this is familiar to me.

I had a tight group of bros in college, and if you'd asked me when I was 22 I would've sworn we'd have ALWAYS been tight bros. But nah. With one exception, there was no formal cutting off, just major, major drift and people living in different places, to the point where I only talk to two guys from the group a few times a year - but those are great talks.

i think about this sort of thing literally every day because my brother cut himself off from my family years ago without any explanation & i don't know if i'll ever have the chance to see him again. i really hope your friend comes around, E. <3

― example (crüt), Monday, January 12, 2015 12:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as someone who has done this, just consider that 1) he doesn't owe you an explanation, 2) while i am sure it is reflective of your positive feelings for him and sorrow etc, language like "i don't know if i'll ever have the chance to see him again" is passive-aggressive and possibly symptomatic of a 3) toxic family situation, which are a lot more prevalent than people want to admit, and it isn't the fault of the person who wants to remove themselves from the toxic dynamic for the rupture. leaving one's family completely is not an easy thing to do, it takes resolve and a clear comprehension of why in order to do it and move forward, and if you are bewildered by it, there is prob. a reason you should be prepared to respect if at some point you are ready to see and confront it.

as far as doing this with friends, it sucks, maybe some day you'll understand why, maybe not.