There are good ships and wood ships, and ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.

Life is tough, and it only gets tougher and tougher the older you get. You start working, maybe meet someone, get married, buy a house, have kids, etc. It’s a lot to juggle, but out friends help make things a little easier… except when they don’t.

People on Reddit were asked why they stopped talking to their best friends, and their responses gave some serious insight on how even the closest relationships can burn out. From unforgivable betrayals to slow fades, all of these people had deeply personal reasons for leaving their best friends.

1 Boy, she’s unsupportive

We had been best friends for years and I started dating a guy and she was so horrible about him. Saying he wasn’t good looking she didn’t want him to come on nights out with us etc. I really liked him and it made me see her completely different. 7 Year’s later I’ve not spoke to her and I’m still with the same guy, we have a son together and soon to be married.

2. Ghosted

She ghosted me after about 20 years of friendship. I foolishly didn’t see it coming, and tried for a few months to call, text her. No response. I grieved for a long time. Long time.

3. “She dumped me”

She got married. I was her Maid of Honor. Cried the whole time. Pure joy. Spent $500 on a dress and drove over 10 hours in one weekend just for the wedding. she got a little distant after the wedding but i let her have some space. newlyweds, right? 6 months later i had a traumatic experience and assault. She was one of the 2 people I told.

She basically broke up with me about 4 weeks later after suddenly cutting off communication completely for a week. I only knew she was alive because I called her husband. When she dumped me, she met me in a local park, got in my car, and told me she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. Said I was not supportive enough to her and she felt like i was using her as a therapist.

There are no words for how deeply she hurt me. We’d been friends for over 15 years, and called one another “wife” for 6 of those because there was no other term for how close we were.

She tried to open communication again about a year or two later. I no longer want her in my life. I’ll never let her close enough to hurt me again. Her betrayal at a time where I was in terrible pain and so vulnerable is completely unforgivable and hurts more than the trauma of my assault.

4. This is illegal…

Best friend since kindergarten. First friend I made in my new town.

Freshman year of college I was home for break and he was over my house with another friend. I went upstairs to talk with my parents and left them downstairs in the den. When I came back i couldnt find my phone so I checked upstairs again, then when I gave up and came back downstairs I noticed it poking out from under the couch. Sweet.

They leave pretty soon after, and pretty soon after that I get a text from my college friend (who has the same name as the other friend that was over) saying, “Hey uh, your gf is pretty but I’m not sure why you sent me a bunch of nude pics of her.. I’m gonna go ahead and assume it was by accident and delete them.”

Turns out my ‘friends’ took my phone, found my gfs nudes, sent them to themself (tried. they picked someone else with the same name), deleted the outgoing message, hid my phone, let me look for it, then planted it where it could be found. The only reason I ever found out is because my (very gay) friend from college was open enough to message me about it.

I never talked to those other two again. I have a primal rage when I think about the pathology it takes to do something like that. Theyre not my people.

5. Anger issues

I couldn’t handle her anger. I’d known her since middle school, and she’s always been easy to anger and would go off the handle about things that really didn’t warrant it. Whatever, usually we could calm her down and it wasn’t like she’d hurt anybody, just get moody and huffy.

Well, after highschool we would travel a bit together and it started to get obvious that she wasn’t even trying to work on her anger issue, even when we called her out on it and stopped coddling her during her outbursts. The final straw was when she wasted half a day of one of our vacations because during an outburst a day before, she’d lost her badge to the convention we were at, and we had to trudge behind her as she tried to see how much a day badge was, then broke down that it was ‘too much’ and obviously tried to guilt one of us into buying her one.

It was after that that we cut off contact, realizing that she was ruining our hard earned vacations.

6. Sorority life

She changed completely our senior year of high school. We were the exact same person, loved the same things, got along like sisters. Then she started prepping for her freshman year of college at a southern school, and completely overhauled her life to look “perfect” for the sororities. She started partying, only hanging out with the “cool kids”, refusing to let me tag her in photos, and just became really focused on her appearance (not just physical, but how her whole life appeared to an outsider). It’s like she lived her life as an Instagram model. Everything had to look perfectly perfect. We just faded out and stopped talking because I didn’t fit her new life.

I still think about her a lot because we were so close and I’ve never had a friend remotely as close to me as her. It hurts a lot that she just changed and left me behind and didn’t seem to care.

7. Trying to please them

Had 3 best friends from 10 years old on, the 4 of us were always together. Throughout our friendship we would get into fights, usually them against me. You know, girls. I wouldn’t understand what I did in the first place, but usually apologized and everything went back to normal after a few days. I can’t even remember the things they were mad about now. Senior year of high school I met my husband and of course they didn’t like him and didn’t think he was good for me. They continued to feel this way even after we got married 2.5 years later and he could feel how much they didn’t like him. After high school, we all lived in separate cities but still got together as much as we could. Then one year for Christmas when we were in our 20’s, they posted on FB how good it was to see each other and they hadn’t even contacted me to let me know they were in town, much less invite me. I was done, never talked to them again. I’m not saying I was the perfect friend, but I look back and I had so much anxiety and spent so much time trying to please them. I couldn’t even tell them everything about me because of how judgemental they were. My husband and I have been together 15 years, hes my everything. And now I wish I hadn’t spent 15 years of my life on trying to please people that weren’t true friends. I think about all the good friends I probably missed out on because I was so dependent on them for so long.

8. Going to college together – or not

We were completely inseparable through middle and high school and had always planned to stay together through college. She didn’t get into my choice schools, so (being an extremely dumb and anxious teenager) I foolishly agreed to attend a second-rate school with her instead… as not to be alone.

Shortly before the start of our freshman year of college she informed me she was no longer going to school with me and was instead moving to NYC to live with a boy she’d met on the internet. She’d known this for months but neglected to tell me until it was too late for me to do anything about it.

9. Free taxi

A few years ago I saw one of those tumblr posts that went something like “don’t go across the ocean for someone who wont cross a puddle for you,” or something along the lines of needing to reevaluate friendships if you’re the one reaching out all the time.

So I stopped being the first one to message her, and immediately our communication levels drop. And when she does message me, its always asking me to drive an hour plus to drive her another hour somewhere, so she wouldn’t have to use the bus. She never repaid me in food or gas ever, even when asked, so I made myself less available. Most of the time I was actually busy, trying to manage two jobs.

As soon as I stopped being a free taxi, she no longer had a use for me. The last time she reached out was 2 years later, when she wanted me to donate money to her so she could buy a tablet.

10. She doesn’t see the problem

I had taken her to a concert she wanted to go to and had permission to have my 7 month old there with me because no babysitter at the time. I paid for everything and she decided after i parked it was fine to smoke weed inside my car with my 7 month old right behind her. I handed her the tickets and left her there, have never talked to her again. She doesn’t see the problem with what she did.

11. Smack talking

She couldn’t stop smack talking me to everyone. She had incredibly low self-esteem and when I met her, so did I. But each step I took towards being more confident in herself, she saw as a threat.

I started working out and losing weight. She told everyone that I was trying to look better than her; eventually that turned into “she stopped going to the gym and just did coke to stay thin”. Nope, never done hard drugs in my life and I was attending double sessions at the gym.

I started seeing this guy who was really sweet and nice to me; she said I was just seeing him to show her what a jerk her boyfriend was.

I was getting a dog after moving out of the apartment; she said I was doing it to taunt her since her new place didn’t allow dogs and mine did (I specifically looked for dog-friendly places).

I’d hang out with different groups of people because my anti-depressants had kicked in and I wanted to be social again; she said I was going out to make her feel bad for not having friends. Except that I’d invite her to come. But she told me she didn’t like those people (whom she’d only met once and was rude the entire time).

I changed my major to business while she was in writing because I found business to be ridiculously easy; she said I did it because I wanted to make her feel poor after graduation.

My parents rented a place at the beach and I invited her along and told her that they’d cover expenses because my parents remembered being poor college students and wanted us to have good meals and fun; she went but later said I invited her along because I wanted to show off my family’s wealth. We went off-season to a cheap place within driving distance.

It got to the point where I couldn’t say any longer that the people telling me these things were lying. It seemed like almost every day I was telling someone they must have misunderstood her, that she wouldn’t say that. But nope. She reveled in being a frenemy and I thought I had a friend. I distanced myself and she went nuclear. I had friends send me screenshots of the insane messages she was sending them about me, completely unprovoked. We haven’t been on speaking terms in almost a decade.

12. Yikes…

He fucked my girlfriend 3 years ago, pretended we good and all for over a year, and now they’re getting married.

Needless to say i’ll rip his fucking heart out if i ever see him again.

13. “I’m actually glad”

I broke off all contact to my best friend of 22 years after I got into a pretty severe depression and she showed no sign of caring about it. I mean I didn’t want her to nurture this devil inside of me, but she just expected me to function like I did before I got sick, and whenever I dared to say it was too much for me to handle, she would be really offended. After unsuccessfully trying several times to explain to her what was going on, I just had to give up because every time we met I would feel physically ill. The weird thing is that I don’t miss her at all. I’m actually glad she is not part of my life anymore.

14. Everyone’s a critic, but especially this dude

After several years just realized I always felt awful about myself after leaving his and his family’s presence. Our mutual friends had a saying “it’s not a trip to XXXX’s house until you get criticized. From the clothes you were wearing, to how dirty your car is, just a barrage of shit.

The final straw was when I was dating my now wife, we went to go hang out at his house, and he immediately pounces on my appearance (was wearing a hardhat all day do my hair looked a little funky), then handed me a bag of aluminum cans for me to recycle “and put towards my house fund” (was in deep saving mode). Fortunately my wife was a good sport, but realizing what the hell this guy was trying to accomplish… embarrassing me in front of someone I’m interested in for no reason at all? Walked out after that and never looked back. Cut out completely.

15. “I was getting male attention and she wasn’t”

This will probably get buried, but I had a best friend who I really loved and thought of as a sister. Our friendship was great up until I started expressing interest in a man she and her boyfriend introduced me to. She started spreading rumors about me and started telling me to my face that I wasn’t good enough for the guy I wanted to be with. She kept making comments about how it didn’t make sense that men liked me and not her and that it wasn’t fair. I’m not really sure what her issue was; I never believed that she actually had feelings for him. I always felt like she was just threatened that I was getting male attention and she wasn’t. I knew she was deeply insecure about her appearance, and I thought this was part of her insecurity. I thought we’d be able to work through it, but it never ended. She wouldn’t even acknowledge what she was doing; if I tried to talk to her about it, she’d just insist I was lying to make her look bad. Her behavior escalated to the point where she sent me a text message telling me she did not care about me or my happiness at all and that my feelings and well-being would never come before her pride. I cut her off right then and there.

For years, we did not speak. After three years, she sent me a message saying she was sorry and she had changed and was a better person now. I tried to give her another chance, but as soon as the conversation started, she brought up the guy from before and immediately started telling me that I wasn’t good enough for him and was not allowed to be near him, etc etc. I cut her off again. Over the past year, she’s been trying to contact me in various ways, but I keep blocking her because I just don’t need this in my life. I can’t understand why she’s so hung up over this guy. I haven’t spoken to him in years. And I don’t need someone in my life who thinks she can control my relationships with others or take out her insecurities on me. It’s really sad because I really did love her, but that girl who I thought was my close friend is completely gone. She’s become someone who treats me with jealousy and hostility, and I don’t want that in my life.

16. Stopped responding

I noticed that they slowly stopped responding to my texts, and/or would take days to respond. I stopped texting to see how long it would take for them to text me first , and I haven’t heard from both of them since January. It hurts. Needless to say, it’s been a very hard year. I have lost 3 very good friends. But it just gives me more time to focus on people who really care about me. And to try and see the positive, I took a deep look Inside to see how I could be a better friend. But also, fuck them.

17. “Swallowed up in all this negativity”

she was incredibly toxic. we had been best friends since grade school, i had moved states but we maintained long distance contact for years, tho it became clear we were headed in different directions. i was eager to get started on my life and my studies. she was more interested in relationships. there were a few years i didn’t have the funds to visit her in person, it wasnt until two years ago that i was able to. and by then she was a completely different person, which she had been hiding in our conversations. she had very low self-esteem, refused to acknowledge her mental illnesses, self-harmed, and placed all of her value within relationships, sex, and really just the attention she could receive from men in general (all of this from a very abusive relationship she had just gotten out of of). i was completely the opposite. i visited her often and while i still found fragments of the person i loved and cherished, it was sorta swallowed up in all this negativity. i ignored it for as long as i could, before i started listening to the people around me that kept telling me it was time to let her go (my mother, my sister, my boyfriend, and even some of my own friends). she was extremely irrational, had become reckless with her choices, and was deeply unhappy. i tried the best i could to help her, but it was affecting me as well. by the time i stopped visiting her, she had entered another toxic relationship despite my warnings; she had told me, to my face: “nobody can convince me to not be with him. not even you.”

i cut her off earlier this year, and i still miss her like crazy. but i notice my anxiety has really toned down since then.

18. Coming out

I came out as a lesbian in my early 20’s and my BFF from the time I was in kindergarten didn’t take it well. She stopped talking to me and eventually I gave up trying to communicate with her. It did break my heart, we’d been very close for a long time, but I was ok with her going her own way if she couldn’t support me being me.

19.  Just drifting

Guess life just organically pulled us apart. He was my best friend for the better part of 15 years, went through everything with me, was in my wedding, everything. He took over his fathers company, I don’t know if it was the work or the money but we just started to drift. I couldn’t keep up with his life style (he became very wealthy) and wanted to be a single bachelor, while I was at home with my wife and newborn. It’s been about 3 years since the drift and about a year since we last talked. I have tried to reach out multiple times but to no avail. Like I said, nothing bad happened and I harbor no ill will, just 2 adults going their own separate ways in life. I hope he is happy and successful!

20. Never compromising

I was best friends with someone for 12 years and we did everything together. Well, everything that she wanted. It was always about her and her schedule, never compromising for me. I went to every event she had, even her parents anniversary dinner. One year my mother had just passed away and I was home alone. I asked her to come over and she said she was going to a friends house to party because she broke up with her boyfriend. We havent spoken to each other in probably 2 years and I’ve never been happier.

21. “Disappeared from each others’ lives”

We grew up together only 2 houses apart, and then I moved… went to the same school, but we had different crowds. It was just really hard to hang out with her. Her personality was negatively emotional and took subtle hints to the next level though; for example would be the day I told her I lost my virginity, and she automatically claimed me to be a whore (in a serious way). Felt really weird after that, and just stopped telling her things. Then we just completely disappeared from each others lives… last time I tried to make a connection was only a few years ago when I came to her house to “trick-or-treat” (this used to be OUR thing) anddd her mom came to the door, explaining how she is sick and can’t come to the door. Not sure how she is or what she’s been up to but I still wish her the best of everything.

22. Hurting each other

We were terrible for each others’ mental health. She didn’t see it, but I did. She was pretty happy to be wallowing in her depression and not get help. I realized I couldn’t keep doing that because every time I sort of started to get better she was embodiment of everything negative in my head. Not intentionally, but it was there all the same. I told her why I couldn’t hang out with her as much/anymore and eventually just reached a point where I went cold turkey. It’s been twelve years and I still miss her, but it was for the best.

The post 20+ People Share Why They Had to Break It off with Their BFF appeared first on UberFacts.