Second only to family, we tend to think of friends as part of an unbreakable group that will be with us through thick and thin. It’s a topic we celebrate in media, from the somewhat uninspiringly named “Friends” to the more chaotic four in “Seinfeld.” But people change and, more importantly, begin to understand their own worth. With that comes the uncomfortable realization that one’s friends might not actually be a good influence.
An internet user asked people what caused them to end a relationship with their best friend. So scroll down and be prepared for tales of betrayal, bad judgment, and generally horrible behavior. Be sure to upvote the most relatable stores and comment your own experiences.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
I was told I couldn't have children after years of wanting nothing more than to be a mother. Even with this knowledge my former bff told me one day that I could never know what love really was because I didn't have kids. I realized that day just how toxic, abusive, and one sided our friendship had always been and cut her from my life.
Turns out the drs were wrong and I'm currently 5 months pregnant with my first child at 40. So yay for happy endings!
My 16 yr old sister got me tickets to the Harry Potter exhibit in New York City when I was 13. Spent her own money on it for two tickets. Me and her. My best friend found out and through a fit to her mother that “ She should be going because she is a bigger fan” and the mother messaged my sister to tell her to give her ticket to her daughter because “ It’s the right thing to do” My sister told her to f**k off and told me immediately
Cherish the great sister, dump the scumbucket "friend" and mother. Smh!!!
I stopped being the first one to reach out every time. Never heard a word from them again.
Same. It sucks and I think about it sometimes, but I know I'm better off
As social creatures, we really do want to have friends around. Sharing experiences, toys or advice are all useful things we get out of having a social circle we can rely on. Besides social support, there is evidence that having a few friends actually helps a child develop empathy and problem-solving skills. It doesn’t actually take much for younger children to become friends, beyond some shared activities. Just turning up to school in the same t-shirt as another kid could be enough.
But, on the topic of losing friends, relationships formed very young tend not to last that long. Often, they are based on circumstances, which change and shared interests, which also change rapidly for younger children. It’s only in one’s teenage years that stronger, longer-lasting friendships start to form. Let’s face it, being a teen isn’t the most enjoyable period of time, so having a buddy helps. And when two or more people go through some uncomfortable experiences together, it creates a sense of solidarity.
I didn't realise that slowly, over twenty years, she'd basically turned me into her own personal therapist.
Every single day, almost 24/7, she'd be calling and texting, expecting me to sort out every single one of her problems, and validate her s****y, hurtful behaviour.
Then one day at the end of last year, I got into an accident that left me hospitalised. Whilst I was mostly fine functionally, I had a lot of scarring and was told that I might need a skin graft surgery later down the line, depending on how it healed.
And my best friend since we were 11 didn't even ask how I was. Not *once*, not for two whole months. The only time she acknowledged that I was even injured was when she said, "that's a bad way to start the morning" when I told her that I was in A&E.
She just... didn't care.
And once I realised that, walking away was easy. Haven't missed her at all, best decision I ever made.
Went on a mini-vaca (was supposed to be 4 days) with my best friend in 2021 to NJ, she brought her (then) 8yr old son, I brought my (then) 4 yr old daughter. Her son was so disrespectful, swearing, nasty attitude and so mean to my daughter the entire trip. The last straw was on the morning of the 3rd day when he ripped a box of cereal out of my daughter's hand, she started crying and he slapped her across her head. I tried disciplining him and my friend blew up at me and proceeded to DEFEND her son, as she called my daughter a "whiny baby". We started arguing, I packed our bags and said we're leaving. I drove 4 hours home without saying a single word to her or her son. Got to her house, threw her bags on her front lawn and peeled out of her driveway.
My old friend since elementary school started slowly pushing his political and religious views onto me as we got older. He was a Christian conservative, I was an agnostic independent. Eventually he gave me an ultimatum, either fully agree with him and join his church, or be considered his enemy. So I ended the friendship. Religion and politics can ruin any friendship, no matter how great.
That kind of extremist is no friend, they're a dangerous moron (that goes for both ends of the political spectrum; just because one side is more vocal and obviously visible doesn't make the other any less idiotic, they just stand far less chance of getting into power for some reason).
Adults tend to find new friends in the workplace, which comes with its own set of limitations. One might feel a bit warier about how they act around a coworker and it can be hard to draw the line between networking and just enjoying time together. Most people go to work to earn a living, few see it as a great place to just hang out and make friends. While at school, it's pretty normal for pupils to commiserate and discuss how much they want to be elsewhere, adults are burdened with the knowledge of taxes and bills.
The friend found Jesus. That put a strain on the friendship because finding Jesus apparently means you have to try to convince everyone else to find him too. Repeatedly.
It was my last year in a country I previously lived in and at the time it was during summer vacation where we normally spend it in our home country. We had to cut our vacation short because we got a phone call telling us that our house had gotten broken into and robbed. We came back and on that day and he was talking to me telling me he saw cops by our house and he hopes everything is OK. It was horrible with everything stolen, furniture destroyed, closets torn down and fully emptied. My family decided to accelerate the transfer from that country and there was that. A year later he messages me a long e-mail explaining how sorry he was and that he was responsible for it and that his friends were the perpetrators and that he knew who did it but didn’t want to expose them. When we showed the police the e-mail and they questioned him it turned out he was part of that group as well.
In this instance, I really hope OP not only ended the friendship but pressed charges as well. Smh!!!
She became a mom martyr. The clincher was when I told her I was assaulted at work by a full grown man covered in poop and she responded " well that happens to me daily and nobody pays me" Her oldest was seven.
And then she turns around and complains that she lost so many friends after becoming a parent…hmmm wonder why???
Even counting outside-of-work friends, adults tend to struggle to find relationships like the ones they potentially had as teenagers. Partially, it’s logistics, since older teens have the physical energy and free time to be spontaneous and have adventures. As an adult, the idea of even staying up past two in the morning makes me want to take a sick day. The result is that many adults just do not have as many friends as they would want. In the West, the average number is just two. So all those sitcoms, from Friends to Seinfeld all represented some sort of aspirational social position.
Childhood friends since 1st grade essentially grew up together so you think we would have very similar morals and standards but right after having his 2nd kid at 19 he became emotionally abusive and eventually physically abusive towards them for about a couple months eventually he was arrested for domestic violence and she was hospitalized for a broken nose and fractured orbital bone.
I felt so f*****g guilty I didn't noticed any of the abuse the times I was over and just such shame that he was my closest friend still bothers me years later.
Story has a relatively happy ending though his ex gf became my new best friend and now i call her my wife :)
His wife cheated on him. I was the bad guy for trying to let him know.
She told me I was her best friend, but didn’t put me in her wedding party. But continued to ask me for wedding styling advice for her bridesmaids. It all stung but I got over it. She also told me she needed me at her bachelorette and I was helping her brainstorm ideas.
We talked daily. One morning we talked like normal and that evening I saw posts of her on her bachelorette. We’d been best friends since HS, she had a girl she’d only known for 6 months on the trip with her. Her response when I asked about it? “Oh someone surprised me with it sorry you’re upset”
Blocked her and haven’t looked back (and I’ve been a bridesmaid for better friends multiple times since 😊)
I had a relative I thought I was close to. When she got married I said, "Oh, am I a bridesmaid?" She joked that I would be her flower girl, and instead asked the wife of her husband's BM to be her MOH - this was a girl she hardly even knew! She then gave me a small task to perform at her wedding (I suppose thinking this 'honor' would make up for it - it didn't). I pulled back after that because she showed me how little I truly meant to her.
There are other psychological issues that can also cause problems. Did you know that most people probably like you more than you think? While it’s hard to generalize, many friendships struggle to take off because one or both of the parties thinks the other doesn’t like them as much. This is called the liking gap, where a person decides that a new acquaintance does not really like them, so to avoid looking needy, they won’t pursue a friendship or relationship. Now, as you might have guessed, this is a false emotion, as many people underestimate their likability. But the result is simply fewer friendships.
He told my entire group of friends (and a lot of non-friends) at a party that I told him I was gay, before I got a chance to tell them myself.
Asked to borrow money (~$3000) and told me not to ask for what, not because they needed help and trusted me but because I “had a decent job and could spare some”. Badgered me that I needed to send this money within 24 hours and kept repetitively asking when the money was ready. I was worried it was a medical emergency so I insisted they tell me why. No response except for “hurry up with the money.” Turns out they got scammed but that ended our friendship really quickly…money ruins relationships…fast.
Edit: wow I’m sorry to hear all of you having similar experiences. Thanks for hearing me out.
He got a DUI while driving my car and then lied about it and lied about why my car was towed. He lied about losing his license (suddenly he just wanted to walk everywhere for the exercise). He lied to my friends and told them it was my fault cuz registration had lapsed.
When I finally confronted him about it he kept lying.
To be clear, it is important to differentiate types of friendship. Like ships, houses, and organizations, not all friendships are created equal. As many of the stories here describe, it’s possible to be friends with a person who actively makes your life worse. Once you have had a friend for long enough, you tend to think of the position as natural and might avoid wondering why you don’t really enjoy being around this person. Sometimes people justify it with thoughts like “bad friends are better than no friends.” Maybe this is true, but the aforementioned benefits of having a friend tend to only apply to what researchers call high-quality friendships.
My mental health.
It got too much to handle and they backed out.
I absolutely understand this, but man..that hurt
Been there. I didn't want to burden my brother with that s**t, he wanted to know and our relationship has never been better.
Became Maga and used the n-word on a group text. Was entirely unrepentant about it. Wouldn't listen to any dislike of what he said, ever.
He kept not showing up when we said we'd meet somewhere. No call, no text, nothing.
While the idea of a high-quality friendship is somewhat subjective, it tends to involve reciprocity. Both parties trust each other, there generally isn’t much bullying and one party isn’t constantly the victim of the other’s mental or social issues. Unfortunately, loneliness is also a pretty real concern for many adults, who would prefer to be stood up by so-called friends rather than have no friends at all. Like finding a new job before one quits, studies show that it can be less scary to “quit” a bad friend if you have a new friend lined up. And if you want to read some more accounts about why friendships ended, check out our other article here.
My best friend (kinda my only friend) stopped talking to me from one day to another. Never was able to get in contact with him again. Didn't respond to calls or texts, wasn't home when I showed up, nothing.
I still don't know if I did something wrong or what his motivation was.
It's been just over 4 years now. Still sucks at times.
Bullying, basically.
I realized that all that "good-natured ribbing" over time was really more malicious than good natured, and that I was the outlet for his own insecurities.
I have a ‘friend’ like this - she makes b****y comments about my weight when she feels bad about her own. I spotted the trend, but it still baffles me that people can be so thoughtless with their words.
He got a girlfriend, so less time for me. After a few years I got home and saw them moving stuff out (We lived in the same apartment, different floor). They never said anything to me at all, no hint. They just left, not even a card or an invitation. That was the end of the friendship.
He tried to exploit my father's death to convert me to Christianity.
I'm a Christian myself and sh*t like this is why I want to greet each and everyone of these zealots with a mf-ing right hook!!! Smh!!!
Renting an apartment together.
NEVER live with friends, folks. BECOME friends with people you live with.
I lived with my best friend for three years and we are still best friends. If the friendship is true and the person is decent, living together is no problem. But if you're making lots of excuses for their behaviour before you're even live together, living together will make this impossible. That's why you shouldn't marry anyone you've not lived with for a while. It's impossible to hide their nasty side if you see them everyday but it's easy to hide if you just see them now and then. That goes for friends and partners alike
When I realized all we had in common was binge drinking. No support when it came to attempts to cut back. Instead they got irritated when I didn’t want to go to the bars. I kept saying no and explaining I wanted to avoid situations with drinking. One guy said you can’t be part of “our” friend group if you don’t like going out drinking as some sort of intimidation tactic
My bestie called me a lush AFTER I confided in her that I had quit drinking, then said if I wanted sympathy I should ask someone else because she wasn't "that type" of person. I didn't get it then and I don't get it, now. But I never spoke to her, again.
Lots of little s**t that eventually just pissed me off enough to where I told him to F off.
For example, 7-8 years ago, he bought 15 tickets for a midnight premier of Jurassic World for our entire friends group to attend.
The day of the show, he texted me to tell me that he forgot to buy "my" ticket, so I couldn't go. Of the 15 he bought, how did he decide it was "my" ticket that he didn't buy? Turns out, he gave my ticket to a girl he met the week prior so he could take her with instead.
That was just one of many things where he f****d me.
It's all truly minor stuff like that, but when you have 100 minor things, it becomes clear that they aren't actually your friend anymore.
That's not minor. He organised a meeting with the whole friend group and excluded OP in favour of a stranger who had nothing to do with those people, isolating OP and excluding them from the whole group. There's nothing minor about this, this is a very loud message that says: you are not a friend to me! You are just a gap filler until I find something better. And there's no coming back from something like this. On top of that they also lied to OP. That makes it very likely they're lying to the whole friends group too, estranging OP even further. It was something similar that made me realise that a person in my friend group wasn't a friend at all. My bestie and I had cards for a Pokémon event. But I got sick and couldn't go, so she took another friend with her who wasn't that much into Pokémon but was bored and wanted to accompany her. I gave them my games to get me the special edition Pokémon. When they got there, they gave out free figurines, one per person, but that 'friend'refused to get one. They weren't interested. They refused taking the collectible and my friend wasn't allowed to. Their argument was they didn't want it and didn't want to get in line to get it. There were no chairs so the stood at the side of the line, right next to it, waiting for my bestie to come back. My bestie and I both cut him out after this. My bestie tried to gift me hers but I refused. It wasn't her fault. He later told another friend he only went with her to hit on her and was very surprised that his little show of blatant egoism was a turn off and she cut him off completely.
Unhealthy friendship dynamic. She always wanted/needed my approval and when I’d be honest about the fact she f****d up- she’d tell me what a terrible friend I was. She could never take responsibility for her actions. F****d and f****d over every person she knew. Lied about everything and burned every bridge she made. The down side is that she was FUN AS HELL! My favorite outdoor adventure partner. And we’d been besties from our 20’s into 40’s. But damn, time to grow the f**k up, ya know?
Have a friend similar to this. They lie a lot to everyone and insists on having different personas to feel 'normal'. Always bold with other people but would trauma dump on me. Asked me to be truthful if they did anything I didn't like and when I did, they blamed me for being a terrible friend. Started to ignore me and even pushed their fist so close my face as if to 'intimidate' me. I didn't say anything at the time. Our friendship ended being so toxic since we were both suffering with our mental health. We didn't talk in a while and when we did recently, they casually told me about having an overdose last year because they wanted to make their parents care for them. They laughed about their parents crying for them saying they(their parents) deserved it. Bragged about liking being groomed by their chauffeur, told them to report it to their parents, or any adults they trust but ignored me because the chauffeur was the only person they can get cigarettes from(my friend was underage). Just a lot of things tbh.. Still friends with them but I don't want to be close with them.
I realized the only person putting effort in to maintain our friendship was me. If I didn't start a conversation, we didn't speak at all.
I stopped starting conversations. At first, I was just wondering how long it would take her to reach out. She never did. And I'm glad, because now that I'm not breaking my back trying to prop up our friendship, I realize how little I really got from it. I realized that I was always the one trying to mend fences and apologize when we fought, while she apologized for nothing. I've realized it's not normal to expect a nasty fight with your best friend once a month. And I feel so goddamn *free*.
I've moved on. I've made new friends and deepened other friendships. At this point, even if she did reach out and apologize (she won't), I wouldn't want anything to do with her.
This was me. I grew up next door to my "BFF". She moved in with her boyfriend & didn't tell me. Was pregnant & didn't tell me. Final straw was - they got married & didn't tell me. It was a courthouse thing, so I wasn't mad about not being invited. But if she'd told me I would have bought them a gift. And that's when I realized she only contacted me if she needed something - gas money, a ride to the store, pick up lunch, babysit her kid(s). All other contact was initiated by me. So I walked away.
Choosing men over her family and close friends, disappearing to another state at the drop of a hat with no way to be contacted, oh and meth.
Started to drink. A LOT. Then started to hang with people who constantly made fun of him, but hanged with him because he supplied a f**k ton of alcool. He was going out to bars everyday. He then started to talk s**t about my GF (now wife). Telling everybody that she was trash and the reason I wouldn't go out with to bars him. Also, I was a f*****g pussy not doing so.
The reason I wouldn't go out with him was because he was a f*****g thrash of a man. I tried to help him and he turned me down HARD. Also I was working full time and going to college.
F**k you Bobby.
when i realised i was basically this persons free therapist and we saw each other a lot, evrything was a moan-fest! caused me way more stress and misery than happyness. blamed his wife wanting a divorce on me, said he wrote a book about how bad a friend i have been, so i asked why he keeps contacting me if im so bad, i said iv had enough of your s**t, never contact me again.
Note: this post originally had 58 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I had a good friend for years and we saw each other through so many situations, dramas, breakups, issues with other friends, and our relationship was rock solid. Then she began cheating on her husband. She was lying to him and saying she was spending time with me when she was actually seeing two other men. When her husband finally found out about it, he forgave her and they were supposedly trying to work things out. One day she complained to me that he didn't like her still spending time with those two men. I said, "well, if you're trying to work it out, you're not showing him you regret your actions if you're still seeing those guys". She replied, "I DONT regret it". It was then I realized what kind of person she was- using me to enable her cheating, and not caring about what she was doing in the first place. I still miss the friendship, but now I realize it was probably not the kind of relationship I thought it was.
He said my boyfriend and I were - I'm quoting - "disgusting", because my boyfriend was married and shortly after he separated from his wife we got together. So I'm a family wrecker. You might think these words would come from a very religious, conservative person, but no: he's a gay man, living his sexuality very promiscuously (also with married men. Or priests). But apparently there is no problem as long as everything is done in hypocritical secret.
Don't think of yourself as a "family wrecker." That relationship was probably broken long before you entered the picture. I was in a situation similar to yours many years ago. Your friend sounds like he was/is very confused, engaging in risky behavior. I hope you are in a good place now, and happy.
Load More Replies...
I had a good friend for years and we saw each other through so many situations, dramas, breakups, issues with other friends, and our relationship was rock solid. Then she began cheating on her husband. She was lying to him and saying she was spending time with me when she was actually seeing two other men. When her husband finally found out about it, he forgave her and they were supposedly trying to work things out. One day she complained to me that he didn't like her still spending time with those two men. I said, "well, if you're trying to work it out, you're not showing him you regret your actions if you're still seeing those guys". She replied, "I DONT regret it". It was then I realized what kind of person she was- using me to enable her cheating, and not caring about what she was doing in the first place. I still miss the friendship, but now I realize it was probably not the kind of relationship I thought it was.
He said my boyfriend and I were - I'm quoting - "disgusting", because my boyfriend was married and shortly after he separated from his wife we got together. So I'm a family wrecker. You might think these words would come from a very religious, conservative person, but no: he's a gay man, living his sexuality very promiscuously (also with married men. Or priests). But apparently there is no problem as long as everything is done in hypocritical secret.
Don't think of yourself as a "family wrecker." That relationship was probably broken long before you entered the picture. I was in a situation similar to yours many years ago. Your friend sounds like he was/is very confused, engaging in risky behavior. I hope you are in a good place now, and happy.
Load More Replies...