How to handle this friendship
Hi everyone, I need some outside perspective on a long-term friendship that has become incredibly draining. We’ve always had frequent arguments, but things recently reached a breaking point.
A while ago, I noticed a weird distance between us. The conversations felt uncomfortable, so I reached out to talk about it and reconnect. Instead of a warm reaction, she seemed completely annoyed. Her harsh tone made me to the decision to take a break/distance.
Then I called her again to have a phone call. I could not reach her and she called me back and told me about her apartment search. She took her bad mood out on me. When I tried to comfort her by saying "things will get better," she snapped at me, saying my optimism was inappropriate. After that, I decided I was done and stepped back.
Neither of us reached out for a long time. However, she recently saw that I was spending time with other friends and family, and suddenly she confronted me. She accused me of ignoring her and said she "doesn't feel seen" by me.
I found this incredibly ironic. I text her back, honestly explaining that our last conversations felt very negative, that she seemed constantly annoyed with me.
Her response was again not nice to me. She claimed she is always the one listening to me and supporting me, and accused me of abandoning her. She even said that when I reached out to reconnect before, I "came with nothing and talked about nothing." Now she expects me to show her empathy because she is doing poorly, but honestly? I am completely checked out. I don't even want to give her that empathy anymore.
I told her I was sorry she felt that way, but also that her messages that she wrote me now hurt me. I was there for her - but maybe not in a way that she needed. It feels like no matter what I do, it’s wrong.
And what really gives me a bad feeling is that I tried to talk to her when I felt this distance between us. Also when I called her to talk afterwards and she was uset with the apartment issue. And now she came to me with not feeling seen and I am again the bad person. She said, that I do victim blaiming bc she came to me with her issue. And know I am telling her that her message hurted me because I tried to be there.
How should I handle this? I have again the feeling to do everything wrong. But on the other side before her messages I did not wanted to write
Posted Jun 15, 2026, 12:49 PM UTC