AIO for thinking my former best friends blindsided me with years of hidden resentment?

Hi everyone. I really need some serious outside opinions because this friendship breakup has me questioning everything.

I (25X) was best friends with a couple (E and K, 28X and 29X) for about five years. I was already becoming friends with them before they dated. We talked almost every day, shared a lot of the same hobbies and interests, and I considered them family. We lived in different countries, so I'd visit them several times a year because it was easier for me to afford the trip and easier for them to host me. Over the years I also helped them a lot of times when they were struggling. This year I had bought plane tickets months in advance to visit them for two weeks, and even turned down another trip with friends because the dates overlapped.

A little over a week before I was supposed to fly out, E suddenly got assigned a work trip and cancelled hosting me altogether, without giving me any room to sort something out with them such as moving the trip or letting me book a hotel on the few days when they couldn't host me. I lost all the money on my non-refundable flights, couldn't afford a hotel for the full two weeks on such short notice, and lost my vacation plans. E offered to pay me back for the flights at some point (they still haven't now months later). Because I'm autistic, the sudden cancellation also triggered a meltdown. I told them the news had really devastated me, that I appreciated them offering to pay me back the wasted money, that I didn't blame them for what happened, and that I needed some space to process. I also expressed my sadness online in one vague, one-line tweet.

Instead of giving me space, I woke up to a huge message from K (sent at 3 a.m.) telling me that my reaction was too much and that I should seek therapy for it, that I didn't care about their responsibilities, that if I had visited then the trip wouldn't have been fun for them anyway, and that they felt like a side character in my life.

When I responded that I felt hurt by this way of communication and that I thought it was very harsh after I had always treated them with compassion when they had struggled similarly, E responded with a 50-minute voice message listing everything I'd apparently done wrong over the previous several years. None of these issues had ever been mentioned to me before. Among other things, I was told I was defensive, childish, dismissive, jealous, blindly competitive, that I deliberately ignored boundaries, that "yelling is just another Wednesday" for me, and they even compared me to an abusive ex.

I apologized for the things I genuinely thought I'd done wrong, asked questions about the accusations that I didn't understand because a lot was said without examples, and tried to work through everything calmly. Instead, it felt like every response just unlocked another level of criticism. This turned into weeks of voice notes and texts about everything I'd ever done wrong while they mostly ignored my apologies and ghosted me for days after I raised my own concerns about the way they were treating me. After another period of being left on read for weeks after I had poured my heart out trying to talk things out, I told them that if they didn't want to work things out and this friendship was over, I would accept that. Instead of giving me a clear answer, they dismissed me saying that "it's all good," even though they clearly hadn't read a single thing I'd written.

The part that really gets me is that they claimed all of this was an attempt to "move forward," but there were never any suggestions for how to fix the friendship. It was just a crazy long list of accusations. They even started bringing up completely random events from years earlier as evidence of a supposed "pattern."

One example was my university graduation visit two years ago. From my perspective, I'd spent weeks preparing. I researched gluten-free restaurants because of K's allergies, stocked my kitchen with gluten-free food, deep-cleaned my apartment, baked them a pie from scratch, gave them my bed while I slept in my small side room, organised our transport, meals and activities, and even packed them sandwiches for their journey home.

One complaint was that they didn't get enough time shopping because I wanted to spend about 30 minutes showing them the main university building and introducing them to a few friends after we had lunch. The reason we were already running so late was because they woke up late every day despite me repeatedly explaining that it would affect the schedule, and on that particular day K took about two extra hours getting ready. We still walked around the city until the shops closed and at the time all of us believed we'd have another day in the city later that week anyway, which we decided to give up to have a lazy day in my apartment instead.

Another example was that they stayed upset with me for two years because I said we could go to a museum "another day" after the booking website glitched on my phone. What I meant was another day during their visit, and I even said I'd try again on my laptop once we got home. Before we even got back, E successfully booked us tickets, so I assumed the problem was solved. I even offered to pay them back the ticket cost because I felt bad about the website issue, and they refused, so I genuinely thought everything was fine. Instead, they'd apparently held onto that anger from misunderstanding me in that moment for two years without ever mentioning it.

Looking back, it feels like they'd been secretly keeping score of every minor annoyance for years instead of talking to me when those things happened. Then, when I criticized their way of communication once, everything came out at once and was presented as proof that I was a terrible friend. They were calling me their best friend the day before, accepting my help whenever they were struggling, and acting like everything was fine until suddenly I was told that I'd basically been awful to them the whole time.

Eventually I ended the friendship. One blocked me everywhere, I told the other never to contact me again except about the flight money they still owe me.

I know I'm not perfect. I'm sure I made mistakes, and I apologized for the ones I understood. But I genuinely had thought that our disagreements in the past were resolved once we'd talked about them. Since they hid all major disagreements from me until this moment, I'd always thought that we never even had more than minor things happening between us.

So am I overreacting for thinking this whole way of handling conflict is completely ridiculous? I can accept that I made mistakes as well in this, but comparing me to an abusive ex, assigning malicious intent to old misunderstandings, sitting on resentment for years instead of talking to me, and unloading it all in one conversation while refusing to actually work toward resolving anything feels absolutely insane to me.

Looking back, I also feel really stupid. They clearly had a lot of resentment toward me that they never communicated, yet they were happy to accept my help.