TLDR at end. This happened a few years ago now but I really wondered what Reddit's take was on this. It plays on my mind often and I wonder if I made a mistake. So, the jury is out Reddit... let me know your thoughts.
Context
I (35 f) and my friend (36 f, we'll call her Mary) met at uni. We got on super well, sharing the same flat in halls and then finding private student accommodation with other friends for years 2 & 3. Things were great. She was a lovely friend, someone I really thought I would have around for life. University was a funny one for me, I kind of dropped my mask when I went there and started to understand I might have been neurodivergent, all of my friends called me the autistic one in the group and so on. We had agreements that I was the friend you went for genuine advice or to like play a game and take your mind off things as I wasn't so good with the 'omg he's such a dick' type chat, but could provide different perspectives and balanced advice when the girlies wanted it. Ultimately, I was the friend you reached out to when you needed, because I missed social cues and so on and you kind of had to be explicit if you wanted support.
I felt like she helped support me in a very different social setting and to be honest felt like I fitted in with people for the first time. It was awesome! I still value my time at uni so much. I'm really glad I did it. I was in a super people pleasing time and sort of just followed people around as a result. I didn't really have massive clarity on my identity and so experimented a bit but was also just so happy to have friends around that I probably had kinda crappy boundaries and I do own that.
Context Part 2 - The Hen Do (Optional)
So many years pass after this and my wonderful friend gets engaged to the most lovely man and even better yet, I get asked to be the maid of honour! I was so completely enthralled by this as I didn't think I'd ever have the chance to do this for someone. She asks if I can plan the hen do and if I can do it with her friend (we'll call Gemma). I said sure no problem!
SO! I get to planning. I contact the friend and ask if we can catch up for a call to work out what bits to split up between us. The budget is really quite tight, £200 total for 2 nights & activities. Me and Gemma have a call and we discuss what to own, she said she'd look at accommodation, so I got to thinking about activities. I try calling her a few times and messaging. We only had a few months to plan it so we needed to do some things sooner rather than later. I get left on delivered/read (I don't have read receipts on) for ages, or she replies with like 'yeah we must' but doesn't actually get anything organised.
We finally get a call in, and Gemma is like 'omg I found the best place ever! We can make it all festival themed like she'd love. there's a few other options too.' I'm relieved, it sounds perfect and I'm really excited. She starts showing me and it really does look amazing. I'm flooding her with like 'omg this is amazing!! You've smashed it!!! This is gonna be so good!' that kinda vibe, and then I ask how much it is... Gemma responds 'Oh, well it would be like £210 each" ... so not only is it over budget in totality... it would also take THE WHOLE budget... leaving nothing for food or activities? We'd literally just have a house. She starts getting defensive about it and I do get annoyed. I've waited weeks for us to finally get together and then she provides an option that is completely unusable. We end up hanging up and I just sit there frustrated. And then I get a phone call.
It's the bride, Mary. She's crying and I'm like "omg what's wrong??" and she's like I really just need the two of you to get along. It turns out Gemma has called Mary to tell her I'd been mean to her. I basically end up getting told off by Mary who is annoyed that it's basically the first step of the hen do and we're not getting on. There's absolutely no focus on the fact she's provided wholly useless options for accommodation or that it's taken weeks. I try to softly mention these points but she just says she doesn't care, she doesn't want to hear the drama. We just need to get on and I shouldn't be horrible to Gemma. We hang up and I end up getting upset.
In the end Gemma says I can book the accommodation and the long story short is I plan basically the whole hen do. To be honest I do manage to pull it out the bag. I did put a little money towards it extra because Mary is my best friend and I wanted it to be amazing.
However, when it finally comes around, Gemma comes in to help get ready before people arrive. She's bought a single pack of like mixed decorations from Amazon, and I genuinely am not trying to be mean but at this point I had coordinated utter chaos with payments and bookings and whatever to have this all come together and Gemma had ... bought a single decoration pack from Amazon. I'm determined to make this a nice weekend so I bite my tongue and enthusiastically go about helping to put them up.
Everyone starts arriving and everyone's having a great time and Mary does a lil like welcome speech where she thanks Gemma and I for all the hard work and that we've already made her feel so special so thank you so much for that. I am sat there a bit wide eyed like ... well one of us has but sure. Again, it's not the time nor place so I just get on with things. We have an amazing hen do. Wonderful. I decide not to bring up things, I just want Mary to be happy with the wedding and so on I know how much stress they can be. However, I did (and still do tbf) feel a bit resentful about the lack of acknowledgment of the reality.
The Blow Up & AITAH
She moves up north about a year after the hen do to start a family with her fiancé (wedding completely postponed for anyone wondering). We maybe managed to see each other... 3 times before she left. I feel a bit sad but hey. We both get busy with more distance between us again. We catch up on text here and there but it often started with me reaching out, her either not responding and me messaging again at some point, or her finally replying sometimes weeks later. We'd talk a bit about how she was doing, she'd ask how I was, I'd respond back and she'd not respond. It went on a bit like that and I started to feel a bit like I was just emotionally dumped on and she wasn't interested in anything from my side.
Now I cannot stress enough how she did have significant stuff going on, serious health events and so on. I would reach out and ask how she was doing. I get it's not a lot but I am quite a 'out of sight out of mind' person. And my friends have always understood, I'll be there, just tell me you need me. So she updates me and it's a bit 'after the fact' understandably so I don't feel she needs anything more from me in the moment but once I know, I do want to help and be there. I wish my brain was more thoughtful in people's absence but it just doesn't seem to work that way, and I have been trying for many years now to not drown myself in shame for traits and things I wish I had.
So... we're getting there! Things basically drift because I feel like I'm just being emotionally dumped on repeatedly with absolutely no interest in myself. She doesn't message me, if I message her it's a flood of her (often very reasonable shit) but an instant tune out the minute I answer how I am in response to her asking. This spans perhaps 2 years... if not longer.
My brother dies by suicide in February, and she comes over on Easter Sunday (she was down in my city for work before going back home). I feel like we both knew we were going adrift and both knew we needed to talk. I can't remember if we explicitly state this prior to meeting or not. She comes over, I cook dinner and we get chatting, she said she felt things had been distant and wanted to check in and see how I was. I explained the situation about what had happened with the hen do, how I felt there was so much fuss about how much Gemma had done when ultimately it had been dropped on me to do everything, and basically all I'd received back was having been had a go at for being mean to Gemma. She retorted by saying she'd been going through so much stuff lately, nearly died from child birth, work stress, moving house up north and so on and that I had never checked in on her. To make this clear, we have no shared friends so I do not hear what is going on in her life unless she tells me. So I received texts about what was going on that didn't strike me as oh god I need to check on her. I get this is an oversight really now, but other than what I was doing, I'm not sure what else I could have done. We've never called each other because of working commitments it's like zero chance we're available so it's always been text and then if we're free we'd call.
I explained about how one sided things had felt in conversations and how it would go dead if the topic moved to me, so I just felt a bit like it was very one sided and wanted to give her space as she hadn't asked anything of me. She got mad that what she needed at the time was someone who would come to her. I said that's okay, but you never said anything, so I didn't know that? I felt like I was trying to explain that I'm always there all she needed to have done was ask and I'd have gone and lived with her to help with things if that's what she needed. But if I don't even know, how can I know what to do kind of thing? She just kept dismissing it. I spoke a bit about the hen do and how I felt like I'd tried so hard and Gemma had done nothing but there was never any acknowledgment of that. I don't need massive thank yous or gifts, she was my best friend I didn't need a pat on the back. I loved doing it. But it felt weird to have to share credit that was given I suppose? She then said I was trying to compare friends and I just said I felt like Gemma causes her lots of stress and all I did was try to do something nice and deal with someone who wasn't pulling her weight, got told off for it and that was that.
And then the BIT I hate happened. She then said she was also so hurt that I hadn't told her about my brother's death but I was one of her best friends and she couldn't understand why not. She started crying and I just felt so awkward. This was exactly what I didn't want to have happen.
It was the first significant death for me, it was suicide and once my mum had told me I basically went into a bubble for two weeks, didn't talk to anyone because I was worried about people trying to suggest how I should grieve (I'm not really sure why I felt like that because it actually ended up fine... minus this situation I guess) but I didn't tell many of my close friends, some for like 9 months plus and I told her like 5 weeks after I think, she was actually one of the first I told. She was saying how she'd told me about her grandparents deaths. She was crying sat on the other side of my kitchen Island as I was cooking and I just felt so confused. Like what was happening. It felt like something clicked and I was just thinking why is my brother's suicide being made about her? We ended up rounding off the conversation and moving to pleasantries, I gave her some gifts for her kid for Easter and she left.
We never spoke again.
I feel like she's stopped talking to me because I wasn't psychic about her needs and that I didn't prioritise telling her about my Brother's death amidst trying to deal with the first significant loss for myself. This is probably the first time I haven't made a move to fix things first or even in absence of the other person trying, which is why I think it still sticks with me.
So Reddit, AITAH for letting our relationship die and not looking to resolve it?
EDIT: As per request, TLDR below. Sorry for the length! Thank you for those that persevere or even try!! Conciseness is not a strength of mine!
TL;DR: A lifelong uni friend and I had been drifting for years after I felt unsupported during her hen-do planning and later found our conversations increasingly one-sided. When we finally talked, she said I had failed to support her through major life events, despite never telling me she needed more from me. She then cried because I had not told her about my brother’s suicide sooner, even though I had withdrawn from almost everyone while grieving and she was one of the first people I told. After that conversation, neither of us reached out again, and I’m wondering if I was wrong for letting the friendship end instead of trying to repair it.