This is my first time posting on Reddit, so forgive me if I am not doing this right. I would also like to apologize now because this will be long. I am just trying to know if I should be feeling guilty or not and I need some input.
I (22 F) met my former friend, let’s call her Maddy (21 F), during high school. She and I were close and during that time, but lost connection the summer after graduation. During that summer I met my current partner, who I will call Jason (23 M), at a dinner. For context, we were and still are long distance due to college and work. Maddy and I went to separate colleges. She stayed in our home town and I went to a community college and I went to a University two hours away.
Maddy and I reconnected during the second semester of our Freshman year when I reached out asking for advice about transferring to a University closer to home which had better opportunities. She and I talked for hours and I put in my transfer request that day. I was accepted and started at that University the following year.
Over the summer between our first and second year of college we became closer than ever. Talking pretty much everyday and hanging out at least once a week. Everything was going great except for her going on “hiatus”, which was essentially her telling me that she was going to be off social media and not responding to anyone for anywhere between a week to a month. I didn’t really understand, but went with it because who am I to judge.
Things started to become weird between us when she dropped from being a full time student to part time because she was struggling with her mental health. She was in therapy and was trying to get better but wanted to cut back on somethings in her life to make sure she was okay. With that being said, she became more reliant on me saying that her therapist wants her to reach out to someone she felt comfortable talking to when she was in a bad place. Normally that would not be an issue, but she messaged, called, or requested we hangout pretty much everyday. I informed her that I was happy she was comfortable coming to me, but I did not have much time between college and work to always be able to hangout or respond and asked if she could give me sometime. It became clear that she was not going to respect that when she would message me paragraphs saying that i had no time for her and that she was always there for me. She would delete messages within 10 minutes if I did not get to them. This went on for month. It was a cycle of her asking for me to be there more than I could and me telling her that I was trying my best between work and college.
It came to a point that I was talking to her more than my family that I lived with. I even had to share my work and class schedules with her to prove I was actually busy when I wasn’t responding. She didn’t listen and would resort back to telling me I wasn’t giving her the attention she needed and saying that I was not communicating. After a while I started to try and distance myself for my mental health as I was exhausted and falling back into a depression. I was going to school from 8 am to 2 pm and driving an hour and a half to my job to work from 4 pm to 10 pm, getting home around 10:30 to do homework, take a shower, go to bed around midnight to wake up drive and hour in a half to school at 6:30 am. Monday through Friday that was my routine and I worked one day of the weekend. The day I had off from school and work was usually dedicated to her. When I didn’t have work after school I would try to catch up with her. I was also in and out of the hospital for ongoing medical issues. After all of that she still was not happy with my efforts and complained I wasn’t there enough.
It got to a point where she messaged me that she was going to “give me space” since I wasn’t giving her what she needed and that I was going to leave her and move in with my boyfriend Jason and she would be alone.
Quote directly from our messages: “So yes, I’m mad at you for not being here whenever I need you most. I’m mad at you for leaving me on delivered (even though you’ve gotten better at it) and I’m acknowledging the fact that it’s not your fault.”
I called her and asked to discuss it and we worked it out, but like always she would repeat the same pattern. Things hit the fan after a night where she asked me to hangout at 9 pm and I told her I could not because I had an early morning class and had to go to bed early. She asked if she could send me voice messages and I said that would be okay. She then responded nvm. I was confused and called the following morning to check up on her while I was driving to school. It went to voicemail. Then, I called her the next day because I was starting to worry. Again straight to voicemail. A few days later I opened instagram and saw I had a message from her. It said that if I did not respond within the day we would not be friends anymore. I saw it 2 days after she sent it. (I don’t have notifications turned on for instagram) that was my breaking point. I asked her what I did to deserve that. I said I was confused and was trying my best and all she could do was blame me for not being there, leaving her in the future to move in with my boyfriend like we planned on, and “not communicating” with her. I told her that it was part of growing up and I was doing the best I could despite dealing with my own mental and physical health. The communication died there and she messed me twice over the course of a year basically just asking for old videos or checking if I meant to send her a friend request over snap. I did not.
Here is where I may have been the asshole. I messaged her a few days ago saying I wished her the best and I was sorry I didn’t say it before. She responded with paragraphs telling me how bad of a friend I was, I was never there for her, I didn’t communicate even though she always did, I didn’t hold space for her, and that I was just trying to rid myself of guilt so I could move in with Jason with a clean slate. The part that made me the most angry was that she said I told someone we knew that we weren’t friends and that was apparently wrong. She said my mom came into the casino where she worked and started at her for two minutes and said I was messaging people about her. None of which happened except when I told a mutual that we weren’t friends after he asked if I had talked to her. Apparently that makes me a horrible person. I responded basically saying that didn’t happen, my mom doesn’t go to casinos, and to stop bringing my now fiancé up whenever she is made at me. I told her that u tried my best throughout that whole time and I did try to communicate but she never listened. She insisted that she communicated with me and I never held space for her but she always did for me. Mind you, she never really checked in on me when I was in and out of the hospital, told me I would be fine when I confided in her about my mental health and that I shouldn’t go to therapy because she didn’t see anything wrong with me, told me she thought it was a bad idea for me to get engaged to the guy I had been with for three years at that that point, and plenty more. I was so angry at her bringing up my fiancé again, blaming me for everything, and lying about my family that I kind of snapped and messaged her “F*** you. I tried to be nice by reaching out and you started rehashing things from the past, and you need serious help”. That is where I left it, blocked her, and have been feeling guilty for the past few days.
Again sorry for the long post, but please let me know if I was the asshole in this situation.