Hello everyone,
My Dad died at the end of last year. To cut a long story short, he had a rare neurological condition that greatly impacted his daily living and our family life.
I was his main carer for several years, helped by my Mum. He was hospitalised for a long time before his passing, became very poorly during his time in there and after complications, died in hospital.
I’ve just entered my thirties (an age that for some reason feels like an awkward/extra difficult life stage to lose my Dad) and don’t have any siblings, so now it’s just me and my Mum.
Our friends and family friends have been fantastic and people we’ve only met recently have been like a second family to us.
The reaction from my longest friend has been something that I’m struggling to understand.
I’ve basically known her since I could walk, so you get the picture on how well-established the friendship is.
She knew the situation regarding my Dad’s health but when he was hospitalised, she never messaged me to ask how he was getting on in there and the next communication I had with her was when she found out he’d died.
When he passed, I put an announcement on Facebook a few days after and the expected condolence text came through like lightning.
Some additional information is that she has an on/off relationship with a guy who she seems to worship, but he treats her like crap. She keeps going back to him and most of the times I’ve met her in the past few years, the conversation has always been focused on her life.
She never asked about my Dad from when he was diagnosed and only engaged in conversation about him if I brought him up.
Before the funeral, she was messaging me a lot asking how I was, but frankly there was so much stuff to deal with after his passing (death is expensive and not straightforward!), I didn’t have chance to see her.
She came to the funeral and I met her in a café after to fill her in on what had happened leading up to Dad’s death, but since then I haven’t really heard from her.
I’m positive she keeps going to see her ex, because if I’ve asked her where she’s been (she’s been away quite a lot recently), she flat out ignores my question. She just tells me she’s away but not who she’s with.
The last message I sent her before Dad died had a load of questions on it, but she didn’t answer one of them. She ignored it for months until she found out he’d passed.
So, last week she asked to meet me and I can’t because me and Mum are still dealing with post-death stuff.
She asked me how I was feeling and I said I was feeling really down lately about him dying and all she said was “That’s hard.”
Then, she started talking about her life on the rest of the message, i.e. her work, her inability to be able to get a dentist appointment and that her social life has suffered because of her workload and dental problems.
I feel she’s being dismissive and insensitive, but I don’t need the drama of calling out her self-centredness on top of my grief.
To be honest, the friendship means little to me now and if I didn’t socialise with her anymore, it wouldn’t bother me, but we live in the same area and I’m bound to see her, which has the potential to make things awkward.
I don’t want to purposefully fall out with her, but paring back our interactions wouldn’t be a bad thing, I feel.
Question is, how do I do this, whilst living alongside grief and protecting mine and my Mum’s new version of life?
Thank you!
. I’m not going to say I understand, as loss is different for everyone. But what I can say, is I had a similar friend in what you have described. What happened with me is my dear Grandad passed suddenly on the 19th Feb 2024. In the few days after he passed, I was sitting in bed not knowing what I should be doing. I called someone who I thought was a close friend, and whilst she offered her sympathies, she quickly started talking about her problems. I can still remember it, in bed with a bottle of wine listening to her tell me about her son’s psychosis whilst I was grieving. We were quite close but for some time, the friendship was phasing out. The turning point for me, was that I text her a few days before the year of Grandads passing and all she said was ‘i’m sorry’. On the actual day not a single text from her. Whilst 2 people i’ve recently become close to lit a candle for him. It hurt me, but as I’ve found out she only thinks about herself. I recognised our friendship had been phasing out, we have barely talked. It is ok for friendships to phase out, it does sound like thats whats happening to you. When something like a loved one passing away happens, I guess we see who truly cares. It sounds like you know this is already happening and you have other people around who are being so supportive to you and your Mum. In the end, I decided to move forward by unfriending her, deleting her number and blocking her because I got to a point where she was quite toxic. Personally that felt right for me, but I know it could be different for you an thats ok :). Its understandable it could be awkward scaling this friendship back, but it does sound like you need to put your focus on you and your Mum. Its terribly overwhelming what you’ve been through. Maybe be courteous to your friend but if she talks about herself, limit the conversation? Take care xx