Have you ever lost a friend? Social media shares reasons why lifelong friendships end: Always ‘borrowing’, ‘never wrong’

Friendships are always precious, especially the ones that have been with you for what feels like forever. But have you ever had to cut ties with a lifelong friend? A viral Reddit thread explored what the final straw was for social media users that ended a lifelong friendship.

Netizens listed several reasons why lifelong friendships end, including habitual “borrowing money”, the “I am never wrong” attitude, and the victim mentality.

A social media user said a couple he was friends with always kept “borrowing money” to “feed their kids” or get “their kids medication, it’s an emergency!”

“Truly, they were destitute; these instances were plausible. But, one day, after being told one of the kids had been hospitalised and released home, and between the Uber rides to and from the hospital, they didn’t have enough for his meds at the pharmacy, I signed on to Facebook. I saw pictures of them - “sick” kid included - at a block party,” the user shared, adding that it destroyed the friendship for them.

“For the record, I never expected them to pay back borrowed money for food or medicine. I was happy to help. Those kids were like my kids, too. It was betrayal, and finding out I wasn’t loved like I loved that got me,” the user added.

Another user said that for them, the last straw in a friendship is when “everything was someone else’s fault – on both the macro and micro levels”.

“If it was an interpersonal issue, it was never his fault, ever. Relationship problems, always his partners at fault. Even when the same reasons caused each breakup. Got into a verbal altercation at the bar? Someone else’s fault completely,” the user explained, adding that friendship with that man “was too exhausting”.

The “I’m never wrong” group was one netizen's ultimate reason for ending a friendship.

“I have a close relative who is like that, and our relationship now consists of existing in the same group text chat for big family announcements. The problem with these kinds of people is that they learn and grow in a fundamentally broken way. We all make mistakes and have to check ourselves from time to time. However, these people refuse, and even a conversation about nothing important (ex., TV show, movies, etc.) is an exhausting endeavour because their opinion is right and yours is wrong if it strays from theirs,” the netizen shared.

They added, “I remember the day I gave up on them. I just sat there and thought, ‘Why should I bother engaging with someone who makes me feel miserable most of the time?’”

The saddest friendship account was when a woman had to cut ties with her best friend of over 20 years. She said they had kids about the same age, and their daughters were best friends.

The woman on Reddit said her best friend had left her daughter, a 15-year-old at the time, with her for a week while she went on a trip to Bali, with which she had “no problem at all”. However, her daughter attempted to end her life at her place.

“I took her to hospital, got care for her, sat by her bed for 3 days, made sure she was set up with a social worker, got her connected with the local mental health unit and youth services team, and put a plan in place to help her recover and move forward etc etc etc,” she shared, adding that she had called her mum on day one and kept her appraised.

The Redditor shared that not only did her best friend not change her flights and come home “because it would have cost $200 to change the flights”, she told her “oh you don't have to go to the hospital every day to sit with her, that's what the nurses are for”.

However, when her friend finally got back, she flipped out at the Redditor for “parenting her child behind her back”.

“I'm still in contact with the kid - she's living independently and working as a baker's apprentice, she's gone no contact with her mother, but she still rings me up when she needs a grown up to talk to,” she shared, adding that she “will never speak to that ‘friend’ again.”