"She slept with my husband": 10 women on exactly why their friendships ended.

When I was 25, a good friend broke up with me. 

Well, actually she didn’t break up with me, she just disappeared - ghosted me, although we didn’t have that word for it then. She stopped contacting me, and replying to me, until I took the hint and left her alone.

It hurt. 

It still hurts.

Watch: We share our relationship deal breakers. Post continues below.

I turn 40 soon and I’m having a big birthday lunch to celebrate. In planning the guest list I’ve found myself reflecting on the significant friendships that have shaped my life - and this friendship was one of them.

Initially, it shaped my life in really special, loving ways - I was a bridesmaid for this friend’s wedding, godmother to her first child, and I supported her through a difficult diagnosis. 

Then, after she cut me off, it was significant in the fact that it was painful, and it taught me about the deep pain that can come when you lose a friend.

I knew I wanted to write a piece about the experience of lost friendships and so I put the word out to the Mamamia community asking people to share their stories of friendship breakups or breakdowns. 

The response was immense. Close to 50 people contacted me with their stories of heartbreak and confusion due to the loss of a friend. I found my heart breaking for the people who expressed devastation, confusion, sorrow, heartache and deep, unending sadness over the loss of friendships.

I think the reason it hurts so much when a friendship ends is because we reveal so much of ourselves to our friends. They know the good, bad and ugly in deep ways we may not even feel comfortable revealing to a lover or partner. 

We’ve often grown up side by side with these friends - they’ve helped us through school days, university exams, first kisses, first loves, family breakdowns, and we’ve born witness to all of that for them too. 

Below are 10 stories about friendships ending that the Mamamia community shared with me. 

I don’t know if it makes me feel better knowing that other people have been through this too (and I certainly don’t want others to suffer), but it does make me feel less alone.

"We drifted apart."

I had a best friend from high school who was like a sister to me. As we got older, we saw each other less - I travelled a lot - but when we caught up; it was like no time had passed (normally two to three times each year). We also wrote long letters and emails to keep each other updated on our lives.

She visited me in Australia when I gave birth to my first child, and it wasn’t a great visit. After that we drifted apart. 

I’d love to get in touch with her and patch things up, but she’s changed her email and phone number, and she’s not on social media.

'I miss her too much.'

I lived and worked with my best friend for years. For some friends that is too much, but we loved it; it made our friendship stronger. 

She was there for me when I moved to a new city and didn’t have a place to live, and I was there for her when her relationship broke up (he lived with us too). 

After they broke up, she decided to move out, and this is where it all fell apart. 

She blindsided me and it completely broke me, I couldn’t even talk to her about it because I knew I’d scream.

Then she moved out when I was overseas, which I knew was happening, but it was so sad to come home to an empty house. 

We never recovered from this. We tried to talk about it, but it ended in yelling, then I messaged her all my feelings, and she blocked me and ignored me.

I saw her in May, the first time in two years, at a mutual friend’s birthday party. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t do it, I miss her too much. I know if I let her back in she’ll hurt me again and I can’t go through pain like that ever again.

Listen to Mamamia podcast The Undone, where hosts Emily and Lucy break down the friendship breakup. Post continues below.

'She met someone else.'

When I was in my late teens I was best friends with a girl who lived next door to me. 

We did everything together and were completely inseparable until she met another girl (just a friend, nothing romantic) and they shut me out. They would never invite me along or include me. It was so incredibly hurtful. 

That was almost 30 years ago, and it still hurts. 

'She slept with my husband.'

I had a friend that I met through my husband. 

She was a really good friend - kind, funny, supportive, non-judgemental, but also a bit flaky - she’s had a very traumatic life. She became very important to both of us, like family, and when we got married, she was my bridesmaid and she did an amazing job. 

About a year after we married I fell pregnant, and she helped me through my very high-risk pregnancy. A few weeks after I had the baby she came over for dinner and drinks. The baby was fussing, and I had to put her to bed, so my husband and my friend stayed up drinking and talking. 

They ended up sleeping together that night. 

They told me straightaway, and she left the house the next morning. She tried to stay in touch a lot at first, and then she stayed away.

I miss her. I’m devastated at what happened, but I’m devastated too that it caused me to lose my closest friend. 

My husband and I really worked on our relationship and healed, but I’ve still lost my best friend. 

'She just ignores me.'

I worked with my best friend for many years until I had to take a couple of years' leave because my husband and I both had some health issues. 

While I was on leave, she acted in my management role, and since I’ve returned I’ve gone back into this position. 

She now oscillates between completely ignoring me, disrespecting me as a manager, or being outwardly rude to me. 

I miss our friendship and our working relationship so much - I just want to resign. I’ve asked her if she really wanted my role, and said I’d step aside if she did, but she said no. I’ve asked her if I did something to upset her and she won’t talk about it. 

I’m pleasant to her at work, but cry every night. I just wish we didn’t work together so I could let it go.

"I just wish we didn’t work together." Image: Canva. 

'He asked me not to tell anyone.'

I had a friend from my uni days (let’s call her Jane) over 30 years ago, and we were very close. I spent a lot of time with Jane and her family, but she didn’t know my family very well. 

When her dad got sick with a degenerative illness, she really relied on her friends to help her through this time, and then needed our support when she was grieving his passing. 

Fast forward many years later and my dad was very ill with cancer. He was a private person and asked us not to share his diagnosis with others. He also wanted to have a small funeral with immediate family only when he passed. 

One day I was at the hospital and ran into another friend, and I couldn’t lie about my dad. This friend must have told Jane and some others about my dad’s illness. Jane got annoyed that I hadn’t told her about my father’s health and cut me off, she was actually a bit of a bully and excluded me from the friendship group we’d shared. 

Basically, she cancelled our friendship (and my inclusion in our friendship group) because I honoured my dad’s dying wishes. 

'It still stings.'

One of my oldest friends - we’d been friends for over 12 years - just deleted me and another friend from her life. 

One day she just stopped responding to texts, blocked us on social media, and never explained why. Five years on it still stings. 

'I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me.'

I was best friends with a girl from uni for over 10 years; we did everything together and always looked out for each other. I then moved interstate, and she became a bit distant. 

Fast-forward a few months and a mutual friend was having an engagement party that I was coming home for. My best friend and I were really excited - we’d get to see each other, and get dressed up. I asked about the dress code and my best friend said jeans and a nice top was perfect, so that’s what I wore. 

I found out when I got there that the girl whose party it was had actually got married earlier that day in a small ceremony, and my best friend had been invited, but I hadn’t. 

So the 'engagement party' was actually a wedding reception. 

I couldn’t understand why my best friend didn’t tell me the dress code was now formal - I turned up in the requisite jeans and top, while they were all dressed to the nines. 

I felt left out, but I felt more hurt that my best friend wouldn’t loop me in so I didn’t feel so silly not knowing what was going on, paying all this money on flights and accommodation for an event I felt excluded from, and then for turning up in the wrong clothes. 

I ended the friendship because I felt so betrayed, and it still hurts more than any romantic relationship break up I've ever had.

'She knew I liked him.'

When we were at uni, my good friend kissed a boy at a party that she knew I liked. I confronted her about it afterwards, but she said she thought I was over him and she seemed really sorry. I forgave her.

Then a few years later, I really liked a guy in our group of friends. 

We’d all been friends with him for years, but nothing more than friends. Then he and I found we were catching the same bus to work in the mornings and so we’d sit together and chat, often have lunch, and there were butterflies fluttering away in my stomach.

I had told this good friend that I really liked him and that I thought he liked me. We were all going to a 30th for another friend and I planned a killer outfit and was ready to either say something or kiss this guy. 

Almost as soon as we got there my good friend swooped in, she was all over him, and I was so hurt. They drunkenly kissed, I was in tears, she said she was sorry, and he was mortified and said he really liked me. 

I still chat with him on the bus and stuff, and I think maybe I could like him again. But I will never trust that friend again. 

I’m pleasant to her in a group, but I don’t see her or talk to her on my own. It hurt me so much that she would purposely go after the guy I liked. I still can’t understand why. 

'It was so important to me.'

One of my best friends missed my baby shower. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding too.

She sent a message to our group chat while the baby shower was on - I don’t know if she forgot about it or what. 

When I messaged her and said how hurt my husband and I were that she missed it, she seemed really put out that I was upset. 

She sent us a gift, but that wasn’t the point - she wouldn’t even acknowledge the event had happened. 

It’s been two years and we still haven’t spoken.

Feature Image: Canva.