I met my best friend in college more than two decades ago. Our friendship has definitely grown over the years, and also shifted and adapted as we’ve changed (no one stays the same from the age of 18 to mid-40s!). However, lately, I’ve really been struggling with the friendship overall. It started a couple of years ago. My friend has mental health issues and she was going through a really difficult phase. She was very stressed out at work and also had some medical issues that were difficult to diagnose. I knew she was struggling, so I did my best to support her, and also stopped leaning on her for my support. Which has happened in the past, and then it rebalanced, but this time it didn’t. She’s been doing better since last year, but there continues to be a bit of a distance. I can’t tell if it’s my fault. I stopped confiding in her and found other go-to friends. Maybe she stopped asking. But now we’re in a place where our usual text interactions are her complaining to me, and me expressing sympathy.

She is also my travel buddy – we have generally taken one big trip a year, for many years. However, these trips used to involve a lot of walking/hiking, and she is not in shape for that. The thing is, I still have lots of big hiking goals. I told her that this is very important to me. And if she isn’t willing to put the work in, that’s completely fine. But I might not be available for a default multi-week vacation every single year. I don’t have that much vacation time. It was a big deal that I was actually setting a boundary and I worked carefully at my wording. She didn’t respond in the moment and told me she needed to process. Later, her interpretation back to me was that I told her that unless she “got her [expletive] together” I didn’t want to be her friend or ever travel together again. She told me she cried for days and was deeply depressed after.

Finally, this week was maybe the worst. She needed a friend to take her to a medical procedure. I took a long flight to do this. And then, due to crazy weather, I got stuck halfway there. I texted that I was stuck (she was asleep – no complaints there). She responded in the morning and did ask if I needed anything. And then didn’t text again all day. Didn’t check in to see if I got a new flight. If I needed a place to stay that night. How I felt after a night of no sleep. Nothing. My other friends checked in multiple times – they knew I was having an awful day and needed support. So where was she? It was further proof that our friendship has morphed into a pattern that is not sustainable for me.

I’ve examined my desire for this friendship, and I truly don’t want to end it. However, without realizing it, on my end she’s been downgraded from “best friend” to “a good friend.” 

I need help though; how on earth do I express that to her, without her taking it as breaking up our friendship? Especially with her history of mental health issues, I don’t want to hurt her.

– Hurt