Relationships can go sour in the snap of a finger, especially if you're friends with someone volatile or manipulative.
People from Quora shared the devastating story of how they lost their best friend in the world. All content was edited for clarity.
“She Didn’t Even Give Me A Chance To Deny It”
“We had been best friends since kindergarten, and our senior year of high school (12th grade), she started dating someone. One night, she was working at a local restaurant and her boyfriend called me and asked if I’d like to go grab a bite and see her at work. I had just broken up with my boyfriend. I assumed it was a nice gesture––most likely encouraged by my best friend––to get me out of the house on a Friday night, so I accepted.
He picked me up in his family’s extremely conspicuous company truck, we went to the restaurant and sat in my friend’s section while grabbing a bite (each paying for our own and tipping her generously). Afterward, he asked if I wanted to cruise around town. I said sure, so we did a couple of laps, chatted about my friend/his girlfriend. We stopped to say hello to a few people, and then he took me home.
The next morning, my best friend called me and said we needed to talk. She asked me to meet her at her boyfriend’s parents’ place of business. Odd, but okay. I got dressed and went right over. When I walked in, they both standing there, wide-stanced with their arms crossed over their chests, glaring at me.
‘Why did you try to kiss my boyfriend?’ she asked. I was confused. First, I’m not the type to kiss someone else’s boyfriend. Second, I didn’t even like her boyfriend. I was good friends with his older brother, but I’d always thought he was kind of a smarmy weirdo. I tolerated him because my best friend clearly liked him, and I’d only gone out with him the night before to see her – because her job had her working every single Friday and Saturday night and a few other nights most weeks. I missed my friend! But she wouldn’t hear it. Thirteen years of friendship were gone in one accusation. Her boyfriend said I tried to kiss him and she believed him over me. She didn’t speak to me for over a year.
When she did speak to me again, we were attending the same small college. She sought me out after class and apologized, in a way. She never apologized to me for believing that I’d hit on her boyfriend, but she did say she missed me. She told me she was getting married that summer and that the one thing that was making her unhappy was knowing that I wouldn’t be there because she’d dreamed of having me beside her as her maid of honor ever since we were kids. She asked if we could start fresh and if I’d share maid of honor duties with another close friend. I accepted, and it seemed like we had a fresh start. I stood up with her at her wedding, she and her new husband (whom I still could barely stand) moved out of state, and all was well.
We kept in touch, and a year later, I had saved up enough money to visit her. I spent a week with her, sleeping on the floor in her living room. Her husband was working almost every day, so I barely even saw him. I spent most of my time with my best friend and her family who had arrived for her brother’s wedding (which I also attended). It was a great week, and I was teary-eyed when I left since I had no idea when I’d manage to swing another visit and would be unlikely to see her when she visited their families in our hometown.
It was about a month before I realized something was very, very wrong. After I’d returned home, she stopped answering my calls and e-mails. Letters were returned to sender. No one in her family would answer my calls or e-mails either, and when I happened to meet them back in my hometown, they’d avert their eyes and pretend not to see me. Over a decade later, her sister-in-law finally told my mother why. After I’d left, her husband told her I tried to sleep with him. And this time, she didn’t even given me a chance to deny it. She’d just believed him and told everyone she knew that I was a home-wrecker.
They’ve been married for 22 years now and have a couple of kids. Over the years, I’ve heard rumors that her husband hasn’t always been faithful, but I wouldn’t know – nor do I really care beyond the long past and occasional sense of schadenfreude. She sent me a friend request on Facebook several years ago. I accepted it, and I think we exchanged pleasantries a time or two. She never apologized for branding me a home-wrecker to her family or even mentioned that it happened. I have no idea if her relatives still believe it happened. I’m Facebook friends with a few of her relatives and even chat with her brother occasionally, but I’m not sure if that’s permitted because they’ve all figured out I’m innocent or because they figure that if she can ‘forgive’ me, they can too. It doesn’t make much difference at this point. I live several hours away from my hometown and have little reason to visit, so what people there think is largely irrelevant to my life.
She and I aren’t really friends anymore and never will be. Her husband’s lies and her willingness to believe them killed that.“
“I Was Supposed To Be The Poor Friend”
“It’s very painful to think back about what happened to my friendship with ‘Annie,’ but I will miss her until the day I die.
We met at work when I was 25 and she was 22. It was a small office and we were the only two girls. She was such a sweet, fun, classy person and we bonded immediately. We spent the next 5 years working side by side sharing our joys, happinesses, trials and tribulations. I shared things with her that I never shared with anyone else and she did the same with me. We were closer than sisters.
Annie had a wonderful, carefree life. She and her husband were quite well off compared to me and mine. She was working to put her husband through medical school, but she had also inherited some money and they were well off financially. They went on regular scuba diving vacations to the Bahamas. They purchased a home at the same time we did in a more exclusive neighborhood and installed a pool and upscale landscaping. They purchased a boat. All in all, she had a beautiful life, and I was so proud to have her as a friend.
My life, in comparison, was a struggle. We lived pay check to pay check. There was never enough money for unexpected, but necessary, expenses. We had a son, so while Annie and her husband were traveling and vacationing, we were spending our money on daycare, preschool, and after school care.
I lived vicariously through Annie’s life. I loved hearing about her vacations and the people they travelled with. I loved seeing the jewelry she received for special occasions. Once, after telling me about something going on in her life, she got quiet and then asked me a serious question.
‘Do you ever get jealous when I talk about this stuff?’ It surprised me. I told her no and that I loved hearing about all the fun places and things she was able to go to and do. But she asked again…like she just couldn’t understand, ‘But how can you not be jealous?’ I told her I was just happy for her and was hopeful that I would one day be able to do those things as well. Maybe one day when our son moved away from home. We laughed and life went on.
Eleven years into our friendship, her husband was a doctor, they lived in a beautiful upscale community in Florida, and had a nanny for her daughter since she still worked. My husband and I were still struggling in the same house with the same financial issues. During a particularly terrible time (by then we had two children), I called her crying and she sent me an airline ticket to Florida. I literally ran away from home and lived with her for 10 days before I was able to get myself sorted out and return home. It was something I’ll always cherish.
Fast-forward another 10+ years when we are both in our early 40: Annie starts falling on hard times and my career begins to take off. Annie and her husband file for bankruptcy, lose almost everything, and eventually divorce. She moves to another state and spends another lump sum inheritance on a small business that goes bust within the year. She calls and tells me she doesn’t know how she will be able to put food on the table for her children (she has 3 at this time). I wake up in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep thinking about her. I empty my wallet and send her $180 with a loving note about how confident I am that things are going to turn around. Annie goes back to work and struggles, but manages to scrap up enough money to buy a starter home. We continue to talk long distance. Meanwhile, I’m promoted and transferred to another state. We stay in touch. She visits to see the new house and stays for a few days. When we talk, she seems disappointed that my husband and I are doing okay. She reminds me of issues we’ve had in the past.
Fast-forward another few years: I am promoted and transferred yet again. With every promotion, she asks what my new salary is. I tell her. I trust her. I look at her as a sister. We have no secrets. She says she’s proud of me and that I’ve taught her so much. I tell her how much she means to me.
But there is something I’m beginning to notice. The last time I saw her, she came to visit the new house as she was passing through our town. She seemed shocked and almost disappointed that I was driving a luxury car. Something in her tone about how I was moving up in the world. We laughed about the rusty car I used to drive where I killed a roach with a hammer as I was driving. I began to feel self-conscious when she commented on the ‘rock’ I was wearing on my ring finger. I downplayed it. It’s not so big. It just looks big. It was a gift to myself. I pull my hands back so it’s not so visible. I’m sensing something, but can’t quite understand what it is.
Fast-forward a few more years to 2007 (32 years into the friendship): we are talking on the phone and I mention that we are going on a trip to Las Vegas and how excited I am. She says she has a $100 chip from the Mirage that she’s going to send me. I protest, but she insists it’s money she owes me. I’m perplexed. I didn’t think she owed me any money. What she says next is like a knife to the heart because she almost spits it out and her voice is full of venom and hate ‘for the $180.’ We were silent for a few seconds as her words hung in the air. I was speechless. It took my breath away. I mumbled okay and she mailed it to me.
I thought a lot about that conversation and replayed our friendship in my head. I immediately regretted sending her the money. I had sent it 10 years earlier and completely forgot about it. She had not. I remembered what she had done for me when she flew me to Florida and I wanted to do something for her. I couldn’t fly her to my home because she was a single parent with two children still in school. In hindsight, I thought maybe I should have asked before sending the money. It seemed to me that I was doing most of the calling and staying in touch anyway, but we both had busy lives so I didn’t think too much about it. But replaying conversations, I began to think that maybe she thought of me as the friend who was always worse off than she was. That maybe I was supposed to be the poor friend. That maybe I was the friend she used to gauge how well she was doing. And that maybe it made her unhappy hearing how well my life was going when hers wasn’t going so well.
I called from Las Vegas and left a light-hearted message about playing the chip for millions and losing. After that message, I decided to let her call me when she was ready. For three years, she never called. It broke my heart, but I didn’t want to make her unhappy by calling. We quit exchanging birthday cards. It made me wonder how she viewed me when our fortunes were reversed. Did she pity me in those early years? Did she think that now that our fortunes were reversed that I thought any less of her? I don’t know, but it makes me incredibly sad.
And then, out of the blue, three years later she called. I was ecstatic. We laughed and talked for two hours and it was just like old times. She encouraged me to call her every now and then, but as I promised I would, I knew I wouldn’t unless she called first. I just wasn’t sure whether she was being polite or really wanted to reestablish the friendship. I didn’t want to cause her any unhappiness.
Sadly, she never called again. One night in 2018, after hearing that a coworker from years ago had died, I felt a strong urge to look Annie up online. It was then that I found out she had passed away in 2017, almost a year to the day. I cried for days and still cry whenever I think about her. I initially regretted not calling her, but after learning that she continued to struggle, I was glad I waited for her to call me. I believe that it was painful for her to compare our lives and she was happier not knowing how my life was going.
Rest In Peace, Annie. I have never stopped loving you and am sorry if I was insensitive or hurt you in any way.”
“I Told Her She Would Save $20 And A Friendship”
“My former best friend and I met at church when we were like three or four years old. The first time she stopped talking to me was when we were about 13. Her father walked out on her family several years before and began a new family but her parents had not officially divorced. Her mother had just reconnected with her old high school boyfriend and started divorce proceedings. My father had lost his job and it looked like were about to lose our home.
It was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary open house and I was in my home across the street from theirs getting ready with another very good friend of mine. I hear screaming under my bedroom window and it was this friend demanding that I come down and sit in her uncle’s car with her and talk to her. I told her that I was getting ready for the party and that I would be down there soon. She demanded that I skip the party and sit in the car with her because she had to talk about her parents’ divorce. While this was probably the first time we had been face-to-face since her mother said they were getting a divorce, I had talked to her on the phone for hours every night for probably a week and a half.
I finally told her that she needed to shut up and let me talk about my problems for once. She told me that losing our home was no big deal because she lost hers when it burned down almost eight years earlier. She called me selfish and didn’t talk to me for a year.
She came up to me when we were attending the same school a year later and apologized.
Things happened here and there but went rather smoothly for the next several years. After I got married in 1986, my then husband and I moved just down the road from her and she and I worked together. One day she walked to our apartment to hang out. It was dark and rainy when she went to leave, so he gave her a ride home. He did not come home until late the next day. Turns out they went out drinking together after she asked him to drive an hour to her boyfriend’s house instead of just to her mom’s and she caught the boyfriend with another woman.
Similar things happened two or three more times over the next six months. They would both beg for forgiveness and swear nothing happened between them. He and I both lost our jobs, so we lost the apartment and moved in with his mother so that pretty much ended my contact with her. I thought it also ended his contact with her but turned out when he claimed he was out doing odd jobs or looking for work, he was usually with her. Then he started having an affair with a friend of hers. When I found out about the affair and left him, she called me and said that she had to take their side because her father was friends with the girl’s mother.
You think I would have learned my lesson by now right? Nope.
I moved 200 hundred miles away to escape my ex because he started stalking me. I met my now-husband, got married, had a baby moved 1000 miles away for almost a year.
In early 1992, my husband and I moved to my hometown. She called me up and begged me for forgiveness. She said she had gotten married and grew up. We actually hung out quite a bit over the next three years or so. Then they split up and my husband and I moved about 30 miles away. We would talk on the phone on occasion, but really didn’t hang out for about a year.
Then, she called late one night and said that she was stranded at a bar about 10 miles from my house and asked if I could come pick her up. She offered me gas money, but when I got there she said that I took too long so she bought more drinks. She spent the night on my couch and then I took her home the next morning. This started happening a lot. She often called asking if I could pick her up from the bar or the Waffle House after the bar closed. She sometimes even showed up on my doorstep asking if she could crash on my couch.
I eventually got fed up. I was ready to set my foot down and demand gas money before she got in my car the next time.
It didn’t take long before she called me up begging me for a favor. It was probably about two weeks later. She called and said that she had lost a contact and that she really needed a ride to get new contacts. Her uncle was at work and her stepfather didn’t drive that far so she begged me to come get her and take her to a mall about 40 miles from her house. I lived about 30 miles from her. I also drove a ’72 Impala that got about 14 miles to the gallon. She wanted me to drive 140 miles total to get her contacts. I told her to have $25 ready when I got there to put gas in my car.
She flipped out. She could not believe that I was charging her gas money when we were good friends. I told her I couldn’t believe that she expected me to find a babysitter to get my son off of the school bus so I can drive 140 miles round trip and f the bill for both the babysitter and the gas. She also demanded that I find somebody to get my son off the school bus because I would have to leave right then so she would have time to get back home and get ready for her date that night.
Suddenly, it dawned on me that there was a contact place about eight miles from her house. I mention that place and ask her if that was in the area that her stepfather would drive. It was in the area that he would drive, but she had already called them and the contacts there were $5 more than the place 40 miles away. I told her she would save $20 and a friendship if she just had her stepfather take her to the place in her town. I got called all kinds of names for not daring to hire a sitter and spend my gas money so she could save $5.
The whole gas money thing wouldn’t have bothered me if we had the money to spare and she did not. However, we were living paycheck-to-paycheck, while she was blowing hundreds of dollars a weekend partying.
So that’s how a 25-year friendship fell apart. I refused to let her run over me anymore.”
“I Finally Confronted Him”
“We were best friends since secondary school and went to college together. We were inseparable like brothers.
Later I moved to London, he stayed in my home country, but we were visiting each other and talked on the phone constantly.
He got married and had a kid.
Years ago, I moved back to my country. Initially, I was happy to live close to him and was visiting them quite often. I understand and respect that he is now a family man: I don’t bring any drinks to his home, I play with his daughter and bring her toys. Yet, I notice his family is not happy. His wife constantly has mood swings and you never know how she will react five minutes in the future, and they are constantly yelling and shouting at each other. His daughter is a spoiled brat constantly bragging for attention and making temper tantrums.
I try not to criticize since it’s his family.
Later on, he started limiting our outings only on Tuesday after 9pm. I work, so it is far too late for me. I proposed weekend. He said weekends are reserved for his family. Okay, so what is he doing with his wife and kid whole weekend? Apparently, he takes them every weekend to his in-laws in nearby village where they are just sitting for two days doing nothing. Cool. So maybe Tuesday after 6pm? He cannot make it, as he has to look after kids. But his wife can do it as well? Nope, they are a family now, they spent every free minute together. So how does his wife meet her friends? Turned out his wife doesn’t have any friends, now she is a respectful wife and mother, she spends all her time with her parents, husband and kid.
‘When you get married, you will understand’ he said over and over. I got annoyed, as I still did not find my other half, but I would rather be single than be with someone horrible like his wife.
Moving on. He started skipping those Tuesdays, as his wife orders him to do ironing on Tuesdays.
‘When you get married, you will understand’ he repeated again. Once, he had to leave early because his wife called him, yelled at him over a phone and told him to come back. I asked if something happened to his kiddo, and he said, nope, she just got angry he was not at home.
The following week, he texted me, ‘After talking to my wife, I’ve decided not to see you for next few weeks.’ I had no clue what I did wrong! I finally confronted him one day. He said his wife doesn’t like me and she ordered him to break contact with me. Moreover, his daughter is upset when he is not around her all the time.
‘You are not married, you don’t understand,’ he scoffed.
And then I finally broke. I called him and his wife horrible names and told him I would rather be single forever than live like him. I haven’t talked to him since seven months.
Once, out of the blue, he texted me ‘Do you want to go for a drink tonight?’ I replied that I am busy for the next twenty years. No text back.
12 years of friendship disappeared, just like that.”