Contrary to what we would like to believe, friendships don't last forever. Even the best ones.
So when Reddit user gli-tc-h made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share what caused their BFF breakups, they got a collection of honest, heartfelt replies — I guess it's something we all just need to get off our chests.
From secret affairs with their partner to evil schemes that were supposed to get them fired, continue scrolling to learn what these folks have experienced. Who knows, maybe their stories will help you navigate your own personal dramas.
#1
When my father was dying of cancer, my “best friend” called me to catch up and I told him about it and he nonchalantly said “your dad's dying because he isn’t praying enough and that he would be healed if someone spoke in tongues over him” I was in disbelief that he got roped into the insane religious cult like his parents.
I told him that was the grossest thing I could ever hear from him and hung up. My father died 2 weeks later. It’s been two years and he hasn’t called or texted once. Good f*****g riddance. F**k you tim.
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253points
We managed to get in touch with gli-tc-h and the Redditor agreed to have a little chat with us.
"[At the time of making this post], I had just ended one of the longest friendships I've ever had," they told Bored Panda. "I wouldn't call him a best friend but whatever."
"I didn't really expect for [the post] to gain so much traction but soon after, I realized that it is quite a popular topic, there were recurring themes such as just drifting apart due to moving, family matters, and some to do with taking spouses. There were a few stating that the friendship ended when it became more intimate."
#2
My husband at the time had to step away from his job because he was dealing with pretty severe mental health issues. We had a young child and I was a stay-at-home mom and it was really devastating not only financially, but socially as a lot of our social life revolved around his job and work friends.
I was really good friends with a coworker’s wife. The coworker moved into my husband’s (higher up) position when my husband had to resign. We had to sell our home since we couldn’t make the mortgage payment anymore. The friend came to help me pack, and while doing so told me that they always knew this would happen because the Lord had revealed it to the husband in a dream several years earlier. They had basically been waiting around for my husband to “fail” so that coworker could “succeed” and fulfill the Lord’s prophesy.
Yeah no. Said goodbye to her, moved out of state, and never looked back. I won’t tolerate people using religion to be d***s.
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230points
According to a study by scientists from Aalto University in Finland and the University of Oxford in England, our social circle shrinks soon after our mid-20s.
The teams analyzed data from 3 million mobile phone users to identify the frequency and patterns of whom they contacted and when, as well as overall activity within their networks.
Men and women were socially promiscuous – making more and more friends and social contacts – until the age of 25, after which point they started losing them rapidly, with women losing them at an initially faster rate than men.
#3
Bacterial meningitis ….after a few days of unanswered calls ( thought maybe I had pissed her off) I drove over to her house. Found my BFF deceased on the couch. Her 5 year old had luckily survived several days on her own.
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209points
The average 25-year-old woman contacts about 17.5 people per month, while a man contacts 19.
(This decline continues for the rest of our life, or at least until retirement, where it plateaus, probably due to reduced data among this age group.)
Scientists theorize that around this age, people begin to decide who is most important – and valuable – in their life and make a greater effort to hold on to those friends. This, as a result, hurts other relationships.
#4
In 2020, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. At this time by grandfather was also fighting colon cancer; both of whom were in the “high risk” category for covid-19.
During the first summer of the pandemic, I would occasionally share things on social media about why it’s important to make up and social distance, then later on why people should get vaccinated.
Well, my ex best friend married a complete right-wing trumper POS that thought covid was a sham. He commented on one of my posts and we got in a mildly heated debate. Eventually, he said that he didn’t care that people would die, and that it’s a sacrifice to make for everyone’s freedoms.
When I expected my ex best friend to come to my aid, she backed him up. I was sickened. Have not ever spoken a word to either of them since.
I say good riddance.
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183points
“Once you’ve made decisions and found the appropriate people, you can be much less socially promiscuous and invest your time in these people,” said Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford who co-authored the paper.
“But they can’t be just anybody,” he added.
Narrowing down the people you're close to includes friendships as well as life partners, particularly for women, due to the support and help they can provide in times of need.
#5
my own transphobia
i've told this story countless amount of times now, but i'll say it again.
i had a crush on this person, ever since i was in 4th grade. always tried to be close to them, and half the time, i was. best friends, we trusted each other with every secret, told each other things we wouldn't tell anyone else. one day, they finally came out and told me they were trans and identified as a male.
i was devastated. my crush suddenly comes out as trans? this has to be a stupid trend, right? i acted cool at first, heavy emphasis on ACTED. i tried to remain friends but they definitely noticed me drifting away. one day, out of my dumb horny state, angry that my crush was a male, i came to them saying i was having a crisis and ghosted them for f*****g months.
didn't talk to them in the halls, didn't contact them afterwards, they were probably worried sick about. they eventually noticed this behavior and at somepoint, blocked me on all platforms. me, unable to speak with them, saw them in the halls of school one day and thought "huh, they look kinda cute" and realized i was still attracted to them.
i left them in a vulnerable state, in a confusing time, for f*****g nothing besides transphobia. since then, i've tried to find anyway to make contact with them. not to reconsile our friendship or give a shot at dating, but so i can say i'm sorry. i just hope they're successful in life, that's it. i just hope they didn't let a dumba** like me dictate their emotions and feelings. i was a huge jerk who didn't deserve them at all.
ever since, i've been making attempts to be less bigoted. more open, less misogynistic. i just don't want a repeat of last time, and don't want anyone to go through what they did.
my only real friend, the only one who actually cared about me, who would go through hell and back for me, pick me up when i'm broken and down, pushed away by my own f*****g transphobia.
sorry for the long read, i just don't like settling for small paragraphs. even then, i don't think this did it justice.
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177points
Personally, gli-tc-h thinks that it's "possible to keep a friend for most if not your entire life without falling out, but it all depends on if you have the same interests and ... [whether or not] your personalities clash. There are a whole bunch of cases where friendships last a lifetime."
And the secret is, you guessed it, talking. "A million factors go into a lifelong friendship and no two friendships are alike, but there is one key thing that all ride-or-die friendships have in common – crystal clear communication," Lori Harder, author of A Tribe Called Bliss: Break Through Superficial Friendships, Create Real Connections, Reach Your Highest Potential and host of the Earn Your Happy podcast said.
You and your BFF won't be the same people as years go by. So you won't have a successful relationship without speaking up about your ever-changing needs, desires, and expectations.
#6
I was diagnosed with bipolar after a very traumatic and public event when I was manic for the first time. Lost all my friends including my best friend. Mental illness sucks.
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170points
#7
I had a good friend in 8th grade who was a very kind and affectionate person.
Never had a crush on her at all.
We were physically affectionate people, never sexual. She would mess with my hair, and sometimes put her hand on my leg, so I did the same.
At the time, her boyfriend was aware of our relationship, and was cool with it, I even was good friends with him.
One day, I got called to the principals office and I walked into my mother, father, principal, and a police officer asking me to sit down. I felt like someone I knew died, but no, they said that she had accused me of sexually assaulting her.
I spent 2 hours crying, giving them my phone, watching them comb through my texts, reviewing, video footage, and interviewing the boyfriend and the girl.
In the end, she lied to her parents because she got caught that she was dating her boyfriend, and used me as a scapegoat, and saying her boyfriend hit her.
The police called my household and said that I was free, and that if we wanted to sue, we would win.
The rest of the year, anytime I saw her, I walked away and threw up because I felt like I was a monster.
After severe depression, I sat in my room and got over it.
The following years, the boyfriend and I would joke about it all the time.
Good man, terrible friend girl.
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149points
#8
She was very pro-life, and shamed me for being pro choice and pro women, even though she had an abortion at 15 and it literally saved her life. I instantly cut ties with her. Dropped 10 years of friendship with one sentence. Never looked back.
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149points
#9
She didn't invite me to her birthday party. It was my first time back from college and I would have been able to go. She made a whole Facebook event page and invited everybody but me. I found out through mutual friends, the kicker was no one showed up and she called me crying that this other girl didn't show up.
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137points
#10
He cheated on his wife with my girlfriend. Killed what I thought was two great relationships with one f**k.
Actually it was a lot more than that, but I liked the way it sounded.
Edit: Thanks all, it was a long time ago (30+ years), so plenty of time to get over it. For a very long time I held onto a lot of hatred towards the guy, but for some reason not my ex. I realized at some point that the hate was only harming me and not affecting him in any way so that helped me let it go.
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119points
#11
I got cancer twice. He didn't bother to call, text or visit. Oh, this was pre pandemic so the hospitals were allowing visitors.
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109points
#12
Mental health, fell into depression which isolated me, and eventually made me forgotten by the world
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108points
#13
He tried to get me fired from a job I hired him at as his boss
105points
#14
Every single time that I would tell her I was interested in/talking to a guy, she would try to get with him. She was never successful but it hurt that she kept trying. I confronted her about this in a very nice and civil way and explained to her how I felt about this. She apologized profusely and promised it would never happened again. And then it happened again. I just immediately cut her off after that, no explanation or words needed. She knows what she did. Haven't spoken a word to her since
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103points
#15
she was my best friend for two years.
we were in similar traumatic experiences and we helped each other throughout the 22 months we were best friends and we had a great friendship. we protected each other.
one day she told me her father was back from jail and she was scared. i don't remember exactly what he went to jail for, but he was gone for about 6 years. she told me, on may eighteenth 2020, that she could not handle it anymore, that she was exhausted.
two hours later, her older sister finds her and tells their grand parents and then me that she had hung herself. her exact words were: "im so sorry Grace, she's gone. my little sister is gone."
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102points
#16
Over the years be became increasingly more abusive to his wife. She is a stay at home mom and he is out of town 9 months out of the year for work. He moved her from CA to TX after driving a wedge in every relationship she’d built there. She got a job in TX to get out of the house while the kids were in school. He didn’t like her having friends. He came home for the summer and discovered the owners of the kids’ daycare were lesbians, so he pulled them out because he “doesn’t want them thinking that is okay.” He took them home and told his wife she needs to quit her job because they kids don’t have daycare anymore.
He will come home for the summer and smoke weed and do shrooms since he doesn’t get drug tested during that time. It was only okay for him. If she smokes, she is a “bad mom” because she cares more about drugs than she does the kids. He refuses to contribute to anything around the house - dishes, basic cleaning, garage, yard, feeding the kids - because he brings in 100% of the money. “Chores are the 100% her job”.
He had an affair last summer for 2-3 weeks. He’d just disappear for a week at a time. When he’d come home and the kids asked where he was, he’d tell them “I needed a break from mommy.” He almost got caught so he broke off the affair.
Trying to keep this short to maintain people’s interest, but the last straw was when he started locking his wife outside because she wouldn’t obey him. He hides the car keys so she can’t go anywhere and does not give her access to money. Essentially, he just makes her homeless at will whenever she doesn’t anticipate and tend to his every need.
F**k that guy. I put up with it for so long because we’d been friends since high school and our kids are good friends. After he started locking his wife outside, I decided that I can’t be civil anymore. He is not welcome at my house. He is not welcome around my kids. He is not welcome to LOOK at my wife, because I know how he views women and the superiority he feels over them. Knowing he looks at her as sub-human really gets my blood boiling.
I am ashamed that I ever called this poor excuse of a man my friend.
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99points
#17
He passed away at his job after we graduated high school. He worked at a asphalt creation center and fell 30ish feet into a boiling asphalt silo and boiled to death. He had just turned 18, and it was a few days before my 19th birthday.
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91points
#18
Time. We grew up, had kids, and moved apart.
Edit: I've know this guy since I was 6 or 7, which has now been 40+ years (ugh). He was my best friend, and I'd still consider him as such. We were both best men at each others' weddings, and I was the first non-family member invited to the hospital to hold his children after they were born.
Time just sneaks up on you - it's the small things to start with, and eventually, the relationship is still there but there's no significant time or contact spent on either side. We still text/call each other about 1-2 times a year about serious matters (family/jobs) but the regular "screwing around" time we used to have is done and gone. I know if either of us called the other and said "Hey, I need help ASAP" we'd both still drop whatever we were doing to help the other, but what I really miss is the small goofy interactions we used to have.
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85points
#19
My best friend was my cousin. Born the same year and raised together in nearby towns. We are from a purple state which bleeds more red every year. He turned Trump, very hard.
This was a cult conversion. He didn't watch Fox, because theybwere part of the MSM (in fact they are!). He went to conspiracy reddits, 8chan and discord and decided "for himself" that only an outsider like Trump could "break the wheel" and bring a new voice into US politics.
After that, nothing could turn him away. No moral failure, no policy failure, no amount of corruption.
We finally cut everything off when I said his illegal immigrant wife ought to suffer the same consequences others do under Trump. He said THIS DOESNT APPLY TO HER.
that was the end. It was a good friendship for 30 years.
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79points
#20
I got tired of always being the one to put forth any effort. Fly across the world to meet up, attend family gatherings, reach out, be patient, make sacrifice. It was good times when we were together. So it was worth it for a while but when she moved close and still never bothered to make an effort, I was over it. Wish her nothing but the best.
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77points