My [30F] bff [29F] of 8 years became mean overtime. Do I confront her and try to save our relationship or do I let it die and face awkwardness in our friend group?

TL;DR: My best friend of 8 years became mean overtime. Our last trip was the straw that broke the camels back for me, but I haven't confronted her about it. I've just basically been "ghosting" her other than responding to messages here and there (that have also faded out now). Do I confront her and try to reconcile? Do I move on even though it'll be awkward with our close group of friends?

I [30f] met Jen [29f] about 8 years ago. We worked together in the bar industry and clicked instantly through our mutual love of red wine and animals. A couple months after I had met Jen, my best friend [28f] Julie, who I lived with, decided to have a quarter life crisis and pretty much ditched me a week before we had to decide to renew the lease or not. So Julie moved out on her own and I was a little screwed. Jen lived in her parents basement so said she'd move in with me.

So we moved in together after knowing each other for 4 months and it was great. We got a dog together like the first week we lived together (probably not the best idea) and that was great too. Then we kind of went through this really crazy summer. We were 22, worked in the service industry, had tons of cash, access to drugs, etc etc. Both of us got into super unhealthy relationships. I won't go into too much detail here so that you don't get sidetracked by our awfulness but it wasn't good. She hated my dude and I hated her dude (both because of the way we were being treated).

Jen's always been unapologetic about who she is. She loves to argue, she has strong convictions and she'll call you out on your shit. When our respective relationships ended (pretty much as the summer ended and we had to get back to "real life" since we were both in school) she was just never really the same. She started being kind of mean, saying rude things and just being overly short with me. She had this warped view of everything - she'd say I wasn't helping with the dog but really I was the one taking her out all the time. She'd say I wasn't cleaning but I had just cleaned the entire apartment, things like that. And since she's so argumentative (and I am 100% not) I'd just let her win and walk away without really standing up for myself.

We soon moved apartment and had one of Jen's old friends move in with us. It went well mostly - I was happy to have a buffer between me and Jen (it allowed me to pull away a bit from the relationship) and me and the new girl got along really well. We lived there for another year or so, and I remember the whole time I'd be constantly complaining about Jen to Julie. Then we graduated school. I left for a big city, Jen left for a small village on the east coast. Because we moved, it's like I forgot EVERYTHING that had bothered me by her. I dunno, graduation goggles maybe?

We kept in touch and it felt like she was back to her old self so we got close again. We've been organizing these yearly girls trips now with a group of our close friends (including Jen, myself, Julie, Andrea and 2 other girls). The first two were great. I also visited Jen one year and we've both caught up while in our hometown together over Christmas etc. It's always been really fun when we're all together. Except this year.

In the last few months it's really felt like every time I call her, she'd just talk about herself the whole time. My mom was really sick this year and even knowing that, it would take about 30 minutes of her talking about her life before remembering that I was going through some shit and then she'd ask me about my mom. A few months ago she also got into a huge fight with a very good, long time friend of hers. He accused her of being selfish and blablabla. Unfortunately, this friend of hers is struggling with a lot of mental illness and didn't really approach her properly (he lashed out hard and said some really mean things) but I believe that his feelings were definitely legitimate. When she went through this though I was a doormat and just didn't really say much.

Anyway, so the group of girls organized another trip this year, this time abroad. Jen was brutal the entire trip, honestly I don't know why she even wants to be my friend because it doesn't seem like she likes me much. She's just be really short with me all the time. For example we were on the subway and I'd say "OK guys we're getting off in 2 stops" and she'd say "Yeah OP, we already know" in a super condescending tone. Or she'd just shit on basically anything I said or wanted to do, looking down on me the whole time. Even some of our other friends noticed. I kind of brushed it off but it really ruined the trip for me and I won't be going on any other girls trips in the future.

Anyway, since we've been back, I've basically went VLC with her. She's tried a few times to reach out and I stay polite but don't instigate the conversation. I'll respond if she writes in the group chat, etc. But otherwise I'm just staying away.

The thing is, I'm super sad about losing the friendship. We clicked so instantly when we first met, we used to laugh that we were "soulmates" and such. I don't know what happened to her that she got so mean, but if there was a hope of reconciliation or for her to change, then I'd be all for it. It's been easy to be no contact with her because we live so far apart, however, I've just moved back to my hometown recently and I'm still part of the larger group of friends. I would *like* to make an effort to discuss with her, but I wouldn't even know where to start. Should I even give it a shot?

Not sure what kind of advice I'm looking for. Thanks for reading my wall of text if you've made it this far!

Submitted July 31, 2018 at 05:43AM by AdventurousBreath https://ift.tt/2vlugLl