My MOH/best friend ghosted me at my wedding and didn't apologize, I'm uncerstain about how to move forward, if at all, with our friendship

This is a lot to explain, so please buckle in.

My (29F) best friend (28F) of 15 years shared the Maid of Honour role with my sister (35F) at my wedding four months ago. My best friend, we'll call her Nicole, has long struggled with generalized and social anxiety. She still attends parties/gatherings, however has a pattern on cancelling plans last minute, though has gotten better with this over the last few years. When I asked her to be my MOH, I made it clear that I didn't want this to be more stressful than it has to be and if she is feeling overwhelmed or tense about anything to let me know how I could help. All I want is her beside me on my big day. We talked about how I'd like to have a bridal shower and a bachelorette party and that she can figure out with my sister and the rest of the bridal party how they would like to split planning duties. She appeared very excited. I also offered my own help with planning these events as well. My sister offered to split planning duties on both events with Nicole, knowing about her social anxiety. Nicole however, chose to plan the bachelorette by herself and subsequently my sister then would plan the shower on her own. My sister ended up hosting it at her house and sending invites early. Nicole however, to my dissapointment, didn't attend the shower. I found out early from my sister that Nicole has RSVP'd no. Nicole then texted me a day before the shower that she couldn't justify taking the extra day off work and that if the shower had been on a sunday she could attend, but Saturday wouldn't do. Well, I couldn't do anything about that at this point and she opted not to help my sister with the planning so that it could be on a Sunday. I swallowed my pride and disappointment though, and let this go. I told her thanks for letting me know. I know Nicole has anxiety about booking days off of work, and she did take two extra days off work to come up and help me find my wedding dress, so ok. Fair enough. For my bachelorette, I let Nicole know the kind of weekend I was hoping for (cottage on a lake that we can swim in, maybe a brewery near by to go out to. No strippers or anything like that. Lots of booze.) I find out from my sister that when Nicole decided to plan my bachelorette party that her plan for it was very different - she was planning to do a bar crawl in the city that she currently lives in, which is a city that's very close to where I grew up. I moved away to a different city, and the people who I invited to attend my bachelorette party all live nearer to me. When I found out about this intent, it seemed like she made this plan to suite her needs more than it suited what my hopes were. Regardless, when she found out about what I actually wanted, discarded the bar crawl idea and booked a cottage. It was not on a lake, though there was a beach nearby. However, the location was much easier for her to drive to than it was for me (4hr drive for me, 1.5 hr drive for her and she has driving anxiety) and most of my guests also live in my city. I had assumed she'd choose something in the middle. She did not. I didn't bring any of this up to her. Instead I acted very excited and happy and mostly I was still happy with the weekend, I had a great time. And I thanked her profusely for planning this weekend. However, during this weekend, I really noticed her being distant. I would try and chat with her during the weekend and she appeared to provide one-word answers to things or brush me off. I also noticed her clinging to our one mutual friend during the weekend and that this took this friend away from me, who seemed to be offering some kind of support to her during the weekend. I let this go. At one point, she also refused to take any photos with me at the party because "she was trying to go photo free," this is despite her posting selfies of herself from that weekend. I felt hurt by this. Though, I brushed it off again and let it go.

FF to my wedding day. She is very distant again. My other bridesmaid and my other MOH are doing a lot to chat with me, each other, and create a fun and relaxed environment to get ready in. Nicole is there, but spent the time chatting with one specific bridesmaid in another room and despite my efforts to engage her, tell her make up looks great, etc. she's avoidant of me.

The thing that has me most hurt and is the pinnacle of my sadness/anger with her is that after dinner and speeches at my wedding were done, she literally just left my wedding without saying goodbye. She ghosted me at my own wedding. I was hurt, though not surprised because as I mentioned, she flakes on things. I went to look for her to come dance with me and that is when I found out from another bridesmaid that she caught an uber back to her hotel.

She didn't text me or anything at all the following week. I then texted her (because she is out of town) to broach the topic. Her text reply reads something like "Hey, I'm so glad you're approaching me with this. I had wanted to let you know how I was feeling but wasn't sure when the right time would be. I have been feeling distance from you for a while and I felt a lot of tension planning your wedding. A lot of our conversations were centred around plans for it and that felt like a lot for me" I replied back empathizing and then asking for clarification. I also emphasized that I was very hurt that she left my wedding without saying goodbye. Her reply was that she has a right to her own boundaries and guests leave weddings all the time without saying bye to the bride and groom. I was pretty annoyed with this response. She isn't some random wedding guest and though she certainly has a right to her boundaries, I see her leaving abruptly and not saying anything as disrespectful and rude. We couldn't seem to see eye to eye - I suggested we meet in person as text can be confusing and it seemed we were both unhappy with our friendship with each other at the moment. We both agreed we wanted to work through this though she stated that she would rather stick to texting because it allows her to be more thoughtful when talking these issues through, though she also said that she had difficulty explaining her unhappiness or times when she felt things were tense through text. I explained that this then made it hard for me to understand where I went wrong and to understand what I'm apologizing for.

I truly feel it was her creating this distance because she was starting to feel overwhelmed. We left off with agreeing to give each other some time. A few weeks later was her birthday, so i shot her a happy birthday text, saying that even though things are rocky with us right now I hope she has a great day and I'm thinking of her. She replied back that she was grateful for the text, she was having a good day, and she added that she would text me back within the next week or so about how to move forward with our conflict. I didn't hear anything from her. Then after that week was my birthday (our birthdays are about 2.5 weeks apart) and she does not wish me a happy birthday. Nothing. I'm feeling very hurt

It's now 3 months later and we still haven't spoken. I miss her, but I'm mad that she couldn't even apologise for leaving early without saying goodbye to me at my own wedding and then continues to ghost me through text and creates a dynamic where she won't talk in person and also won't explain specifically what she has been upset about. I read over our text conversations, there were for sure times we talked about the wedding, but in every instance I gave her opportunity to talk about how things were going for her. We've been friends for 15 years. This is our first fight. I don't want to ignore my needs/emotions anymore (as I've done in the past). I also don't want to be too rigid/harsh with her and I'm wondering if I am. I think she's used to me smoothing things over for us at the expense of myself, and I can't keep doing that. My goal is to repair our friendship but I am prepared to lose our friendship because I don't want to ignore my own needs anymore. All constructive advice welcomed.

TLDR / TL;DR: My friend ghosted me at my own wedding and created distance from me at events leading up to the wedding. She won't apologize for ghosting and seems avoidant to talk this out in person, stating she prefers text. Looking for helpful advice.

Submitted February 07, 2020 at 09:23AM by 573489throwaway https://ift.tt/2tzByOK