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Hey Pandas, What Are The Small Reasons That Caused A Wedge Between You And Your Close Family Or Friends?
Reasons that ruin good friendships.
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#1
We were friends for like, two years when it happened. I was traveling with her and her family, and at first it was fine.
She had naturally straight hair, but still used a straightener everyday. She once used it again then tossed it in her luggage. She then asked me to pick something in it, while she was applying make-up in the bathroom. I did not see the straightener, burnt my whole palm. I asked her to leave the bathroom, so i could put some water on my hand. She let me , then push me away because she needed the mirror ( which was up the sink). I could not close my hand for the whole evening and night. She also hit me in the ribs because i was snorring while sleeping. She also said i'll be less ugly if i did something with my eyebrows. Asked me to give her some of my clothes , because it'll fit her better. I don't miss this stupid giant red flag
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#2
We were all celebrating the birth of my only sister's son. It was her first. She was younger sister and I had already had one child, a girl. Her son was about four hours old and needed a diaper change badly. My sister was asleep, her husband was out of the room and no one else was available so I change his diaper. You would have thought I cut off his arm. She and her husband said I ruined the new birth experience for both of them. This child is now 28 and my sister has only spoken to me at the funeral of our mother since his birth. That was 12 years ago and not another word. I send cards, but she is still ignoring me.
#3
Well, I have many different reasons with many different persons over the years. My dad was not the most present while he was still married to my mom, but after divorce, he kinda faded from my life, till mom took me to a different country, to witch he came a year later. That did not stop him from demanding mom pay him for taking me to a different country (a sum that our appartment got sold for). And all that did not stop me from hoping he will change. Over the years I tried to intoduce him to my boyfriend, he said that would be a waste of time as I will date many others, and he will meet my man at our wedding, while crying about his step son not finding a girl... But the last straw was him missing my 35th birthday for a 1 year birthday of his step grandkids. And then asking why I do not want him to "make it up to me with a nice gift" 2 years later. I just told him I do not want him in my life anymore, as he only breaks my heart and uses me for his own benefits. He was not at my wedding, and did not get to walk me.
#4
Not sure I'd call these small reasons, but here goes.
My biological "father" told me about 4 years ago (when I was in my mid 20's) to avoid getting the COVID vaccine (despite getting my first one already), and that if work required me to get vaccinated, refuse, and let them fire me...
Let's just say he took his own advice, and his government job didn't take kindly to that (and he had no medical exemption for it), and he was the one who ended up getting fired. Tried spinning it as "sticking it to the man" or "unjust termination", but I know he's more full of bullshît than a ranch.
Then there's the daily "anti vax", conspiracy theory, anti "woke", right wing, and "alpha male" posting. You all know the kind. In hindsight, I should have seen these warning signs way sooner, but I was ignorant about the world in my younger years.
And then there's all the smack talking posts he makes about my mom and step dad behind their backs. He was saying things along the lines of "my ex turned my kids against me", or that she cheated on him with my step dad, despite being divorced for years before my mom met my stepfather.
As for why I put "father" in quotations whenever I refer to him, he's a deadbeat who was never there when I needed a male role model in my late childhood, and into my teen years. I guess as a kid, I saw him as a hero, as most kids do when they talk about a parent. But when I grew up, I saw him for the sad, pathetic loser that he truly is, and that my mom and step dad were the people who helped mold me into the man I am today.
I haven't talked to my "father" once in the past 4 years, and you know what? My life has never been better. I have no interest in even uttering a word to him, and this might be cold and heartless of me to say, but if I never see or hear about him again in my, or his remaining years, I'll be all the better for it.
#5
She cheated then accused me of wanting her husband. This knowing the type of men I prefer, and her husband did not fit the bill. HUGE, HUGE load off once I cut ties.
#6
My older sister and I will never get along. I spent the 1st 2/3 of my life being bullied and put down by her. But whenever she had a crisis, which was all the damned time, I was there. When she was s******l, her psychologist called me because she ran out off down the street in a state of mind that was concerning. I'm the youngest every family need was always mine to take control of, my brothers illness and stroke plus eventual passing. I always drove mum and I to see him, everyday if possible in hospital. My dad broke his ankle me, his stroke, me, my mum had kidney stones, hysterectomy, me. When they grew old and the pandemic hit, it was just me. My sister was on the opposite side of the country driving her daughters and their families nuts. When she visited, I could do nothing right or good enough and then she screamed that she should have been their carer, I had no right to do it. She wanted the social security and access to their money, everybody knew it. I blew my top, massively and thought everyone would hate me for disowning her. Turns out everyone has a story about her and knows how much she lies. She is too old to change, she never has before no matter how hard we all tried. So not minor but 1000s of minor things over many years.
MalayDragon 1 day ago
I have a (Former) family member, an Uncle who did exactly this to his sisters (my mother and Aunt) while their mother, My Grandmother is suffering with dementia. He tried to take over Power of Attorney, Tried to drain all of her bank accounts for him and his s h i t heal new wife because he's in massive amounts of debt. Entire family disowned him. Good riddance. Oh and there may have been an anonymous tip off to the tax department, and the police because of his rather large "Herb" garden on his property.
#7
We and our cousins really get along well and we often take trips together. Every time one of us wants to take a trip we let the group know if other party could join then we go together or the original party proceeds with the trip. We made this pact because each of us might have different bucket list and budget constraints and none of us should waste the holidays coz other party couldn't travel.
So recently we have a long weekend coming up and we suggested travel to a near by place which can be travelled leisurely in 3 days. They said they are up for it but not on those dates and also they want to go to some place with a pool first and then in the next iteration we can cover this place. We suggested since a long weekend coming up it would be idle to trave to this first and locally we can go to pool on any following weekends. They said 'since we have a toddler 3 days trip is not idle for us at this point, you guys proceed' so we did our bookings. 5 days later they post in the group..."hey we are going away for a holiday trip this month end" guess what ?it is on the same weekend that we originally asked and it is more than 3 days. They didn't mention anything about it when we were originally discussing the plans. The message was more of a FYI. We were obviously hurt by this and this kind of made it awkward between us and for sure things wouldn't be as smooth as it once was. Too bad when everything is going smooth one has to cause drama that disrupts the whole vibe.
Veronica Jean 3 days ago
Ideal*. Idle means to be unmoving or in the same state for a period of time 💜
#8
Not getting in to Stanford. Chances were I wouldn't get in. Now I'm in one of my dream colleges, all the way in the UK.
#9
D-r-u-g-s. My brother and son, my only 2 living family members, prefer them to me.
#10
had a very close relationship with - i'll call her barb. we saw quite a bit of each other both professionally as well as socially. my son and his partner - i'll call her ann - had just had their baby. the pregnancy had been a high risk pregnancy due to her having a chronic illness. due to our close friendship barb was aware of all this.
about 3 months after the birth my son with the baby showed up in the middle of the night. he broke down and told me that ann had post-partum complications and passed away. also her family had blamed him for her death due to 'making' her have the baby. he told me that he had left them at the hospital since they told him they didn't want to see him or the baby every again. he packed up the baby, drove the 350 miles to come home. i took a few days off to help settle him in as well as cancelling a day trip i had planned with barb.
about a week later i met up with barb for lunch. i barely had sat down when she aggressively asked why i hadn't called her; also she was kind of annoyed that i had cancelled our day trip. when i called to cancel i had told her of the situation. also said i was worried about my son regarding his grief as well as adjusting to being a new parent. she then said he would be fine as it wasn't like they had been married and he was a widower.she then said that ann's health issues and passing should have been something to be expected since it was a high risk pregnancy from the beginning. barb then told me that i needed me to be a better friend because her daughter's family had moved in with her so she was going to need me to vent to if it started to get rough. at this point i started to feel a combination of anger and disbelief. i told her my son was a higher priority-he was grieving as well as adjusting to being a new parent. she made kind of a sarcastic hrumpfing sound then told me that he was over 21 and needed to just 'man up' to the situation. i was dumbfounded. we had lunch and then went our separate ways. our relationship became more distant which was fine with me. because we had been so close it was hard to acknowledge that i had witnessed a very self-centered part of her that felt like i owed it to her to be supportive for her needs but she couldn't understand that my priority was my son. i admit that i missed her company as she was funny, witty, articulate, as well as sharing the same twisted humor that related to our jobs. but it also showed me that sometimes you don't ever really know a person.
#11
My homosexuality. Every time I mention something even vaguely related to the LGBTQ+ community, my mom just looks at me like she thinks I'm some innocent little armadillo baby with no social skills and no clue how awkward I'm making the situation. I haven't felt safe with her since I came out.
#12
I really don't know. I was friends with him since Kindergarten. We had been inseparable for a while. Then, 7th grade hit. All of a sudden, he stopped talking to me. It might have been because I didnt care about social standing. What really hurt was me and my dad went with him to a water park and paid 100 dollars and then not even a week later I don't exist. I was plotting s*****e for 3 months. Then his old friend talked to me and then we became friends. I slowly started to gain more friends. Then, I got a scholarship offer to a private school near me that was a great opportunity. I went there for 8th grade, (Where I currently am at) He then stopped talking to me and started mentally bullying my other remaining friend at my old school. Worst part of it all was we had a mutual friend who he was closer with leave in 2nd grade. We had a sleepover the week before school started. He said to me, "I don't want you to turn out like Jasper" I tried calling him the other day, he picked up. Asked him if he wanted to hang out or something. We talked for about 10 minutes. I said, sorry I have to go to the bathroom. As I was about to get up, I hear him say, "I'm just gonna end the call I'm bored." I then begged him not to so he didn't. He then accidentally ended the call 5 minutes later so I called him back, he answered then conveniently had to have dinner. When the call ended I started crying silent tears, feeling like me having two close friendships end within a year feel like it was my fault. Then came along the third friend, the one who was my last remaining friend from my old school. Me and him are very much still friends and we play video games together almost every other day. I also now have friends at my new school and my plan is to stick with those friends for the remainder of my schooling. I'm still sad and depressed majority of the time, but no longer s******l. I used to tell myself, "I want a peaceful, quick death that doesn't mean I suffer, but I don't deserve that." "I am only still trying to stay alive because of my friends." (I don't want to get into it but I'm not close with my parents.) Now I say, "I want to keep friends that I can rely on." "I am alive because people need me." I still have trust issues, but they are slowly repairing.
#13
Mine is with a current co-worker. He wouldn't stop with the micro-aggressions against another colleague in particular and I just couldn't stand to interact with someone who would behave like a bully to another person.
#14
Growing up as an only child, I was both nervous and excited when we would make the 2 hour drive to visit grandparents, aunts and cousins. We only went about once a year, usually summer. Eventually grandfather passed and grandmother couldn't live on her own. One of my aunts took her in, the other aunt died unexpectedly. This was back before dementia was a diagnosis. I guess trying to take care of my grandmother was a lot - I remember hearing conversations about how she would become violent, physically hid things from the family (think jewelry and other momentos) and such. I remember hearing that my aunt was begging my father to move back or to take his mother in, but he wouldn't agree to it. He would still go visit sometimes, but my mom and I weren't allowed because grandmother would become agitated, not remembering her son had married or had a child. After grandmother and aunt had both passed, my dad refused communications with my cousins. It was at that point that I learned my grandfather had been a raging alcoholic and physically a*****e to my father. And grandmother did nothing to protect her son. My aunts raised my cousins to think grandfather was a wonderful man. I have family just 2 hours away that I don't see - some I've never met - because no one, including my grandmother, would accept what a horrible man my grandfather truly was.
#15
A friend from high school and I got together. We had known each other since the 80s, but I realize now had drifted the moment we decided to go to different colleges and major in different subjects. We were both married, but she married a man with kids, then had a kid of her own, and she was over the moon about her baby.
We took one last ride together one night, talking, and she really seemed to want me to have a baby, too. Absolutely not, I knew from single digits I never wanted kids, and did want to be married. Every single thing about it all, from pregnancy, to birth, to raising a child, just filled me with dread. I had no talent for it, no vocation, no desire. And she just didn't get it.
I wasn't the best friend either. I didn't realize at the time just how much a new parent's life slows way down, and how difficult it is to find a babysitter, esp if both parents work, which of course she and her husband did. He also had two young kids, too, and now a new baby.
We drifted even more, and I miss her all the time, still, even after years. This must have happened around the early 2000s. It is super hard to stay close friends with someone who is at such a different place in life. I wish her and her family well, but am super glad I never had any kids, or was ever with a man who had kids. (Married twice, 25 years, both men were childfree.)
Life just sometimes takes us in different directions.
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