What Made You Leave That Female Friendship?

It can be said that friendship is a crucial part of surviving the world as a woman. Having female friends enables you to navigate the world better with those who make a choice to love you. A choice not governed by blood ties or familial obligations.

However, female friendships are not without their own flaws and areas to improve upon.

Urban Woman Magazine recently spoke to a few women and asked them to share what made them leave a female friendship.

Read their responses below.

OB

So I stopped being friends with one of my best friends because she didn’t love herself nor her life.

I had a best friend that I truly loved as a friend. We met seven years before our friendship started and we immediately hit it off and before you know it we became a super-duo where people would ask about me when they don’t see us together and vice versa.

Like two years after we met, she started doing “runs” with some other friends she had because she had financial issues. 

In her defense, she struggled a lot financially all her life. Her father abandoned her mother and her mother could barely make ends meet so I couldn’t judge her. We were also trying to get into university so she had to save up but I encouraged her to start a business and try to multiply her earnings because I didn’t want my friend going through these issues.

I wished I could have helped too but I had my family issues so I tried to encourage her as much as I could.

She later met this man that asked her to stop these things and he would take care of her but she’ll live with him. I could tell she was hiding a lot of information from me about him, so I pestered and she told me he is married and lives with his wife in another state. I vehemently disagreed with that idea and she said “that’s why I didn’t tell you cause I knew you wouldn’t agree” .

She told me she needed to just stay with him for a while just to get her finances up and we even cried together cause I wanted more for her; we were young and trying to finish uni but our resources were limited. 

A year into the “relationship” and my friend had forgotten about leaving, she was settled with being with him and was slowly losing herself. He was abusive, controlling and slowly trying to ostracize her from her friends and I had complained about that which she constantly told me she would leave.

To the straw that broke the camel’s back, she called me one day saying she’s pregnant and I should come around. 

My heart sank cause once again, this was going exactly how I didn’t want it to. I got there and she told me that he asked her to abort it which I agreed with too. I went with her to the hospital and I could hear her screaming in pain and crying and I couldn’t stop crying too. The nurse advised she wears a pad and tried not to move around much for some days to heal properly. I took her home, cleaned her up and made some food for her and I went home after she slept.

I went there the next day to check in on her and she was looking a bit worse and was still using the pad and the nurse mentioned she shouldn’t bleed more than a day so I got worried and asked for us to go back to the hospital to see if there’s any complications. Then she told me not to worry and not be angry but she allowed this man to have sex with her the previous night i.e the same day she got the abortion. She said he was horny and would go out to have sex with someone else if she didn’t allow him, and she allowed him to sleep with her.

Honestly I was so furious that I started crying, my heart broke cause I knew there was no going back from there. I loved my friend like I said, she was my best friend and I tried as much as I could to pour in all the self love and confidence I could into her. I even bent some of my morals just to accommodate her excesses cause I didn’t believe in dating married men nor doing “runs” but I understood her situation so I didn’t want to judge her because she didn’t judge me. 

She was even one of the few people I told about my sexuality and she was supportive but that situation made me realize I couldn’t go on with that friendship. 

That friendship ended over 6 years ago. I still miss her and it seems like she’s in a better position but that friendship scarred me and I promised not to make friends with women like that anymore. 

So far I’ve surrounded myself with strong feminist women that aren’t male centered which has given me more peace of mind.

I’ve not heard from her in about two years but the last time I did she told me she started a decoration company, she started dating a better guy and was working on leaving the country.

SA

Dishonesty.

We had a beautiful relationship, or so I thought. Many things went down the drain, gossip, insults, backbiting, neglect and many more. I took it all in because, well, I really didn’t think much of it.

The funniest thing is that through the relationship, I never complained of anything, even when I felt wronged.

However, one day, she did something, and I couldn’t hold it back, so I told her how I felt wronged. Immediately I said that, the first thing she said to me was, ‘That is why my parents hate you so much. That is why they didn’t even want me to come here. They wanted me to stay back home for another year instead of being in the same space as you.’

Crazy thing is, in that moment, I felt so much peace. I told her the words she unpacked were too much for me, and I needed time to process them.

I didn’t talk about it because I felt wronged in so many ways. First, you knew your parents hated me, yet you went out with me, drank so much that you got alcohol poisoning? You had to be treated by a doctor. If something terrible had happened to you, would your parents believe the truth I told them? Wouldn’t they have said I killed you?

Decided to talk about it this year, and ended the relationship.

However, months later, I was prompted to reach out to stay friends but laid out ground rules. One is never to be in the same space with her parents and honesty through and through.

I also vowed to communicate all the time, because I think my fault in all of this was my inability to communicate. I trusted my ability to handle things too much.

B

Finally I can tell my story.

I had a friend who was genuinely a friend at the beginning of our friendship. Think two broke university girls that depended on their family for everything. I invited her to join a music and movie club I was in, we studied together and went everywhere together. We helped each other out and gave ourselves advice when we needed them. 

For the whole of second year and the beginning of third year, we had a solid friendship. I wasn’t really good at keeping friends, especially female friends (because all the female friends I had turned into hi/hello friends. They made other friends (not that I had an issue with that) and I felt left behind. 

Thinking about it now, I think it had to do with the fact that I was insecure about a lot of things then. I use hearing aids, sometimes even with them, I can’t hear well. I had a condition that affected the way I talk (I’m learning to talk with confidence now), I was a shy girl and I always thought my personality wasn’t fun. I don’t know how my self confidence got so low (I kind of know), but it did and people showed me shege.

Moving on…In the first semester of third year, this friend got a rich boyfriend after she broke up with the abusive one like I advised her to. After that was roses and sunflowers until the new guy got abusive too. But she wouldn’t take my advice to leave him. She liked the money. She left him after a while sha. 

At this point she had been exposed to people with money. She had a lot of boyfriends and sugar daddies that all had money and tried to hook me up with some, but I declined. I was like “do you baby, but that’s not the life I want”.

As you can tell, she moved into a bigger space, changed her wardrobe, got new wigs (that she lied about the prices to get to me). She changed. She really changed, physically, emotionally and psychologically. 

Once, this girl came to visit me after she came back from Enugu; she gave me a bag of clothes and said she bought them for me  so I wouldn’t stick to my simple outfits (I was a simple girlie then). I was genuinely happy, I thought my friend was so thoughtful. 

It turned out she had had those clothes for a while and wanted to remove them from her wardrobe. So she thought tossing them to me and lying about it was the best thing to do. At first I didn’t think much of it. I just selected the ones I liked and gave out the rest. I didn’t know that was a tactic to try to put me below her. 

I’m a fashion stylist and consultant. I didn’t have much to work with then, but I gave my friends and sisters fashion advice. This friend always came to me for styling advice every time. I didn’t complain though, because I loved it. 

On our last cultural day in uni, she told me that the reason why I don’t have men around me was because I dress too simple. (Like I said, simple was my style).

She said that I thrifted clothes instead of buying them in boutiques. That she knows I’m broke, but I should level up. Then she came to me the next day to ask me for an airport look. She came back a week later to ask me to style her for our dinner night (which she completely treated me like a slave before and during the night). She came back soon after to ask me to help her curate her travel outfits. She came back time and time again and I helped her without payment,  because she’s a friend.

After school, I went back to my parents’ place but I was still ready to style this girl every time she called. She kept looking down on me. Calling me cheap. Making me feel like I was beneath her in style and money. She actually lied about the price of her wig once and said I won’t be able to buy it because I’m broke 😂. She said she could get any rich man she wanted and I couldn’t. Sissss, I wasn’t even looking for a man 😂.

But this girl messed with my head and I stayed. It was when she started speaking ill about my sisters that I was like nahhhh, I’m done.

S

Back in uni, I had two friends. One was a coursemate who always called me her best friend, and the other was someone I got close to during IT but she was also my course mate but we both served at the same radio station.

Now, IT usually falls during the second semester, and that’s when the student election campaign comes up. I was contesting for a position in my department, so I started campaigning. The friend from IT really supported me by posting for me and helping out since we saw each other daily at the station.

The other girl, the one who claimed I was her best friend, was the mayoress of the girls’ hostel at the time. Naturally, I thought she would support me too, since her position meant she could influence votes.

But when I asked, she personally told me she couldn’t help because my opponent was also her “friend.” Mind you, this guy she was defending didn’t even rate her like that. Honestly, I felt so betrayed. Imagine calling someone your best friend, yet when it mattered most, you couldn’t stand by them. After that, I just knew she wasn’t really my friend and I cut her off.

Meanwhile, I kept talking with the IT friend, though she eventually became closer with the mayoress and they started calling themselves besties but still I didn’t take it to heart sha. It was later I noticed that she never really checked up on me. I’m the type of friend who reaches out randomly, sends memes, and tries to keep in touch. She, on the other hand, only replied occasionally especially if my status was sarcastic and she wanted gist. I decided to stop texting just to see if she would reach out on her own, and till today, not a single message.

Jane

I love female friendships a whole lot, I’ll forever do.

But recently, I had a friendship break up that really hurt me. I had this friend since my first year. We became friends in the most unexpected way and I loved her a lot. We’ve been through stuff together and she was supportive when my dad died.

But whenever we’re not at school, she never calls me. I do all the calling. All the time. I had to travel for a posting for 3 long months and she never called me. I called her when I heard there was a crisis in her place and she never picked up. Called several times and still no response. She texted me with a weak excuse months later to say sorry. I told her how she made me feel and hurt me but she never called till today.

On my birthday, I wanted her to be there so bad. She told me she had no money and I offered to pay, still she cancelled on me.

Her phone got bad and needed fixing and I gave what I could. But she doesn’t get me stuff.