How to kindly cut off a friendship?

41 comments

1. Perhaps your husband needs to engage his backbone and do this himself?

2. You can’t cut off someone kindly or politely, you have to be rude. Your husband did the right thing.

3. Has anyone in the UK ever figured this out? I always assumed we’re all just destined to have a *’Ben’* in our lives, who we begrudgingly socialise with roughly once every two years and just send emoji responses whenever they text us.

4. If I were you I’d follow your husband’s lead

5. Not easy. I’ve cut off several friendships in my life. You can try and be subtle at first but if the person persists in contacting you, then you have to be blunt.

6. I wished someone good luck with the rest of his or her life, twice. They both responded very angrily, so that is aparently not the best way.

7. Got introduced to a guy who was a friend of my brother and who happened to be going to the same uni as me. Hung around with him for a while. He was charming and funny but he was also a dick, especially when he was drunk, and he took great delight in provoking and antagonising people, forcing me to defuse situations that he’d created.

   The last time we went out for a drink together I realised I didn’t want to spend any more time with him. At the end of the night I told him ‘let’s never do this again.’

   And we never did.

8. I’d tackle the incel stuff head on, full blown argument if you have to…although try to get through to him diplomatically. If it doesn’t work, you will have fallen out with them…which is what you want. If it does work, you have your sane friend back. Win-win really.

9. Tell your husband to chop off a finger every time ‘Ben’ speaks to him.

10. He just has to be honest and say they don’t have anything in common and wish the guy well then block his number.

11. You, yourself, don’t. Your husband ghosted the guy long enough that he got concerned that there was something wrong, and Ben felt the need to reach out to his spouse to see what was up because he was worried. Your husband needs to do this himself, and he needs to do it calmly; it should come from him as he’s the one who Ben was actually a friend of.

12. Be direct in this. I’ve done so with some close friends that went on the incel journey.

13. You don’t get involved yourself, it’s not yours to deal with. Your husband needs to let him know, because otherwise Ben will keep messaging you and bugging you also.

14. “This isn’t really working for me anymore actually, thanks for some fun times but we’re too different and I’ve got a lot going on just now. All the best for the future”

    #B L O C K

15. Husbands needs to grow a nutsack

16. You don’t do anything. This is your husband’s business, and he’s chosen the path of least resistance. If Ben is as much of an incel as your husband says, nothing you say to him will have any impact anyway. Incels don’t respect women. You’re much more likely to be drawn into an exchange I’m sure you’re just not that invested in; Ben will interpret this as your views, and there’s no quick way of existing these conversations if he sees no issue with his behaviour.

    You seem well-intentioned, but your husband can manage his own friendships. It’d save time if your husband just ripped the plaster off, but you can’t force him to.

17. Cut off your finger and throw it at this front door

18. Your husband has to tell him he’s creeped out and doesn’t want to chat anymore.

    Nothing to do with you, you can just block him.

19. I don’t think you necessarily need to be blunt with the person in question. Simply respond and say ‘Hi mate. Sorry I’ve not responded. I’m really busy with the family these days and don’t have the time to be messaging everyone all the time’.

    He might continue to message but you increase the length of time it takes to respond each time and he’ll get the message.

20. There’s no non-awkward way, but in this particular scenario I wouldn’t feel bad about blocking him if I were either of you two. You getting involved would probably make things worse and further entrench him in your lives, he’s not taken the subtle hint from your husband – your only options are for your husband to tell him he’s no longer interested in a friendship, block him, or have an incel friend.

    I had a ‘friend’ who I’d tried to be kind to because I felt sorry for her, but she’d constantly bombard me with messages regardless of the speed at which I replied to her, and I told her she was being more intense than I could cope with… when that didn’t work, I blocked her.

21. You just keep being busy – nobody can continue to be the pushy friend getting so little back imo

    “Oh yeah, stuffs been pretty hectic lately, he probably just forgot”

    “Nope, nothing wrong with him, just been busy af recently, you know how it is”

    “Ah yeah, he’s dealing with quite a lot at the minute, not spending much time on his phone”

22. Ben, most people would turn you away

    I don’t listen to a word they say

    They don’t see you as I do

    I wish they would try to

    I’m sure they’d think again

    If they had a friend like Ben

23. Get your husband to simply message him “anime is shit”.

24. I see many people here telling you to not get involved yourself, but as a best friend of a woman whose husband is wrecked with crippling social anxiety, I can understand the need to step up and help in a case like this.

    My personal advice is to tell Ben that you and your husband are in need to take some time away and “work through something” and would like to spend your free time on your own and turn the social media off for a while. You don’t owe anything more specific than that. It will be enough to justify not hanging out, declining invitations, and online interactions as well.

    Make it as much a “it’s not you, it’s us” thing as you can. This will lead to two possible scenarios:

    1. He respects your needs and keeps distance. Eventually finds something or someone else to feed their social needs from.
    2. He eventually (could be right away, could be after a while) gets fed up with waiting and tries to force himself into your social life again. By doing this, he would be breaching your terms, and make him liable for harsher and more cold-blooded solutions like being blocked or told off. At that point, anything he gets is on him, and you cannot be the villain.

    I just want to say, as someone who has been on the receiving end of this in the past (I used to be a very co-dependent friend in my teen years / early 20s), thank you for trying to be gentle and considering his feelings. And don’t feel bad for stepping up for your husband.

25. Just be honest and say that the Incel shit and kid posters are weirding you out and it’s best you go your separate ways. It’s a bit brutal and awkward but less stressful and awkward in the long run when he tries making contact again or if you see him in person.

26. Just tell him your husband is dead

27. Well A: your husband needs to do it, not you. And B: all he needs to say is that he wants them to no longer speak.

28. “Hi Ben, apologies for not being more direct sooner. I’ve felt uneasy the last few times we’ve hung out, especially with how you are with women (insert example/s). I think we’re different people now with different standards, so we probably aren’t best placed to hang out anymore. Wish you all the best.”

    And you block Ben. 🙂

29. Be direct- it’s the only way….’Ben, fuck off you twat and leave us alone or I’ll cut your cock off and make you eat it’ – that should work, then say ‘btw we have called the police as we believe you have someone held capture in your basement’

30. I feel a bit sorry for Ben. He sounds really lonely.

31. I’d say your husband needs to be assertive and explain to ben why he no longer wants to maintain this friendship and make it very clear he no longer wants any contact with ben.

    If Ben doesn’t understand this very direct approach and continues to harass you both then you can always get the police involved.

32. Just don’t reply anymore I’m sure he’ll get the message.

33. I’d just reply, “hi yes, we are all fine here, thanks. Not sure what’s going on with hubby, you’ll have to ask him yourself. All the best.”

34. You’re husband doesnt sound great here. He should stop being a coward and actually engage with Ben and his views and challenege them, from there he can cut off a friendship.

35. Ben isn’t the issue you here, it’s your husband. To me personally going off the tiny info you gave it’s a shitty reason to just cut him of cold Turkey, but if he doesn’t want to associate with Ben anymore then he can either be direct and tell him that, or just keep in touch but give absolute minimal conversation.

    Just ghosting him is an asshole move.

36. Husband needs to grow a pair. Ghosting hasn’t worked and Ben has involved you. Time to throw the ball back to him.

37. This is an #Ad for The Banshees of Inisherin. Blatant.

38. You’re saying we aren’t edgy teenagers but your husband is acting like a teenager. Tell him to have some bollocks and be straight with him. 100% the right thing to do for everyone involved.

39. You don’t need to do anything and your husband is already handling it his way. Not sure what else there is to add.

40. I was friends with a guy all through high school. Our friendship started off after I’d moved to a new school and he’d tried to befriend me since I started there. I’d avoided him like the plague as he was the token weird kid; having an imaginary friend at 13 and then proclaiming to have killed said imaginary friend by drawing a face on a piece of paper and stabbing it with a fork in the canteen. Everyone had told me to steer clear. I had a group of friends so I didn’t feel like I needed a new friend. We got in a spot of bother with the police – we’d all been caught hanging out in an abandoned house that had been badly vandalised; not by us but the older kids in school so I was grounded
    for a few weeks and then thought maybe some distance between myself and other kids would be handy.
    Anyway, I gave this kid a chance after he kept writing me notes in class and asking me to be his friend.

    – looking back this was incredibly possessive and altogether odd behaviour however as we got older this kind of behaviour was always happening between him and sexual partners.

    We hung out all the time, sleeping over at each others houses etc. We even moved into a flat together when we both moved away for uni. We played in bands together. It was great generally but not without issue.

    Anyway fast forward to about 2011 and I’d moved to England with my partner at the time. We’d hit a little rough patch myself and my partner so we went on a break. She travelled back to Scotland for a couple of weeks to see family and friends and give us some distance. I hadn’t told my friend this because I was burying my head in the sand a bit and just trying to avoid facing what was happening. I didn’t think much of it at all. My ex-partner happened to be out one night whilst in Scotland and bumped into this friend of mine and told him what was happening. Long story short he assures her he’d ring me the next day, chat to me and see how I was doing. He even shared a taxi home with her and his dad (they lived quite near)

    The next day comes round and my ex rang me to tell me she’d bumped into this friend and wanted to apologise for telling him and to expect a call from him.

    Couple of days later she comes home and we chat about us and our relationship etc. She then casually asks “how was your conversation with friend?”
    Which then meant me revealing he hadn’t called and asking her if she was sure she seen him and was she sure he’d said what he’d said. I happened to check Facebook to go and message him only to find he’d removed me as a friend.

    A serious case of what the f*ck??

    I heard nothing for about 18 months from him. It hurt me but I was mostly relieved. We’d kinda grown apart for the last few years, our lives were separate and 100s of miles apart. I’d grown irritable and very pissed off with lots of aspects of my own life and was probably taking it out on this friend.

    18 months later Ex-partners Gran passed away and we were to be in Scotland for the funeral etc. I decided to reach out to him and see him. We chatted for a few days, arranged to meet, had some drinks which was pleasant enough. I returned home to England and that was it. I didn’t feel anything for this former friend, I didn’t feel we had much in common anymore and I felt he was too stuck in the past.

    That was the last time I see him.
    He messaged me during lockdown on Facebook to say something like “remember when this song was your ring tone?” And a link to the song.
    All I could muster in reply was a thumbs up emoji.

    Maybe it was kinda churlish of me to do so, but I didn’t feel anything for him the last time I see him or spoke to him and I wasn’t feeling anything for a song I’d had as my ringtone some 15 years prior.

    “Breaking up” with friends is hard. Sometimes harder than relationships, you rarely get closure at all.
    I’ve often wondered if I should message my ex-friend, but wouldn’t know what to say or what I’d hope the outcome would be. We’re very very different people from when we were in high school and ours lives have gone very different ways.

    Maybe your partner needs to tell Ben he’s just not into those interests and that he’d rather focus on friendships where the friends share similar interests. It’s never nice being the “bad” guy I guess

41. I think Ben sounds more like an acquaintance then a friend because they seem like pretty puerile reasons to be cutting someone out of your life, I’ve been good friends with significantly stranger people.

    But that said, if your husband doesn’t like him then your husband doesn’t like him, like other’s have suggested he just needs to grow a pair and politely let Ben know what’s what.