Friends who skipped wedding how to deal

Reasons aside, it's been two years now, right? It seems like you got married just on the tail end of Covid which may have played a part.

If the friendships are important to you, it's your job to make peace within yourself about it.

Guests are never obligated to give reasons why they are declining the invitation and it’s not appropriate to ask. You can be disappointed and then accept that they are unable to attend, but that is the extent of what what you can do. However 3+/- years afterwards and still holding onto it is not appropriate or healthy. Have you spoken to a therapist to be able to move on? It’s up to you to decide whether to work to keep the friendships alive or let it all go and move on.

I think you are failing to take accountability for your half of the relationship. You said it’s been 1.5 years and you haven’t heard from her. However, she hasn’t heard from you either. Relationships are two-way streets, and you have to put in the work if you want others to do the same. If this is a person you want to try to rekindle a friendship with, I would suggest you reaching out and putting in the effort and see if it’s reciprocated.

I did write her back previously after the wedding (additional to responding to her decline) and I did not get a response.

In general I have realized that I've been the main person to make the effort in friendships (and relationships, prior to my husband). So I'm not sure where that leaves me. I've tried to understand that it was a rough time but there's a part of me that always feels like I am making the effort, definitely the person that reaches out time and time again, and maybe I'm done. For sure I needed a break from that.

I think I can be the bigger person in this specific case but there's a part of me that really wants to address that I feel hurt by not hearing from her. But then I don't know, is it even worth it? On the other hand dirt could have been going down in her personal life. All I know is that she has been having a busy and successful career and travelling all over for work, that's only part of her picture though.

I'm thinking of another friend who wasn't able to come for medical reasons, cancelled last minute. Of course no problem. I didn't hear from her for a couple weeks but then she followed up to have a good length conversation to catch up and we still catch up every couple months (live across the country from each other so don't see each other more frequently- both of us initiate calls/texts), and we've hung out once a year since the wedding (I flew out to her but she has a medical condition that made travel really hard for her, tho she is improving slowly). I feel good about this friendship.

If you’re going to hang on to feelings of disappointment and hurt, no matter how valid, then it sounds like you don’t really want to maintain this friendship. So then don’t. You say that you don’t live in the same state and go years without talking, so if you just want to take 5 seconds to respond to her texts every couple years, then just do that (like with your mutual colleague, just say like wow I hadn’t heard about that. I’m so sorry to hear, and thanks for telling me). If she asks at some point why it seems like you’ve checked out of the friendship, then maybe at that point explain that you felt like the effort to maintain over the years was one-sided. Otherwise it doesn’t seem worth it to have a breakup talk for a friendship that’s extremely casual at this point anyway. It’s common in adulthood for people to grow apart and social circles to change over the years.

Well, it's tough when friends miss out on special occasions, but they must have their reasons. You could catch up with them and see if they're OK, maybe give them a call or even invite them out for a meal. They'll (hopefully!) understand that you still care. You could even just have a laugh about it, chances are they did it without meaning any harm.

Look, you have no idea what might have been going on for your friend to cancel last minute the way she did. She did apologize and offer to help you with any expense you had incurred on her behalf which was unnecessary, but considerate. IMO you also did the right thing by turning it down. Last minute cancellations go with the territory of being a host, unfortunately.

After the wedding, you reached out again and didn't hear from her. Who knows why? Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe there were other things happening that she didn't want to disclose. You never know. When she never called after that I would probably have chalked it up to living at a distance and drifting apart. Of course, you could have reached out again at some point, too. You wrote to her once? Maybe she didn't see or receive your note or was in the middle of something stressful.

Now that she's contacted you again, you don't have to overthink it. The polite thing to do is to at least have the courtesy to reply and acknowledge the note, her failure to do the same at the time notwithstanding. You're not obligated to start up a close friendship again. Where you go from there is up to you. I wouldn't bring this up now. What's the point?