There’s a friend I “inherited” from my husband 11 years ago.

Originally, he and she were friends but at some point he felt they really have nothing in common and they just stayed in touch once every few months when they need to ask each other something that is related to work. I moved to the USA 11 years ago and she was my first friend here and for several years we would meet for breakfasts, coffees or our birthdays and celebrate with drinks.

Eleven years after and in the past year I’ve been feeling less and less wanting to communicate with her or see her. I felt I’ve grown and evolved and whenever we do meet, our conversation remains so superficial and mentally she is high maintenance to me, so much so that two months ago I asked her to take some time off as I was recovering from a surgery and to let me recover without messages or calls. And she ultimately did.

Recently she reached out again and I agreed to meet twice and really felt that as far as I am concerned, this friendship has completed and I know that during the two months I took for myself I felt a huge sense of relief from not communicating with her.

My birthday is coming up in a few days and she reached out and we scheduled to meet for breakfast as we always did, and next month is her birthday.

My current thought is: “I think it’s hypocritical of me to meet her if what I truly want is to end the friendship.”  This thought creates for me a feeling of estrangement alongside an urge to let her know of my decision, though so far, I haven’t done anything about it.

I know Brooke teaches us to stay in a relationship until we are happy, change how we think about people and all that, but I don’t see her making me feel unhappy, I just think the way our friendship has been so far had sort of completed in my view and stopped growing.

I evolved in ways she doesn’t care about and so the conversations we could have are less interesting to me than others I have in newer relationships I now cultivate.

What I don’t know is how to break up with a friend.  It’s not a romantic relationship. I don’t want to say something that she will interpret as hurtful, but keep going with this just so she won’t be hurt and ignoring my own well-being seems hurtful to me and my want.

I would love help with that.