I’m (F34), a single mom, and I recently lost my father, who I was very close to. It's been a deeply emotional time that pushed me to reevaluate many aspects of my life — including my long-standing friendship and business partnership with someone I’ll call Elena.

We co-founded a small creative studio in 2019 and worked together as equals. Over the years, I began to feel creatively and emotionally limited. Elena often reacted negatively to new ideas, was quick to shut things down, and her general outlook felt heavy and pessimistic. When I tried to bring up issues between us, she’d get extremely defensive or even shut down the conversation entirely, saying she couldn’t handle conflict. Last month i told her I needed to work on my own. I didn’t ask her to leave the company — I just said that I needed space and clarity, and that I wanted to follow a different direction. She chose to leave completely, so as to not "bother me any longer".

Since then, she’s been passive aggressive in our encounters, calling and visiting my closest friend (who she was never close to outside of our connection) and venting for hours about how I’m difficult, ungrateful, and how she supported me through everything. She’s painting herself as the victim and blaming me entirely. It feels like she’s trying to rewrite the story so she can cope with the rejection.

To be honest, she has narcissistic traits — everything is personal, and any form of disagreement feels like an attack to her. It’s exhausting. I genuinely tried to handle things kindly and respectfully, but at this point, I don’t know what else she expects from me. I feel like there’s nothing left to say, and she isn’t okay with that.

The truth is, I’m too tired — from grief, from navigating single motherhood, from carrying this emotional weight — to keep engaging in this kind of drama. I need peace.

So… am i to blame for choosing to walk away from a dynamic that was draining me, even if it meant losing a long-time friend and collaborator?