Is this a fair reason to cut someone off

you are not entitled to friendship.

if they don't want to be friends with you, you're just going to have to respect that. it doesn't matter what the reasons are for it. they have the right to not be your friend.

I have cut someone (in fact 2 people) out of my life because the relationship became very stressful for me because of the persons constant problems (a chaotic/drama-filled life going nowhere combined with lots of mental health problems).

The story of the second friend:

For a very long time (literally years!) I really tried to be very supportive, tolerant & understanding of his problems. But there no real improvement in his life, and that as a figure in my life, he was a near-constant source of concern/worry/frustration/drama/general stress and anxiety (for example over the years there were so many times that I genuinely worried that he might kill himself, that he might harm others or that he would end up in prison etc).

This in itself might still not have been enough for me to call it quits on the relationship. But after a while I began to come to the increasingly unavoidable conclusion that as much as he suffered, there was no real genuine will on his part to really help himself be any better (and a lot of people tried to help him over the years!).

This was particularly illustrated in the months running up to me falling out with him for good:

He was always wanting my advice on matters, and yet he increasingly couldn't take any opinions that could be construed as personal criticism. However there were a lot of things he was doing wrong, and so some disagreement opinions was going to be inevitable (and this led to argument). His temper could be explosive, and sometimes he seemed to positively enjoy arguing (venting his emotions through argument etc). The arguments were so exhausting, I did seriously consider many times either just telling him what he wanted to hear, or avoiding contact with him completely. However by this point in his life, most people had abandoned him, and so being one of the last people left in his life, I felt a sort of moral responsibility over him (feeling that as difficult as it was, it was important for me to try and be a voice of reason in his life).

There were certain things that topics that I wouldn't budge on, such as his addiction to smoking weed: It was doing his mental health no good. But my refusal to condone his weed smoking (particularly when he started going on about having children with his girlfriend in his very troubled relationship with her) increasingly infuriated him.
One day he brought up the weed subject yet again, and when I (unsurprisingly) disagreed with him for the umpteenth time, his temper suddenly exploded, and over the next few days, he subjected me to a lot of verbal abuse and threats, and even went so far as trying to take "revenge" on me (for literally no more than me saying that he should try to quit weed before he tried for children!) by isolating me from other people by telling outrageous lies about me to people we both knew (luckily for me they saw through his nasty attempts to manipulate, but even so...It was a whole new low for him).
We had had some pretty bad arguments before, but his reaction to this one was on a completely other level!!

For me, this was all too much (and I vowed to quit contact with him).
He caused me a significant amount of stress.
However after a number of months, we bumped into each other and we managed to have a pretty civilized sit down discussion about what had happened. He appeared to be remorseful, and he said that he wanted to be friends with me again. He wanted another chance...I was reluctant to agree, but as we had known each other for so long (friends for 10+ years), I gave him one last chance. And the chance came with the strict requirement of "no more lies, no more BS. No more threatening behaviour. Ever!". I told him that while I would do my best to wipe the slate clean (forgiving his past transgressions), it was only on the condition that he made a concerted effort to get his act together (as fundamentally, the friendship had been in long decline for a number of reasons before the big falling out had occurred). I told him that I would do my best to be supportive of him, but that he had to change.

He agreed to this, however almost immediately. he lied to me.
I stupidly overlooked it (giving him far more benefit of the doubt than I should have given him).
A few months later, we had a blazing argument (though not nearly quite so severe) about his racism and a previous lie (which although I had tried to forgive him, had been so bad that I had struggled to forgive him and needed him to be honest about it).
But still I gave him another chance (fool that I was).

But not long after that, after one fateful visit I quit contact with him for good. There was no big blowout argument, no dramatic climax etc. Instead, observing his behaviour and listening to the things he wanted to talk about (politics, always politics) as he chatted away, I realized how completely unchanging he was.

I think that in reality, friendships can often suffer & survive many transgressions. However if a friend has become a negative figure in your life (one who you associate more with stress & anxiety etc than of good times and happy memories etc) and you don't see any genuine will in them to change for the better, then that really is a friendship killer. As long as there is hope, things can improve (but no hope and things will come to an abrupt end). And there doesn't need to be an argument (any great falling out) for this conclusion to be suddenly realized.

Initially I had forgiven my friend because quite frankly, as badly as he had behaved, I was going through a very tough time and I was still clinging onto the hope that things could return back to how they were in the past. And I thought that in him regretting how he had screwed things up, he would relish the chance to make things work again. But the problem is that he simply wanted to go back to before (and before wasn't good enough for me). The argument may have been a turning point (a hastening towards the end) in the friendship, but it was his prolonged mental health problems, antisocial attitudes and lack of genuine will to get his act together that really caused me to not want to associate with him anymore.

He caused me so much stress over the years, that as much as I felt bad for him, coming to the conclusion that I was better off without him in my life, was ultimately inevitable.

Since quitting contact with him: I do admittedly still occasionally worry about him, especially knowing that when I cut off contact with him, I was one of the last remaining people in his life (and his mental health had been in very concerning decline).
So the end of the friendship was not an automatic end to the stress/anxiety that he caused me.
But I am definitely better off without him (and a handful attempts on his part to contact me since, have only illustrated how much he brings nothing but stress/drama into my life whenever he has any contact with me). So I know I made the right decision (with it being more and more reinforced the longer I have stuck to my guns on the matter)
And as time has gone by, I do actually think and worry about him increasingly less, finally genuinely feeling now that he (and whatever happens to him) really isn't my responsibility.

By getting rid of such a negative figure in my life, I have in turn valued my own life and happiness a great deal more. Less preoccupied with worrying myself about him, I have suddenly had so much more mental energy to devote to my own life.

Thanks for sharing your own experience on the matter since its useful to know my friend isn't the only person to have cut someone off for this reason. I think I've dealt with this situation rather selfishly in that I just crave his friendship but I guess our friendship wasn't really working as a two way thing since I always craved attention and also went to him with my drama and problems.

You may find that if you give him space, he'll come around. I've had this with a friend of mine - he refused to talk to me and did tell me (amongst other things) that I need to learn to deal with my issues by myself without him.

I've actually been in this situation, as in a friend I knew was emotionally exhausting to be around.
You can only be around negativity so long.
As much as you can empathise and be supportive, there's a limit where you cut off.
I cut off because it was affecting my OWN health! & I had my own problems to deal with. Sometimes being selfish is important. Otherwise you'd be surrounded by anyone...good and bad....

All I can say is - dont take it personally even though it is. I wouldnt say they were bad friends neither nor not true. Because think about how much effort it took to cut you off, its not a decision they took lightly - well i didnt!

You need to focus on improving yourself, people come and go whilst your on your journey, I would not get disheartened about it. Chin up. Maybe it'll be the reason you become positive and make changes in your life which I can see happening.....

In regards the friends, its too late to make amends, just let it go and move on, learn the lesson.

Yeh trouble is I'm sharing a house with this person next year along with one other person so I kinda feel like I need to go some way as to mend our friendship otherwise it wont be much fun living with two people when one of them isnt at all interested in speaking to me...

i dont know what you're like at all, and ive cut someone out of my life after 3 years of suffering (who i knew for 10 years, so everyone saying they werent a "true" friend" can **** off honestly.) because their poor mental health was beginning to affect mine
. (it was a last resort, and said person did not want to improve, they refused help and just wanted attention.. typical teen angst.. which im sure is not the same as your case)

its a valid reason.. but probably only as a last resort after trying to understand/help/support your friend for a long time. ive been on both sides and its so draining. because you feel useless and no matter how far you go to support your friend it feels like its just going through one ear and out the other.

i dont want to sound horrible but for me it was the best decision i made.

dont think its completely your fault but your friend probably felt like it was a onesided relationship idk

I once had a friend who was manipulative and care a lot less about the friendship than I did. I kept the friendship going way longer than the person deserved until they did something that crossed the line for me. Then I ended the friendship telling them I'm never having anything to do with them.

After ending it, I cried as I really cared about this friendship. I have no regrets as it was the right thing to do.

Friendships don't last forever. Either I change, they change or both of us change so we can't be friends any more.

Yeh it's true I guess it's pretty rare to find someone who you're gonna end up being life long friends with cause life gets in the way and yeh I guess for them it must be difficult as well as I doubt they want to hurt me but they need me to know exactly how I made them feel. They are speaking to me every now and then only what's app ect so idk really it's not like they completely don't want anything to do with me

I know 2 guys who are life long friends. They first met when one of them changed primary schools and ended up sitting next to the other guy. After many adventures including both of them falling in love and getting married (they attended each other's wedding), they are both in their late 50s and still best friends. This only works if both of them look out for each other and not just dump stuff on the other guy. Maybe you need to let your friends talk about their day or their problems so they get to share things with you.

You're gonna be OK. Your friends are still staying around so they haven't rejected you. You just gotta give them some space and not overload them too much. Your problems need professional help and your friends can't offer that. I think you need to talk to your parents, your GP, school/uni to get professional help.

Yeh with hindsight I think our friendship was rather one sided since I would always go to him for my problems and use him as a shoulder to cry on pretty much. He did help me out a lot but I guess after a months it just gets too much to ask for and I know he had his own issues so it's not really a surprise he decided to just part ways with me

I think it would be a good time to work on improving yourself

Yeh I've kinda realised I need to sort myself out for my own sake and for the sake of the people around me too. I've taken the step already to start taking antidepressants and I guess now I just kinda need to put all my effort into trying to be more positive as I'd like to think they can re enter my life if they realise I'm genuinely making an effort to change

It's valid unfortunately. So sorry. Its very difficult to cope with constant negativity, it bleeds into your own life and it's difficult to share excitement with someone who's like that.

There's no sort of Hollywood "if they were your friend they'd have stuck it out" etc. That sort of thinking is so naive it's borderline trolling tbh. People aren't blank slates on which emotions can be thrust upon without consequence.

They were your friend but it got too much. Hope you're getting help for your issues and that, whatever they are.