My friend that I took care of for a month after open heart surgery (23M) has been ignoring my fiance and I's (23F) messages, and we ran into him after he lied that he was busy

Here's a bit of backstory on my friends and our relationship: My male friend, Dave, and I have known each other since middle school. We became close and were in the same friend group in high school, and hung out nearly daily junior and senior year. We continued being good friends, and I started dating my fiance when I was around 20. My fiance, Aaron, and my friend Dave, got along immediately. They had the same sense of humor and were almost even closer than Dave and I were, which was great because I had past relationships where my bf didn't get along with my friends.

Dave went through a horrible breakup with a girl that cheated on him, lied about it all, and gave him an STD, and we spent a significant amount of time with him supporting him through the recovery process. This is where we got really close. We talked about life, and laughed a lot. We went on hikes and basically had a memorable summer like no other. This made us really close. A few years after this, he had an emergency life threatening illness that required surgery and hospitalization for a month. The hospital he was put into was the university hospital of the school my fiance and I were attending, so we visited daily. We'd bring food, games, and tried to keep spirits high while he recovered. We became really close to his family during this process, and his mom was extremely grateful for the moral support. Long story short, we've been through so much together.

When I started university at 20, one of my first friends was a girl named Alice. Alice and I started as study buddies helping each other out with difficult problems, but eventually became a huge support system with the stress of school. She's an amazing friend that actually cares to listen and remembers all the little details about you.

To spare the unimportant details, all four of us hung out and Alice and Dave hit it off right away. It was great because we all got along great, and could now double date and do fun couple things. We have had a group chat with the four of us for about a year now where we talk often and make jokes, but about two weeks ago, they've both stopped responding.

My fiance asked Dave if they were free to hang out a few weeks ago, and he said they were out of town. Dave lives in my hometown, about two hours away from my university city where I live. I went down to my hometown anyways to visit family, and while my brother, fiance and I were at a restaurant eating lunch, Dave walked in with Alice waiting in his car. He said he wasn't around that weekend.. it was really uncomfortable. My fiance is good at being an optimist and made small talk with him, but maybe I was visibly uncomfortable?

Previous to this, they had started not responding to messages but clearly this is more extreme. He avoided plans with us. We're busy university students and have to say no to plans and get that, but never lie or go weeks leaving messages unread. Dave has said "I'm not feeling up to plans this week" before, which we have too, so I don't know why he'd lie this time. Something weird is going on here, isn't it?

At this point I'm just running options through my head. Maybe it's not us, and they're going through issues? Maybe they're busy with their new dog? Or maybe I said something that upset them? Our last messages were about my dog eating a birthday cake, so I don't think I sent anything offensive around the time they began to ignore messages.

I was minorly annoyed that a few weeks ago, Dave said he didn't want to drive up to my city to celebrate my birthday, so my fiance and I drove all the way to my hometown, and found out Dave couldn't be at my party until the afternoon because he was driving up to our city to pick up a puppy. It was like... for my own birthday I need to drive to you, but you can't come up to my city... unless it's for a puppy? I may have said "are you even coming then?" when he said they were getting a puppy. It's not neutral, but friendships inevitably have annoyances. When he showed up, I dropped it and had a fun birthday party. Everything seemed fine. He was talking to us for a week after that, so I really don't know if that minor annoyance led to not responding to messages for weeks.

The relationship between Alice and Dave has also had issues, but most relationships do. Dave gets in his own head after having been cheated on, and Alice takes the burden of the insecurity a lot of the time. Maybe they're going through something? I really don't know.

How should my fiance and I deal with this? He and I aren't very clingy friends and are typically the type to just let friendships go if they want. But we were really close to these friends and this seems out of nowhere. I'd hate for a deep friendship to dissolve with no explanation or attempt of talking it out. If we did anything wrong I have no problem owning up to it and talking it out. Ignoring messages seems like a petty way to deal with issues.

Tl;dr: my longterm best friend is ignoring me and I don't want to assume why, and don't know how to approach things

Submitted September 11, 2019 at 11:02PM

Here's a bit of backstory on my friends and our relationship: My male friend, Dave, and I have known each other since middle school. We became close and were in the same friend group in high school, and hung out nearly daily junior and senior year. We continued being good friends, and I started dating my fiance when I was around 20. My fiance, Aaron, and my friend Dave, got along immediately. They had the same sense of humor and were almost even closer than Dave and I were, which was great because I had past relationships where my bf didn't get along with my friends.Dave went through a horrible breakup with a girl that cheated on him, lied about it all, and gave him an STD, and we spent a significant amount of time with him supporting him through the recovery process. This is where we got really close. We talked about life, and laughed a lot. We went on hikes and basically had a memorable summer like no other. This made us really close. A few years after this, he had an emergency life threatening illness that required surgery and hospitalization for a month. The hospital he was put into was the university hospital of the school my fiance and I were attending, so we visited daily. We'd bring food, games, and tried to keep spirits high while he recovered. We became really close to his family during this process, and his mom was extremely grateful for the moral support. Long story short, we've been through so much together.When I started university at 20, one of my first friends was a girl named Alice. Alice and I started as study buddies helping each other out with difficult problems, but eventually became a huge support system with the stress of school. She's an amazing friend that actually cares to listen and remembers all the little details about you.To spare the unimportant details, all four of us hung out and Alice and Dave hit it off right away. It was great because we all got along great, and could now double date and do fun couple things. We have had a group chat with the four of us for about a year now where we talk often and make jokes, but about two weeks ago, they've both stopped responding.My fiance asked Dave if they were free to hang out a few weeks ago, and he said they were out of town. Dave lives in my hometown, about two hours away from my university city where I live. I went down to my hometown anyways to visit family, and while my brother, fiance and I were at a restaurant eating lunch, Dave walked in with Alice waiting in his car. He said he wasn't around that weekend.. it was really uncomfortable. My fiance is good at being an optimist and made small talk with him, but maybe I was visibly uncomfortable?Previous to this, they had started not responding to messages but clearly this is more extreme. He avoided plans with us. We're busy university students and have to say no to plans and get that, but never lie or go weeks leaving messages unread. Dave has said "I'm not feeling up to plans this week" before, which we have too, so I don't know why he'd lie this time. Something weird is going on here, isn't it?At this point I'm just running options through my head. Maybe it's not us, and they're going through issues? Maybe they're busy with their new dog? Or maybe I said something that upset them? Our last messages were about my dog eating a birthday cake, so I don't think I sent anything offensive around the time they began to ignore messages.I was minorly annoyed that a few weeks ago, Dave said he didn't want to drive up to my city to celebrate my birthday, so my fiance and I drove all the way to my hometown, and found out Dave couldn't be at my party until the afternoon because he was driving up to our city to pick up a puppy. It was like... for my own birthday I need to drive to you, but you can't come up to my city... unless it's for a puppy? I may have said "are you even coming then?" when he said they were getting a puppy. It's not neutral, but friendships inevitably have annoyances. When he showed up, I dropped it and had a fun birthday party. Everything seemed fine. He was talking to us for a week after that, so I really don't know if that minor annoyance led to not responding to messages for weeks.The relationship between Alice and Dave has also had issues, but most relationships do. Dave gets in his own head after having been cheated on, and Alice takes the burden of the insecurity a lot of the time. Maybe they're going through something? I really don't know.How should my fiance and I deal with this? He and I aren't very clingy friends and are typically the type to just let friendships go if they want. But we were really close to these friends and this seems out of nowhere. I'd hate for a deep friendship to dissolve with no explanation or attempt of talking it out. If we did anything wrong I have no problem owning up to it and talking it out. Ignoring messages seems like a petty way to deal with issues.Tl;dr: my longterm best friend is ignoring me and I don't want to assume why, and don't know how to approach things