End of friendship processing

Hi,
It has become clear recently that a once close friendship of mine, has truly ended. Things have been rocky for about three years, with several sources of friction – usually around me doing or saying something that upsets them (or not doing). These have usually revolved around political things, like not posting vocally enough in our group chat about various social causes.
I have found it challenging, as while I see where they’re coming from, I also don’t like being policed in this way or feel like I have to perform or prove myself to a friend on such a level. They have ‘cut out’ (their words) several friends over recent years because they don’t fit with their new, more radical politics. (I say this because I’ve known them over a decade, and this is something that’s become bigger more recently.)
This scares me because of a history of rejection from family – including a period of estrangement in the last few years – and also because i went freelance last year and also recieve plenty of rejection here! I simply cannot handle more of it from friendship, which I’m struggling enough with feeling vulnerable and exposed in my work.
The last time we had a conversation where I’d upset them, by not reaching out about something that happened in the news, I was away with family, dealing with some big things. And when I explained this was why, they didn’t see this as valid.
After this, something finally flipped for me and I just checked out. I have a history of blaming myself for things like this, and I realised no, this isn’t ok for me and it’s not actually meeting my standards of friendship.
I don’t want to be close to someone where I can’t communicate about the things going on in my life too, where these will never be seen as valid, and where I constantly feel like I could be rejected.
And I think the feeling of checking out was mutual, because they haven’t messaged me since either – and this was 9 months ago. I actually feel happier with them not in my life now. And kind of at peace? Because this had been a long time coming.
The issue is we share a friendship group, have seen each other twice in this context, but not for a while. And recently both of the other mutual friends have initiated conversations with me about what has happened, because they’ve finally cottoned on to the drifting, change of vibe in the group chat (which hasn’t been active for a few months).
I have explained it to both of them. And feel at peace with it. But part of me finds it odd that I haven’t had a formal ‘breakup’ conversation with the actual other person.
The thing is, I don’t want to right now. I’m happier with things as they are. And it’s not something I want on my plate. I have no interest in trying to save a friendship that wasn’t working for me for so long.
But is that bad?! A part of me feels like ‘the right’ thing to do would be to initiate a closure chat with them, but I just don’t want to.
Any advice on that much appreciated!
Thank you

Answer:

You get to decide how you define a friendship. What are some thoughts that could help you feel how you want to feel about this person without anything changing?

What do you think is bad? What is the problem with how things are now? Take a step back and observe what’s happening (you’ve already gotten a great start.)

See what comes up.