BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids loosing friends?

Hi, I am new here, and I would like to say that I have enjoyed the last 2-3 months reading everyone's posts. I am 31 and my husband is 38, we have decided to be CF, and we love it. My problem is that my closest childhood friend is the one that I have been having problems with.

I guess that b/c we have been friends ever since we were little, I have felt that we can tell each other anything, and that is exactly what I did the other day. I guess I hit a nerve with her.

She has 2 children 2yrs and 4yrs old. She knows that My husband & I don't want kids. Ever since she had her first child, we have been slowly drifting apart, soley b/c she just does NOT make time for our relationship. She is just so busy with her children, I'ts like pulling teeth to even talk on the phone with her. Our conversations are at best 2-3 minutes, b/c SHE has to get off the phone to tend to her screaming kids! In the last 4 years since she has had kids, I have only gotten together with her only about 10 times!!! And the sad thing is we only live 10 min. apart!!!

I can tell you this is soely her fault for the lack of us getting together, I try so hard, I always ask her to get a baby sitter, so we can have some girl time with each other, but it never happens.

Anyway to make a long story short, I emailed her the other day to express how I was really frustrated with our relationship. I told her that I wanted to get together with her once every 1-2 weeks, just to meet at a coffee shop, and have an hour or two to reconnect and have girl talk. I don't think that is asking too much of a supposedly best friend. I told her that every time I call her That I cannot get into a conversation with her B/C she always has to go within 2-3 minutes of being on the phone. She is married and has a husband that comes home from work at 5:30 every night, what would be so hard to leave the kids with him and meet me for 1-2 hours once a week??? She is a stay at home mom, doesn't she have enough time with the children all day?

My letter to her was very sweet I was not harsh, I just told her that Our relationship was suffering and just like any relationship, it needs to be nurtured to be healthy. I explained that WE needed one on one time to have girl talk. And that meeting at the YMCA to do an aerobics class is not quality time with her.

Her response to me:::: Quote "I feel like you really don't understand what my life is like, and that my children take up most, if not all of my time"

I was shocked at her resopnse! It was as if the letter went right over her head. Like she did not even understand what I was saying!

I don't want the relationship anymore, frankly there is nothing left of it, that letter was my last ditch effort to wake her up and let her know how I was feeling, and apparently her kids rule her life and She made that very clear that nothing is more important!

The last thing that made me mad about her comment, I am NOT stupid, I was NOT born yesterday, I know her children are important, and I DO understand her life, She just needs to understand that If you want to have any other life besides your kids than you need to make time for other people too!

Does anyone have a similar experience? With someone that you had been friends with for 20 years???

Obviously her kids are more important than any other relationship in her whole life!

Thanks!

Hey mootencat,

To be fair to your friend, she *is* in the thick of it. There is probably no other time when she will be as frazzled as she is right now.

On the other hand...she doesn't sound like she is respectful of your feelings. She might become one of the overbearing Professional Soccer Moms, in which case she still might not have time for you, even when her kids are 12 and 14; at that point, they could stay on their own at home for an hour or three, but --- she probably wouldn't let them because Her Influence is Paramount.

My very best friend in this world is a mother of three (18, 15, and 6). But she's worked in childcare, is no-nonsense, has supremely unspoiled children, etc., etc. She also totally respects to CF choice and acknowledges the sacrifices she's had to make in her life to be a parent (she has lived close to poverty for years, after divorcing the father of her first two children; he beat her and is in jail now).

We've been friends since I was 12. There have been times when we've been out of touch (due to moves, etc.), but we alwas pick up where we left off. My hubby and I just visited her in Atlanta a few weeks ago (we live in New Hampshire).

So it's not the fact that your friends is a parent, *per se*, that is the problem. It's what type of parent she is and is becoming. If you don't like the trend, I'd say step back a bit, and wait until the kids are in school. If she's still overbearing and disrespectful at that point, I'd say...bail...unceremoniously and completely.

Sorry you're in this predicament...

Thanks Bonsai,

I really appreciate your input, It's just sad to see a friendship dwindle away b/c she is so self absorbed with her kids and her life. I just feel like you can do anything if you want to and I feel like she must not "want to" continue our friendship, only investing a small amount of time for me?

And just a side note, I may not have kids, but I lead a very busy life too and I can always make time for a friend! She must not feel like she can make time or she would!

Thanks
Thanks

I had this problem recently. A few weeks ago, my best friend and I had plans to go to lunch and just spend a few hours together and I got ditched for women with children. I got really irritated. We ended up talking a few days later and I told her that at this point in my life, it's gotten very difficult to have female friends because so many of them have children and that,yes, I was irritated, but that I was going to have start making friends without kids. This really upset her initially. She said that her kids were the most important thing in her life and that they would always take first priority. And I really understand that and said so. But I also said, unfortunately other peoples' kids aren't MY first priority and I shouldn't be expected to make them my first priority. I also said that although I respected and understood that her kids were number one with her, I couldn't really depend on making plans with her or even talking on the phone with her. She took some offense at that, too. I then said, at this point in my life, there has been a shift in though for me in a lot of different ways. It's a shift in perspective to accept the fact you aren't having kids. And it can be a time of personal redefinition, too. I recognize I've made a choice by choosing not to have kids and there are obvious consequences for that - one of them being that a lot of my old friends no longer have time for me (I feel they would if I had kids, though). But as much as she and other friends no longer have time for our friendships, I couldn't be expected to drop whatever I'm doing when she suddenly does have time. I do feel that this often happens - that friends with kids don't really have time for old friendships until, for whatever reason, the kids aren't around for a few hours and then I'm expected to be available because, after all, I don't have kids.
For several years, my difficulty with being childfree was trying to decide if this was the right decision. Now that the decision has been made, the difficulty is finding my place in society. People with kids have different priorities than I do. It's hard to find people who have the same goals and interests and who don't have kids. It's a really difficult place to be right now. It's been great reading that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Snooks, It's unbelievable to me that this is happening everywhere no matter where you live in this country, as soon as people pop out the kids, their life becomes fully absorbed in it! And before I truely decided to be CF I had people telling me that "life really does'nt change with kids"!!!! Maybe that was their way of trying to convince me to jump on the band waggon to have babies!! I am not that stupid, I KNOW children change lives and that's one of the reasons I decied NOT to have kids, b/c I love my freedom and I did not want that taken away from me, but the question is, If your life after kids does a 180, than it must mean that all of your "pre-children" friends can no longer be your friends, b/c it seems like my friend has made all NEW friends with women WITH children, and your right, SHE ALWAYS HAS TIME FOR THOSE WOMEN, THEY CAN TALK ABOUT ALL OF THE BABY *?%@, OR HOW MISERABLE THEY ARE???

It just seems like an awful lot of new MOMS abandon their old friends for new relationships like theirs!!!

I think a big part of it is that if they hang out with people with children, the kids can play together and don't bug the parents as much. If they hang out with us, they have to put out more effort, by either finding someone to watch them, or, figure out how to keep the kid entertained while they talk with us. It just turns into an easier experience for them to hang out with other moms. I agree it's sad and makes me feel left out too.

But I've experienced this same divide when I got married. Single friends don't really get that my husband is a priority, and I can understand that. I felt the same way when I was single. I don't have too many girl's nights out anymore it feels kind of rotten to be left at home alone at night while your significant other is out partying with friends. We do it more and more rarely as we get older. It's just so much nicer to be inclusive and not leave someone out just because of their gender. It is really nice to hang out with "the girls" though, so I try and do that during the day, or in a way that my husband won't feel so left out.

your exactly right about moms hanging out with other moms b/c it's probably easier! I just wish it did not have to be that way. That's ok though, I will go on and find other people that want to hang out with me, anyway, you know if someone doen't have time for me than why would I try so hard to be with someone that does't value me anyway?

It's just one more life lesson to learn. I will not focus my time trying to fix a relationship that she must not value anyway!

Hi everyone, I totally understand what everyone is going through. My BFF since the fourth grade just had her first child yesterday, and while I am truly ecstatic for her and her hubby, I have a very uneasy feeling that our "girls' night dinners" are quickly going to become Babyfest 2007 or worse, non-existent. I am looking forward to being Auntie when he can walk and talk and interact, but babies simply don't interest me. My cousin, who is more like my sister, is getting married this fall and is already talking about popping out kids. I'm the maid of honor in her wedding and we hang out every weekend. When she "bites the dust", I feel like I'm going to be all alone in GirlWorld. What is so weird to me is that there seem to be a lot of us out there, many on this site alone, but no one in any of our lives seems to share or understand our stance on this...I wonder why?

Shannon, thanks for your input, it seems like a lot of CF people have been experiencing the same thing with their friends. Too bad it seems to happen all too often that you eventually loose your friends if you remain CF, b/c they move on to other people they can connect with in their own lives. I really think it shouldn't be that way, but the more I read, the more it just seems to be the "RULE" not the exception.

Christine

You certainly aren't alone. It seems most of the female friends I had, I lost due to their having kids. Yeah, things go okay for a little bit...they figure out how to have a dinner out once in a long while...but sooner or later, the friendship just ends. In my case, it was never really on bad terms...it just dissolved. Now that I'm getting older, I find that I am making friends with women who are older than me (empty-nesters). I get along fairly well with them as most of them are over the kid-saturation-stage.

Still, it hurts. You were there first. And you were still standing there when she made that choice.

Re: mothers being friends with mothers, it does make sense that they want somebody to visit with who has kids the same age to play with. However, I feel a lot of it is "misery loves company." They have somebody who they can complain to who is going through the same thing. They might not feel that they can complain to someone who was smart enough not to make the same choice.