<p>Remember the “sandbox” years and the other moms of similar-aged kids who became close personal friends? As I find myself moving into the late HS/early college phase, I am losing interest in one such friend, and yet feeling badly about it, and I don’t want to disappoint her by no longer seeing her weekly, as had become our custom.</p>
<p>I have gotten busier in the past year, and on my current schedule, to make time for even once social get-together a week is a lot. I see that I need to use some of that very limited social time to cultivate other friendships. And yet I feel badly to disappoint a fundamentally nice person, with whom I share many memories. I wonder if the decades-long faithful friendships that my WW2-generation parents seemed to enjoy are eluding us younger Boomers somehow.</p>
<p>Have your mom-friendships morphed from the sandbox days to the college application days? Any comments?</p>
<p>I met my closest friend when our D’s were in the same Brownie troop! We have become closer as the years have gone by.</p>
<p>OTOH, when I first moved into this neighborhood 15 years ago I was very close to a neighbor. We both had 2 year olds as well as kids in lower elementary. We spent a lot of time together and seemed to have a lot in common. As our older kids were going into middle and then high school things changed. I sensed an attitude change in her. We had been part of a group of moms who volunteered a lot and also socialized a lot together. She sort of pulled away from the group. I regret not asking why.</p>
<p>About 6 years ago we both returned to work. I had always enjoyed having a career and was looking forward to it, but she was working for strictly financial reasons and had never planned to work outside the home. I sense a real unhappiness about that.</p>
<p>We don’t see each other much but the last several years she has seemed to become very self absorbed. When we do talk she goes on and on about her kids but never even asks about mine. She will tell me all about her job, but has no idea where I work or what I do. </p>
<p>Needless to say, I don’t enjoy her company very much anymore.</p>
<p>My parents are also WW2 generation but neither of them had sustained friendships that lasted decades. I find that my earlier friendships were “situational” - our kids were in the same grade or same sport and we saw each other often and found things to talk about. I think friendships sometimes just lose their strength and get replaced by new friends. Kind of like shedding old skin. And someone who was in your orbit but not a friend can become a friend. I work full time, and I think it is absolutely harder to make friends if you’re not around. Right now, I have 3 really good friends who I’ve been friends with for 15 years. I feel lucky to have them.</p>
<p>Don’t assume you are the only one losing interest ~ she probably doesn’t feel as connected to you either. Likely she has picked-up on your feelings. Friendship is not an obligation.</p>
<p>Though I have some long-term friendships (mostly through my church), I find that my other friends wax and wane depending on the involvements of my children. I was very close to the other mothers in S2’s elementary school, as we went K - 6 together as a group. But I really don’t keep in touch with them now other than through social media. Ditto for the moms in DS1’s cub scout den. We socialized often but don’t see each other now. My closest friends now are through my church and DS2’s boy scout troop. </p>
<p>I view it as part of the ebb and flow of life. People move into the narrative of our lives for awhile, and we play important roles, and then we move on into the next chapter. We have fond memories and lessons, and it’s okay.</p>
<p>I seem to have all ebb…I did start having quarterly get togethers with a few friends that I hardly see, and while that has been lots of fun I find myself bracing for the inevitable decline in interest. I think like lots of friendships, older ones do better with a shared experience, but there just aren’t many shareable ones at 50. I find myself very wistful looking at all those restaurant commercials with big groups of laughing buddies, but probably that is not how real people live. Do people still have dinner parties outside of holidays? Or go out together? And how many people have couples as friends?</p>
<p>My closest circle of lady friends are a group I’ve known since our kids were in nursery school. Almost all of us are now grandmothers! We still see each other on a weekly basis, some of us more than once a week. The core group is about a dozen but there are others who drift in and out throughout the year, depending on their schedules. Some now spend the winter in other places so we see them less frequently. We were so fortunate when our kids were young, all of us SAHMs who were very involved in the school our kids attended. Once a year, we still have an afternoon get-together for the moms who were active in those years - 80s/early 90s - and we always have a turnout of at least 80 moms. Those were the days, as they say.</p>
<p>Greenbutton, we still have dinner parties. Not often but probably two to three times a year with friends, some of whom reciprocate. More often, we go out to eat together. We live within walking distance of many pubs and restaurants, and two couples and my H and I meet at one of the pubs for dinner every couple of weeks. The core group of lady friends I mentioned above, and their husbands, are ‘couple friends’, other than one who is divorced. I mean, she’s not part of a couple but still a friend and is always invited along to the couples’ dinners. :)</p>
<p>I think perhaps part of the problem is how mobile our society is. People don’t live in the same place all their life anymore. It’s one thing when you have friends you grew up with and your parents knew their parents… I grew up in a small town. it’s still like that for the people who are still there and I can go back to visit and it’s like I never really left. However where we are now we make friends because of some common thing about one of our kids. Instead of making friends with someone because of something we have in common other than the kids. Then when the kids no longer have that in common the friendship fades. I hope that makes sense.</p>
<p>I was better friends with one woman when the kids were small. Her oldest and my oldest were best friends until about fifth or sixth grade. Her middle son and my youngest are still very good friends. We really only had gardening in common and it wasn’t quite enough. Now my best local friend is someone whose son was very good friends with my oldest (after he drifted away from his former friend). I like her, but she’s a bit flaky. I recently drove to my high school reunion with my best friend from those days and really realized how much I miss her (she lives in upstate NY sadly). We happily talked the whole four hour drive (twice) and much of the ensuing weekend. I just don’t know anyone who reads the same books, or talks about movies the same way. My two sister-in-laws come close, but again they are 3-4 hours away.</p>
<p>I have a few very good friends whom I met through my kids when they were small, but I still consider them good friends. One stopped over yesterday to catch up, as she had moved a few states away but was in town for the weekend. Our kids met in mommy-and-me when they were three.
Most of the women I’m close to became friends when my kids were in high school. Working on committees together, sports, and just being part of the group of parents of our kids’ best friends reinforced our bonds. We still get together for drinks or lunch several times a year. They’re all attending my son’s wedding this summer, as they feel invested in him the same way I feel invested in their kids’ lives.
I guess I’m fortunate that no one from the high school group has moved away yet. We’re all empty nesters, but not yet retired. Even if we don’t share politics, read the same books or necessarily enjoy the same activities, many of us still feel close because of our common history with our children. But then, our son is still close to most of the kids he was close to in high school, seven years later, so I guess it’s still “the present” for us, not just history.</p>
<p>My closest circle of friends are ladies I grew up with. There are 8 of us that are still friends. We live all over the country. But there are four of us that regularly get together. </p>
<p>The four of us live in the same state, but 2-5+ driving hours apart. So we have identified a location about in the middle ( although I get to drive the least!) and get together about 2-3 times a year and eat lunch, have a glass or two of beverage of choice, laugh, share, buy a lottery ticket! and thoroughly enjoy each others company for about 4 hours.</p>
<p>Occasionally we supplement or do other things like going whitewater rafting last spring or attending one of the ladies daughter’s wedding in Baltimore last summer. And even the 8 of us sometimes get together now (we use to regularly while our kids were growing). Last time, two and a half years ago, was for a weekend.</p>
<p>I have had many parents of kids friends as friends while kids were growing up. Some were close and I socialized with. We also socialized with a few couples. That was harder. Mostly, we have grown apart.</p>
<p>I had the same group of mom-friends from the time our kids were in preschool; our girls all did gymnastics, dance and cheer together, and the girls have remained friends in college. But I don’t see most of the moms much now… except for one, who calls me every day like clockwork on her way home from work. Another is my “problem” friend; we only talk when we need advice or want to rant about something, and it’s usually by texting. Good thing we only talk occasionally, because when we do, it’s usually an all-night texting session!</p>
<p>I have a few different sets of friends. Some of them overlap and some don’t. I also have a few friendships that have fallen off over the years. It’s disappointing but it’s just part of life, I guess. </p>
<p>One thing that always bothers me is that my H and I don’t have a lot of couple friends. During our marriage we have had two good sets of married friends get divorced. In one of these cases, the friendship faded with both the husband and the wife and in the other case, we have remained good friends with the wife.</p>
<p>OP here – I see myself in many of these comments, and I thank you. I grew up observing the small rural town post-war model of adult friendship, and although we left for the major metropolitan area burbs when I was still a kid, two generations of those people traveled for my wedding 15 years later. Now in my 50s I am still loosely in touch with some of those friends, going back to when we were in diapers, whose grandparents were friends with my grandparents, parents with parents. I still remember anecdotes about their grandparents and great-grandparents. So I guess I’ve spent adult life living in a different kind of America, and yet wondering when the kind of friendship (that I saw and accepted as the norm when I was a kid) was going to take root in my now-adult life. Answer – it probably won’t, as I’m living in a different world. The suburban social structure is more transitional, as are the people, and more fluid. Friendships in this social context seem to be more temporal, as lives overlap, for a time. I guess in my heart I establish and maintain those grass-roots, long term loyalties that I was raised with, and a certain sense of obligation that very much went along with it, in a context where it’s not needed or expected. </p>
<p>It’s funny, I don’t find myself expecting anything of others, and I’m satisfied with the intermittent contact that is feasible, because I’ve always been pretty self-sufficient. But I do feel like a bit of a rat to be less loyal, to someone who seems to need me for moral support on a regular basis, than I was raised to be. And yet it’s just gotten to be too time consuming and a bit of an unrewarding drag. A clash of cultures – ironically, all American cultures.</p>
<p>Has anybody noticed a deterioration of mom-friendships over time, if the two families’ levels of success or marital satisfaction head off in different directions over the years? </p>
<p>Life is far from perfect for anybody, but I find it awkward to talk about how things are going OK, and share happy news of things that have gone well, when somebody is hurting. It seems insensitive. And yet I find that feeling restricted in what I can share about my own life, over a period of years, and just listening to one serious problem after another (many of which have been visible, coming down the pike, for a long time) begins to undermine my own enjoyment of the friendship. I begin to feel more like a volunteer shrink than someone on a social outing.</p>
<p>This is compounded by reluctance to share my own disappointments or worries, too, because I have learned (the hard way) that my friend has loose lips.</p>
<p>I have a feeling I know what you guys are going to say – don’t make a ton of time for this friend?</p>
<p>I think it depends on different factors. Are you getting something from the relationship or are you always on the giving side of it? It is hard to be the “shrink/friend” when that person asks for advice but never takes it or makes any changes in how she approaches things. It gets tiring. And frustrating.</p>
<p>Sometimes I need to take a break from some good friends just for that reason. For the most part, though, I try to be there for them.</p>
<p>My “mom friend” went through a divorce and moved away last year. I’ve tried to keep in contact but guess she is pretty bitter and doesn’t want any more connections to our town. I lived through much of the divorce w/ her and tried to be a good friend but it became almost toxic. I dreaded seeing her name pop up on caller ID. So even though she was really the only friend I did things w/ on a regular basis, I don’t miss all the drama. </p>
<p>We sold our house that we lived in while the kids were growing up. Several of the other neighborhood families who had kids the same age as ours have done the same.
So I don’t see those ladies any more. Currently my only Mom friends are the ones I work with. Our friendships are mostly at work only…don’t really do things together outside of work.</p>
<p>PackMom, I, too, “lost” a friend in a divorce – I stopped calling after years of conversations covered nothing but the distressing details of her ongoing divorce. I figured, she can always call me, and I will help her if I can. But this isn’t fun, and at a certain point, I can get all the “not-fun” I need from my extended family.</p>
<p>EPTR, you make a good point. I think the way to be true to my own values in this situation (with the friend I posted about) and to leave the door open for what may be a more fulfilling future phase in the friendship, is to get together less frequently. And maybe try to steer toward something more upbeat, such as a good movie, instead of the ruminating about life and problems.</p>
<p>I too have had “mom” friendships fade over the years. I find my interests aren’t really close to the interests of many of my former friends, now that we don’t have our <em>children’s interests and activities in common. (</em>No longer children, they are all young adults now).</p>
<p>I recently moved and have started looking for new and more meaningful friendships. ■■■■■■■■■■ has yielded some very good results. I recommend it to anyone looking to expand their circles of friends.</p>
