How to get out of this with friend

[Leopardprintisnotaneutral]

Last summer I signed up to a fitness thing with a friend, I have VC a good firnesss schedule and now know what works for me and my body, so this wasn’t something I would ideally have done but this was a new friend whom I liked and really wanted to start her fitness journey so thought I would support. it was in the school holidays so it worked times wise, and I’ll be honest I’m not sure she’d stick it out.

But here we are 9 months on. It doesn’t work for me fitness wise and the timing (early morning) around getting DC to school doesn’t work. Friend’s husband is a sahd Im a sahm. Friend can just get up and go whereas if DH has an early meeting I need to do breakfasts and pack lunch as isn’t fair. I’m either late or getting up at 6:15am and also the type of exercise doesn’t work best for my body….and honestly I miss the freedom off doing my own thing.

If I stip doing it though it will make it really expensive for friend and it’s likely she’ll have to stop too 😕.

I think you just have to be honest, explain you're struggling with timings, also in retrospect you feel whatever you'd done in the past works better for you. Obviously, point out you value her friendship and want to continue seeing her.

Hi x

I have really enjoyed coming to x with you but I'm finding the mornings are getting too stressful for me. I also feel that this, plus the other exercise activity that I do leaves me feeling really exhausted. I'm happy to carry on until x date until you have found someone else to do it with, or maybe you might want to carry on by yourself. I thought I'd let you know now ahead of time so you can decide what will work best for you. Thanks!

Or words to that effect?

It's not a personal thing and she needn't take it that way. I do understand the new friendship thing as good new friends are hard to come by, but hopefully you now know each other better than when you first started and will continue seeing each other outside of this activity?

I agree with @lemonsaretheonlyfruit’s approach. You can’t tie yourself to something for forever to appease someone else. If the friendship fades then it was a friendship built on convenience (nothing wrong with those types of friendships but they tend to fade when the connection stops). I do think you should give enough notice that she can try and find another friend or work out if she can afford it solo.