Help me with this mum friend

[StrenghtAndFlavour]

I don't want to write a very long post about the ins and outs but there is a friend from my home country who I used to be reasonably close friends with. I met her in the UK but she moved back home from the UK about 5 years ago, however she still visits several times a year. Our dc used to be friendly but they have all grown into teens and tweens and mine focus on their own school friends, here in the UK, whom they are rarely able to meet up with due to school and lots of extra curricular activities during term time. DH and I working FT etc. We have an insanely busy family schedule and are only rarely able to socialise with friends, even those we are close to but we do have a small group of friends whom we see regularly, maybe every 4-6 weeks.

Whenever this woman comes to the UK, she drops me an email saying we're coming, let's meet up. She always wants to meet as a family but we don't have the time (or by now the inclination really) to meet as a family. Family meet ups would always be at ours even before they moved away, take hours and just feel too much overall. Especially now that the dc are all older and don't necessarily gel in the same way as when they were little.

If I tell her I can meet for lunch etc, she tells me her dc will be disappointed. When I don't reply to her announcement that she coming to visit the UK soon enough, she texts my dh or her dc texts my dc to ask to meet up.

I can't and don't want to accommodate family get togethers. What do I do? Fade out gently? Be upfront, but how to do this tactfully? She got rather cross with me by text message when I said that only I can meet with her this time, telling me I'm being stubborn. She also got her dc to text mine to check if they want to meet after I had told her that my dc are busy with plans to meet their school friends and won't be able to meet her dc this time. This really annoyed me as I had explicitly said that I can meet her for lunch but that my dc will not be able to meet as they already have plans. Did they expect a different reply? Or did they not believe me that my dc are busy?

Please help me solve this with as little drama as possible, I am feeling stressed and annoyed by her insistence.

She sounds self absorbed and hard work, did you enjoy seeing her at all? I would consider letting this friendship go now, it doesn’t sound like you get anything out of it, and she sounds like she’s more interested in a free day of meals and entertainment that actually caring about you and your family. I think we can try to hold on to friendships sometimes as we feel they are a link to past memories that we often see through rose tinted glasses and feel nostalgic about, but things change, and this doesn’t sound like it’s working for you (it doesn’t actually sound like she was ever that great if she never hosted though!!).

Well done, OP. But I don't think this 'friend' is bringing anything positive to your life. I'd throw her back.

I'd pre-empt her by sending her a text telling her that this last meeting has revealed to you that she is not a friend but just uses you, and you will not be seeing her again.

Then block.

This is a friendship on her terms and she is using you. Sounds like she never hosted you even when living here. I’d let this drift, otherwise be honest , tell her when you are free if you really want to see her, otherwise explain you are too busy .

She sounds like a pretty shit friend-no loss really. I hope she paid for her own coffee!