To want to write these friends off?

[Blablabla1984]

We are godparents to their children, they are godparents to ours.

Any present occasion we make an effort to send a card and present on time, theirs is always couple of weeks late. Excuse: sorry, too busy.

I make an effort to say thank you for the presents in the next day or two of receiving them, they never bother. If I ask them if they received it, answer is: yes sorry, too busy, haven’t had a chance to write a message.

We never get a message asking how our kids are doing, it’s only asked after I send a message how theirs are doing?

I mean, I know we are all busy with kids and life, but in this time and age how long does it take to write a message? 1min? 2mins?

Am I stupid for wanting to keep this relationship?

Do you ever actually see each other?

I'm terrible for sending cards/presents late. Equally bad with thank you's. I honestly appreciate everything but always remember at a time I can't do anything about it and then forget when I can!

Irene good point. Only couple of times a year (even though we live 15min away from each other) because they are always "busy" when we try to arrange something.

I think it depends on how much you actually value their friendship as opposed to whether cards are on time, or if they send thank you cards. Apart from this, do you see them often, do you enjoy their company?

If good manners are a deal breaker for you, then maybe you should step away, because you may just be fundamentally incompatible. Otherwise, I'd maybe try to chill about it.

Sounds as if they may be trying to write you off actually.

ReggaeShark good point, makes it even easier ;)

Well you must have liked them quite a lot to get to the godparents stage. People's attitudes to gifts and thanks vary such a lot. To you these are important but to them maybe much less so. Or perhaps they are a bit hectic and disorganised and just overlook these things.

I think your upbringing has a lot of bearing on this as well. Some families never encourage their DC to write thank you notes ( some of my family are like this) and seem to think it just doesn't matter.

I would suggest that you drop the gifts unless you are seeing them in person. Are they quite far away? Since you were all so friendly once why not suggest a meet up a certain number of times a year and instead of sending gifts for birthdays etc exchange small presents then. And obviously showing an interest is really nice but again, not everyone seems to see that.

We made one very dodgy God parent selection. I'm sad that this person has literally no idea what ds is up to or any detail of his life but hey, his loss.

I think different families have a different 'normal' with stuff like thank yous, to me it's really important to send presents and cards on time (although sometimes I forget as 3 years sleep deprivation has fried my brain) but I rarely send a thank you, to me it's old fashioned and just not something that occurs to me to be honest except sometimes with grandparents. I think you should let your friends be who they are and not expect them to be like you. But then you have to decide if you like them the way they are - or not. A better test of the relationship is whether you have a good time when you meetup / if they suggest meetups or it's always you.

Agreeing with others about present-giving and thank-you-note-writing traditions varying enormously from family to family. Also people have different expectations about keeping in touch, I find. The friendships of mine that have lasted the test of time have been the ones with where I haven't been made to feel guilty all the time for being insufficiently attentive.

I'd imagine your friends are busy, and they're just not the sort of people who have loads of reminders on their phone of other people's birthdays, and these occasions aren't so formal and important in their world. Maybe being a godparent means something different in their family from what it does in yours.

If it really bothers you then by all means, stop getting in touch with them so much. You may find that things find a new equilibrium if they don't always feel they're in the doghouse with you for one reason or another.

YWBU to write off friendship for those reasons. Fair enough to do so if you don't enjoy their company anymore or only want to spend time with people willing/able to meet up more frequently.

Maybe they are getting a bit exhausted by the present swapping? I definitely got to a point with the DC where presents weren't that welcome, if I am really honest. Way, way too much stuff - especially from people they barely saw (the DC still said thank you though!).

Might be time to knock the present buying on the head rather than the friendship...maybe they were clumsily trying to put a stop to it?