To cancel on my friends who never visit me or just want a free lunch

[Ginchihuahua]

I moved from the city I lived and to uni in last June to a more rural area 30 mins train ride away. I still work in the city so commute daily each day by car which is an hour each way.

I have a group of uni friends, there are 4 of us all together that always met regularly. Since moving I have invited them over on 4 occasions for housewarming, my birthday etc they have declined each time instead suggesting to meet in the city.

I invited them over this Sunday, without asking me they invited their kids & husbands bumping the number to 7. I had planned to cook a roast however had to explain my small cottage cant seat 7 and suggested booking a pub lunch. They cancelled stating they couldnt afford a pub lunch (we are all in the same profession a £12 lunch is easily affordable for us).

However straight after suggested meeting in the city for lunch instead. I begrudgingly agreed. However frankly I feel like cancelling.
Im upset this has happened everytime they have been invited and it seems they were only visiting if they got a free lunch. I cant see how money is an issue if they are paying for lunch in the city!

Commuting 5 days a week is tiring enough without doing it on a Sunday too! What do you all think? Should I cancel? Ditch my friends entirely? Or suck it up and go tomorrow?

I can’t imagine inviting friends for Sunday lunch without their partner or kids?!

In my experience, that’s when I’d want to be with my kids. Do you try to arrange evening get togethers?

You can seat 8 OP. Maybe not as a regular thing but as a 1 off, even if its a sqyash or someone ends up sitting on a box. The fact is they were coming to visit - right up til you told them what they were coming to visit was your local pub. Where they could buy themselves dinner. Why would they travel an hour for that?

^^
Agree. They thought you were welcoming them to your home and you downgraded it to just lunch at pub with the girls only. So they thought, why add another 2+ travel on top of a pub lunch for us all? We can just do that in the city, like we always do.

Bizarre for you to think they want you for free food. Sure they can feed themselves fine at home. They just don't want the expense of a family meal out on top of a schlep out to where you are that takes up most of their Sunday and probably feels more of an obligation than enjoyment. They don't need to see your house, do they? They've got busy lives by the sounds of it. A lunch near their homes is more appealing and less hassle. Sorry but that's just how it is when people move away. You're the one who changed things. They're just carrying on as they were.

They bumped the number to 7? From an initial group of 4? Which means 1 husband and 2 kids, or 2 husbands and one kid. I don't think 3 extra people is a big deal and YABU.

I had a reunion of my uni gang - 9 adults and our 10 offspring in our very small house. We fed kids first, then the adults squeezed around the table. Any inconvenience was far outweighed by the pleasure of spending time with old friends. It was a brilliant day. I think you need to relax a bit - your friends were willing to travel to you, but also wanted to bring their DP/DC. Perhaps they thought you'd enjoy seeing their partner and/or kids. I have friends whose homes are awkward to get to, and while I prefer to go on my own to see them so we can catch up properly, I am grateful that they always extend the invite to my dh and/or dc too. Because it means we see each other, and that's the most important thing to keep our friendship healthy.

Sunday has always been family day in my book. You can't invite one member. I have turned down so many invitations to Sunday lunch because families don't get enough time together as it is

Sorry OP but I think you are being sulky and unreasonable.

You complain that your friends don’t make an effort, but actually they were all going to come on the train (not cheap) with all the family on a Sunday before you decided that you simply couldn’t have 7 people over.

You don’t need to do a 3 course sit down meal- a buffet would have been fine, then people could sit, stand, take turns to sit, whatever.

You changed the goalposts, not them.

Oh, and if you invited me to something on a Sunday then absolutely I am there with family or not at all. You’re not at university now- priorities change, you need to accept that or change friends.

Ps- your assumption that a family can afford £12 per head (really? Does that include drinks? If not that’s another load of cash they are shelling out) is unfair. You don’t know their financial situation, they could be mortgaged to the hilt, and kids are expensive. Don’t assume that £12 per head plus a train fare is affordable just because you can afford it.

I don’t think you should cancel on them, and while I do agree with previous posters, I also think you have a point. These are your friends, so you need to acknowledge that you moving away has changed things, but also that you really want them to come see your new house, and feel a bit down that that has not happened yet.

You're married, so was your husband going to be present at the Sunday lunch at your new house? If so I can easily see why your friends thought husbands and kids were welcome. It would be really bizarre not to bring them. As pp said, people with families often treat Sundays as a family time/admin/sorting out the next week day. DP is great but he'd be unimpressed (and have every right to be) if I took myself off all afternoon on a Sunday having barely seen him or ds all week, leaving him to do washing/cleaning/tea time/bathtime/bedtime/sorting out the packed lunches and clothes for tomorrow etc.

YABU

You’ve chosen to move an hour away.
You expected your friends to leave their families on a Sunday, pay train fares, and trek a 2 hour round trip to sit in a pub at £12/head and are sulky when they won’t.

I understand that you don’t want to commute in on a Sunday - I suspect your friends don’t want to commune out! But you made this choice to move and by default to make social events much more difficult - why should your friends have to be the ones that compensate for the distance by travelling? You changed the goalposts.

Living rurally is lovely but it means go have to make more effort with Travel.

Oh OP....as others have said, once you have kids, you bring them with you to lunch type things on Sundays. And you don;t want to go on a train for almost an hour twice in order to do it!

They would have come had you invited their kids too....

You changed the arrangements yourself when the numbers went from four to seven.

You seem to think it’s about money but it is probably about time. Going to a lunch fifty minutes away means that they won’t get to see much of their actual family.

When I see my university friends we try to meet somewhere in the middle for everybody.

It does feel like you changed the goalposts. A lunch at a friend's house has a totally different dynamic to lunch out in a pub. Especially when there are kids involved. Agree with others that you can be flexible when having more people over than you would usually cater for. People sitting on sofas/the floor etc are totally fine and that's how we do things when we have a big crowd over.

Things change and maybe rather than just meeting as a 4, your friends are moving towards wanting their partners/children to be part of it too?

I’m aftaid I do think YABU here. You moved away, there’s one / maybe to of you and 3 of them, or even 7 of them if you include family. I remember what weekends are like before I had kids - now I have kids weekends are really stressful (I have twins, getting them out of the house to somewhere local is a military operation, the thought of throwing in nearly two hours of train travel into that mix fills me with dread). I thought I was knackered when I was working long hours and commuting but it’s nothing compared to how knackered I am now!

If you still work in the city can you meet them for lunch or after work, or is that not possible around their kids?

YANBU. That is really cheeky. You’ve done way more than your fair share to keep the friendship going. Time to be true to yourself and honest with them.

I think this is case of you wanting to keep things as they were at uni versus your friends who want socialising / weekend activities to include their kids / husbands. I suspect they think that they can take the time to come to your house if it's a family day out OR leave their kids with their dh for a quick lunch (paying only for themselves, not for whole family, like your Sunday roast idea) close to where they live. I don't think this is unreasonable once you've got a family.

Couldn't see DH being happy to entertain the kids and cook tea plus baths hairwashes PE kits etc on his own - it's his weekend too

My DH would be happy to do this for me to see my friends. They're his kids too!

I am surprised at the general trend of the thread. I have friends all around the country and they visit me and I visit them we have a larger group in one city so probably meet there more often but I expect them to come to see me at my home sometimes

I also think if you are single then I wouldn't have expected to bring partners and kids. If your family can't cope for a few hours one Sunday without you there is a problem. However I probably would have just let them bring their families and squashed them in.

So no I don't think YABU and I think cancelling but explaining why is a perfectly legitmate thing to do.

Just say " sorry I am not going to make it today. I am really tired after commuting to X all week and am just going to have a quiet day at home "

Crikey you want friends to come alone and they want to come with their kids -which is fair enough. Then you want them to pay for the train and for meals out. By the time they’re finished, that could be £100 for the family with kids. I’m not surprised they have declined!

OP
I will tell it honestly I think you're being weird... why would they be bothered about a free meal ? it's not about that clearly as they're happy to meet in the city.

£12 meal is easily affordable for YOU factor in paying for travel for themselves partners kids , plus meals and drinks that's not so affordable .

In addition to the time spent travelling to and from yours.

You're very selfish and I don't get the impression you know what it's like to have kids.

I have old work friends that we catch up with three times a year. One lives in the country about 40 miles away. I have been to her and she encourages meet ups in their local country pub.

I discourage it.

Why? Because we worked in the city, the city is very accessible for all of us, it has good restaurants and bars and we can all have a drink and get home within about 30-45 minutes each.

She does have young children yes, but we have been friends for over 20 years and I had young children once when she was childless and living in the city, and I still made it.

I think since you moved away, you are being unreasonable.

Cancel if you are tired. But dont start alienating people. I am 50 and my oldest friends (about 8 of them) are spread all out over the country. We cant see each other often and we have been at different stages in our lives. But now all that effort is worth it.