To be disappointed by female friends

[Lucille89]

I have a couple of friends I’ve known for a very long time. They’re both married with kids. I’m married but I don’t have children due to long term infertility/miscarriages.
A lot of their chat revolves around kid stuff, school, other mums etc. I’ve often sat through long conversations with them feeling very much like an outsider. I find it boring so I change the subject to things like tv shows, popular culture etc. One friend often laughs at me and says things like how on earth do you find the time to watch so much tv, or it amazes me you have so much free time. I find it condescending. The other friend talks a lot about their children’s achievements and children’s friendship group issues which is the worst- I hate listening to her stories. Neither friend really stays in touch or texts and I am the one who normally organises meeting up every so often.
We have known each other for 20+ years and we used to be close. I often feel like an outsider with them now, and it hurts. I feel like they think they’re more important than me because they’re such busy mums, at least the conversations often make me feel this way. I worked through a lot of stuff with a therapist and try to embrace my life, build my confidence despite being not being able to have a child.
Is this just a natural thing, to drift apart from female friends based on whether you have kids or not? My DH has best mates who have kids and he never has these issues with them. Is it just different with female friendships? Or do I just have crap friends?

This may turn around for you in a while. I am older, my dc have left home and all my friends are the same. Now when we meet we discuss books we are reading , series we are following , holidays we are planning etc. Hardly any mention of kids unless there is big news like an engagement.

Your friends are quite self centred not to take an interest in your life . They sound totally clueless. Have you ever had a proper chat with them about your fertility journey..do they care?
Maybe just keep casual contact until hopefully the above happens.
Meantime join book clubs, choirs, film societies to meet the type of people you will enjoy socialising with.

They just sound like crap friends tbh. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together and a teaspoon of empathy would realise that talking almost exclusively about your kids to a friend without kids who has struggled with infertility is going to be hurtful and/or boring as heck.

I haven't personally found this to happen with friends of mine, no. When I was pre-kids and they had kids we talked about the kids because I loved them and they were so important to my friends but we also talked about plenty of other things: our careers, hobbies, relationships, interests, trips, money, education, TV, people we knew, so many things.

Since I've had a child I'm very aware of not being a bore about him and save the bulk of my chat about him for my parent group friends unless asked, and then I'll talk about him a bit but then move onto other things depending on what our usual topics of connection are (some friends I bond with over our professions, some over specific music, some over other things).

The 'haha how do you have so much free time' thing is incredibly insensitive when I'm assuming that being infertile you've actually wanted to be busy with a child and would give anything to have that experience. It's also patronising. And incorrect. I have a child and he's asleep for 630pm every night so I have hours and hours of free time each week without him to see friends, partake in hobbies, spend time with DH or relax on my own. Before I had kids I had periods of my life being WAY too busy! Working eighty hour weeks, balancing full time studying with several jobs at once, just absolutely manic at times. I have a much more relaxed life with lots more free time now than I did pre child.

It's a common belief that friendships will last forever or that if it's lasted long enough it'll keep going, but that just isn't always the case. I lost a best friend of two decades a couple of years ago. It happens. Ask yourself whether the friendship is meeting your needs or serving you at all as it is now rather than hanging onto the past. A good way to avoid holding onto friendships that have passed their best years is to always be open to meeting new friends. You're not just inevitably stuck with these women if you want close friends. There are potential new friends everywhere.

I'd let these go quietly, contact them less, maybe meet up if they ask but don't make any particular effort. I don't think your experience is uncommon or unique or unusual, but I do think it's down to them being crappy friends that sound devoid of anything interesting about them or any social skills/emotional intelligence.

It's cheesy but I like this phrase: some friends are for a reason, some for a season, some for a lifetime.

Cherish the happy times you had, recognise that relationships are always in flux, keep an open heart to new friends and let these ones fall into your past. I'm sorry they're like this.

IME it's quite hard to stay friends when one person has young children and the other doesn't. But as pp says it will get easier again when the kids get older. It depends whether you think it's worth waiting for that time. Sometimes we do have to move on from old friends if we're no longer enjoying their company.

I'm sorry you feel sad about this. I do think women naturally talk about their kids a lot and even as a mother myself I find it can be boring sometimes but you can talk endlessly about them. I don't think men have long conversations about their kids so I can see why your husband doesn't have this issue.

If you want to keep the friendship I think you need to confide in them about how it can be upsetting for you as your life hasn't turned out the same way and you struggle to relate. There are so many other things you could all chat about like your relationships/TV/work etc. If you feel you're being left out of these conversations maybe 3 has become a crowd and you should put your efforts into spending time with different people? I think even friendships that have are 20 years old can drift depending on life stages unfortunately.

There's no excuse for being an insensitive bore.

I have a friendship group in which I'm the only one who doesn't like dogs. They will have a chat about the dogs, show pics etc for about 15 minutes but then will stop, one of them will either say, anyway, that's enough dog talk and we'll move onto something else or I tell them they're boring me now!

One of them has no children, we don't all bore her to death about our kids either.

They sound like normal mums with kids. I think you are massively projecting

It’s unfortunate but it does happen. Women tend to be far more consumed by their children than men. I’m in the same position as you and the last of my group of 4 friends without children. I said to DH I was finding meeting up with them difficult and he didn’t really get it. He is also the last of his friends without children but doesn’t find it an issue.

Then I was on a zoom call with them while he was in the next room working and I didn’t have headphones in. When I came off the call he said he understood now. None of them asked me a thing about myself or my life. The whole hour conversation was about their children and their lives their schooling etc etc.

He said when out with the guys it’s usually how is X, oh he’s great loving school then onto chat about work, sport, diy, holidays. All that diversity is gone from my friendship group.

If you are finding it difficult I would just drift from the friendships now and maybe try find some friends without children. The comment your friend made about being busy was cruel but she didn’t likely mean anything by it. My best friend who is the best in the world often makes similar comments to me. Unfortunately infertility is so hidden that it’s difficult for friends to realise it is an illness and a traumatic one and they should make an effort to be considerate.

If you were my friend I'd try and make an effort to talk about other things. When you have kids the conversation annoyingly does end up revolving around them but it's because they take up so much of the time. I'm sure they don't do it on purpose and if you said you feel like you can't contribute, I'm sure they'd try a bit harder to find something more inclusive.

They sound very self involved and tactless. I actively look forward to talking about current affairs, tele or my hobbies with my friends if they have kids or not!

I found the same with old friends to be honest.

After years of trying with them I made new friends in my 40s who had older children.

I'm sorry you feel like this, it's tough when we don't feel heard by people who we thought cared about us. I am a Mum and have experienced the crushing boredom of listening to other Mums talk about their children for hours so please don't feel like you are alone in that feeling. It is dull. Or quite often comes across as competitive or a massive comparison. And that comment about what you do with your time did sound condescending. Maybe it's time to refocus your friendships and maybe try and find other people with other interests.

I once travelled quite a distance to meet up with a small group of women from an online book forum, we'd been online friends for years but never actually met. Two of the women spent the entire day talking about their kids, the rest of us wondered why they'd bothered coming - we weren't expecting to talk exclusively about books, but some variation would have been nice. I think some people are just clueless.

All of my friends have kids as do I, there is nothing worse in my opinion than talking about kids all the time. I try to avoid it as meeting my friends is my time out from parenting stuff.

Do you know the saying about friends for a reason, friends for a season? Sometimes you just move apart for all sorts of reasons none of which are anybody's fault. Maybe its time to let them go?

@Bairnsmum05

All of my friends have kids as do I, there is nothing worse in my opinion than talking about kids all the time. I try to avoid it as meeting my friends is my time out from parenting stuff.

This!

I can't think of anything worse than meeting up with friends and doing nothing but talking about DC.

They do sound pretty insensitive, especially if they know your fertility struggles, and the fact that you are the one organising the meet ups goes to show that you are the only one putting in any effort.

The only slightly different perspective I can offer is that with small children sometimes it is hard to talk about much else because there is not time to do much else. I know PP said she had loads of time in her day, but that's not my experience. I had a child that didn't sleep and before I went back to work I really didn't do much that I could chat about with other adults. To be frank, I was pretty boring and brain dead and felt it in coversations with others. One of the reasons I was keen to go back to work.

It sounds like their kids are a bit older, but it could just be that their lives have become so kid centric they literally don't have anything else to talk about, rather than they feel they are more important than you because they are mums. I'm sure that will change, so it may be that as the wheel turns and they end up coming back to you. It's up to you if you want to persevere but it definitly sounds as though you could do with some friends who share interests with you now.

OP, your friends do sound a bit rubbish. Might be time to expand your social circle?
I had kids much younger than all my friends, where I now have teens they are now pregnant or with babies/toddlers. And I have to admit I find it very boring and have branched out a bit recently. I’ve joined a book club, started a social group locally. Not all of us who have kids want to talk about them non stop and it’s mean not to ask you about your life.

Your friends are rubbish but they are so similar to my mum friends. All they ever do is talk about babies I hate it. I am fortunate that I have friends who don’t have kids and it’s so refreshing to spend a few hours not talking about my kid. I don’t bring my kid up unless asked. If I’m meeting a friend it’s because I want a break from them! I think it’s just your group. Time to try and find a new tribe?

They’re horrible. And boring. And tactless. And completely lacking in imagination. Your own children can be fascinating but it’s not obligatory to bore other people to death about them and there are millions of other things to talk about.

After years of miscarriages I have a toddler but even with friends who have DC we don’t talk about them that much. Most of my friends who have DC have much older ones so they care as little about potty training and learning new words or whatever as my childfree friends.

I don’t have kids but lots of my friends do. Sometimes the conversation will turn to their children but they certainly don’t dominate it and we still have discussions about the same sort of things we talked about before they had kids.

Sorry but I think this is an issue with your friends rather than a general issue between women with kids and those without.

Same boat OP although I have a child. I’m a single mum and yes I might talk about what an arse they are to deal with sometimes (additional needs etc etc) not don’t want to spend all my free time discussing my child.

Tbh though as though they’re either shit friend or utter bores with nothing much else going on in life. This could be down to their kids ages which might be relevant.

Something I read about friendships was that I tend to form/endure around a common ‘adversary’ - meant in the broadest possible sense of having some kind of challenge you’re facing together. That could be anything from work to both learning a musical instrument, but children are a common ‘shared adversary’. I’ve made some great friendships off the back of having children and sharing our woes/challenges.

So there’s a certain natural affinity to two people having children (especially if they’re of a similar age) that’s like two people who both support the same football team.

It’s still very inconsiderate to talk at length about a subject that excludes one person in the conversation. But talking about children is a natural obvious topic for two people in a similar parenting situation.

Crucially do they know about your issues? If so then they are shit friends. What do you talk about with them? I know when I get together with child free friends I find their stories much more interesting than little Johnny’s latest behavioural issue! But then I get into the habit of discussing things like that with other mums as they are a useful sounding board and it’s good to know how others are navigating whatever stage of parenthood we are at.

I have a similar issue but further down the line, with grandchildren. I’m delighted they have grandchildren, I love seeing a few photos, I knit for the grandchildren. I have a few friends who are happy to show a photo and give a quick update and then talk about all the things we used to talk about. I have no grandchildren yet.
Other friends, however, just can’t stop. I try to change the subject but they are not listening.. ‘Oh wait, here’s a video of Dillin’s first mini rugby session!’ Cue five minutes of toddlers in snowsuits running across a muddy pitch.. It’s boring! I don’t know which is Dillin and I don’t care.

It sounds like they aren't making the effort. I get how small kids can be all consuming, I'm certainly boring as fuck these days, but you have to have some self-awareness here. They could at least ask you questions or try different topics.