To wish friends were more open

[TinselTinselTinsel]

When I was in my 20s...my female friends and I were all v open. Messy love lives, trying to find jobs etc. We we would support one another through it all and would be pretty brutally honest (maybe after too many drinks)

Now I'm older, married, with kids, in my 30s (as are most of my friends) and its all stopped. People complain about being exhausted or maybe their husbands not doing enough but nobody ever says "I feel taken for granted" or "I imagine things would be different" or anything beyond surface level. Everyone is determined to show how gorgeous everything is!

Maybe it's just me that feels like that sometimes and everyone else's marriages and homes are all rosy and lovely.

I now go to MN or write to myself or read forums to get reassurance.

Is that anyone else's experience?

God no. Mine are exactly the same as ever and we support each other. Still lots of laughs though that comes from years of friendship.

If people weren't open about these things they wouldn't be close friends as I'd feel they were only showing a bit of themselves, and I wouldn't really know them

My friends are still the same, but overall everyone is happy and settled, so just less to moan about maybe? Most of my friends (and me) have got past the newborn/toddler/preschool stages and are starting to get some semblances of lives back (after spending years confiding in each other how hard it was). I have lots of plans with friends this year, for the first time in a long time

Maybe when the stakes are higher no-one wants to admit anything out loud? I'm an over sharer but can see how my friends all differ in this respect.
Also my oldest friends who have the same cultural reference points aren't the ones I see regularly or who have similar lives any more. I have lovely friends with kids but I met most of them in the past few years so don't feel we all know each other inside out in that same way.

Maybe you're just not getting drunk together regularly enough OP

Interesting one. I think once people have a long-term partner and children they often feel a loyalty to the family group that makes it hard to say everything, because it's not only your own stuff that you're talking about if you see what I mean. So real nuts and bolts stuff about husbands being horrible tends to be dealt with behind closed doors unless you are super super close or things are super super bad.

That's something I've found with having older DC who obviously have their own concerns about privacyy etc. So when my DD was struggling with an ED but didn't want me to tell wider family and friends about it (fair enough) that also meant I couldn't talk to them about it in the context of my life- because obviously it's her thing- so when friends asked how I was I'd say fine or "worried about a few things" but then not say what, when I could really have done with talking to a friend about how worried I felt but I had to keep quiet.