One of my best friends is draining on days out

[Ellsbells22]

For context - me & some of my best friends (we’ve been pals since primary school, all in our late 30s now) spend days out with the kids quite frequently.
Particular friend has 3 DC under the age of 6. Which yes, it’s hard, I’ve been there.

The problem is, when we are out it can be so emotionally draining. All she talks about is her own children, who are present and has 0 interest in any of ours, the convo always reverts back to her kids. She never has conversations with puts, when we all take an active interest in hers… she expects us to remember every detail of their lives and gets agitated if we don’t… if one of them falls and we don’t see it she gets stressed as if we were meant to have. Wouldn’t mind but she never ever reciprocates. If her kids are doing anything they shouldn’t be, she’s defensive if we gently redirect them, but very quick to tell ours off… as in snappy. I feel like we are on eggshells!
Don’t get me wrong, I love her kids, they’re brilliant. She’s a brilliant mum and as a person she’s great! We can’t avoid not going out with her or not seeing her as she’s a best friend. If this was discussed with her it would cause a HUGE racket.
Just don’t know what to do!

Could you use that approach when you "confront" her - "I hate having to pull you up on this but I do have to for DS's sake, don't tell my DS off/ ignore the help DS is giving you" etc.

I think you all do have to start pushing back a bit to reset acceptable boundaries, at the moment your well meant tolerance means she's riding roughshod over you all and calling all the shots, that's just not on.

I'm probably wrong but could there be an Asperger's possibility? I had a boyfriend once who was so lovely in so many ways but just could not read the room at all and didn't pick up on queues indicating he was talking too long, didn't seem able to see things from another's perspective.
This reminded me of that a bit.

I have a friend who has 2 children, now young adults. All she talks about is her sons. Don't get me wrong, they are brilliant boys. Every conversation is about them. I try to steer her towards other subjects, but somehow the conversation comes back to her boys. It's tedious and boring. I have a son, and yes I talk about him but not constantly! No one is that interested in someone else's kids, to that degree. Both my husband and I dread it, if she joins our group, because we know her topic of conversation! It's not like she doesn't work, or isn't married etc. So I sympathise!!

Well, decide what’s more important, surely — are your feelings or hers more important to you? I would always prioritise my own, and say, kindly but firmly, ‘Look, when you do x, it makes me feel y, so I propose we do z’. If she responds negatively, she needs to deal with that, but her current behaviour isn’t exactly making you happy either.

You havesaid you can't raise it without her going crazy and you don't want that so your only option is to put up with it.
IF you decide to challenge it then you will have to accept the consquences, which might actually not be as bad as you expect

Tbh with you, she is the one friend that doesn’t judge me and usually always has my back with things, and vice versa with her. In our adult world of course.

That might have been true in the past. How true is it now? Being realistic, how much of your time together now is spent in your (plural) adult world, and how much in her child obsessed world? And how long has that shift been going on for?

To me, her options are putting up with a status quo that’s driving her mad and affecting the friendship or speaking up, and things possibly improving. There’s also the possibility that the friendship ends, obviously, but it’s not clear whether that’s in fact ‘worse’, objectively, than their current interaction, which sounds mind-numbingly dull as well as irritating.

If you decide to say something I'd make sure you have an ally in your group first. What you don't want is to say something and for her to go to the rest of the group saying "omg you won't believe what OP has said to me" and them to deny they're equally bothered by it, making you the fall person. She sounds utterly tiresome though.

I know it’s a cliche on here but I’d consider neurodiversity.

Eh not true at all, lots of people are interested in other friends kids, we don't talk about them all the time but yea I'd know a lot about my friends kids because I actually really like them but that's just me.

Stick your big girl pants on and speak out. In the moment “Jenna, do you realised you have spoken about your children for two hours, told me off twice for not seeing one of them fell and have yet to ask a single question to me about my life or kids. This has been happening a lot recently and in the interest of an authentic friendship I need to tell you I’m starting to not look forward to spending time with you. This isn’t mean to hurt you but you need to be more self aware that is isn’t all about you when we meet up”

Ignore what she says and reply with nonstop verbal garbage about your own dc. Repeat. Repeat. If penny doesn't drop then don't see the self centered bitch woman

If her children are younger than everyone else’s, could it be she was listening to you all talk kids when she didn’t have any and assumes its her turn?

I think you need to accept nothing will change unless you make change, so I echo the others, make evening plans without dcs. Not everyone will make it, you could do every other meet up being child-free.

Before meeting put a comment on the WhatsApp group ‘let’s ban talking about the kids this week, I’m desperate to think about other things!’. If she chats about the kids fail to be interested and change the topic, remind her you don’t want to chat about the kids.

Also role model back and forth conversations with your other friend, enquiring about each others lives so that she sees how chatting should work.

Tell her when its her turn to watch the kids.

You need to be more assertive

Make sure you praise your ds, go a bit over the top, whenever he helps her & she doesn't acknowledge it

You say she's a great friend because she doesn't judge you, but it sounds to me like she's self absorbed. Perhaps she's not judgmental about you because she doesn't actually care about you (or anyone other than her own children) that much. Id rather have a friend who cared about me and judged me when appropriate.

When you ‘tell it like it is’ to self absorbed people, they don’t improve. They ignore what you’re trying to get at, hear certain key words and take offence about them then blow up massively and the members of the group who don’t like conflict play your concern down and try to smooth it over for her. She then has a thing against you and the group dynamic sours.
I would not go this route unless you’re up for a fight or have nothing to lose.

It sounds like her kids are the youngest of the group? I have found that hard with some of my own friends. Why you have kids first in a group you are expected to make an effort to socialise without them and engage in adult topics. Your friends don’t necessarily understand what you’re going through or how best to support you.

By the time the last in the group of friends has kids, the focus has shifted to be very kid centric and you are expected to provide a lot of tolerance and support that you never benefited from yourself.

Agree.

Calmly either consistently intervenve and change YOUR actions when she starts - eg redirect the conversation, move away etc each and every time.

Or have the conversation - expect her to blow a gasket - be prepared to weather the storm - dont get drawn into confrontation or whataboutery - just rinse and repeat your statement - expect her to flounce off with tears and dramatics - dont be phased by that (thats how shes controlling you currently with the treat of volatility - and you tip toeing around her) then hope that in the coming weeks she will reflect and regroup and make contact again as it seems she needs you more than you need her. If she doesnt - no loss. Sounds intolerable - maybe you are not compatable any more or at this phase of parenting if you have passed that now. Or are your meet ups not age appropriate venues for her DCs?

I would be honest with her. Because the danger is that you'll start to withdraw from her and then she'll be alone and ghosted and confused. Which is worse.

Be prepared for mayhem but you can at least say you tried!

If she’s a nice friend in every other way I think you need to start meeting up without the kids.

Do these kids not have dads? Why can’t you all meet up kid-free? I’m willing to bet the men aren’t taking the kids when they meet their friends…

I personally can’t think of anything worse than meeting up with a group of friends with all their kids in tow.

I had kids young and this was exactly my experience. One friend later went on to have three and then seemed to find it impossible to do anything because ‘I have three under 6.’

She seems to forget that when no one else had kids and I had three under 6 I managed!

No. Just no. Back off. She's just self centred, and has a totally different style of parenting. I'd have to say something. I'd just change the subject, to one of the other women, at every opportunity , "so Jane, how's your husband getting on".