Losing many friends in 40s

[outthereandbeyond]

I seem to losing many friends now I’m in my 40s and wonder if this is normal.

many of these women (and I) are growing, putting up boundaries and being less tolerating.

one friend had a meltdown over my cat going to another home because I ‘abandoned my cat’ but I didn't feel I could look after him anymore (I had many carer responsibilities and cat was having a delicate op that would potentially make it double incontinent after an accident), another mum friend chose not to continue our friendship when the children fell out, and now I discover a very good friend who I’ve known since childhood betrayed my trust by telling another friend of mine she’d met once at my birthday party some confidential things about me. Now the other friend is pissed off that I told old friend, not new friend things. Another friend dated a man after I asked her for his number as I liked him (they are neighbours) only for her to suddenly open her eyes to him and started dating (well fucking only actually. It lasted 3 weeks) so that pissed me off.

anyway, all small things, but I feel my network is crumbling away, one by one. And that people don’t care about each other. I’m starting to feel isolated and alone.

is this normal at this age to lose friends?

It's not beyond the norm. I know a number of people having died in their 50s, cancer heart attacks and strokes . Many more had these things and recovered as well

I've pretty much given up on having friends and have cats instead , it's much less drama.

I couldn’t tell you why we’ve stuck together or if there’s a magic potion to our friendship.
Except patience.
Plus we’ve always kept our expectations appallingly low. lol

I see this comment on threads like this a lot. Sometimes the friendship group dont grow up. If you do, it can be boring to still reminisce about primary school or gossip about each other. I still have mutual friends try to get ‘goss’ out of me to take back to my ex friend group. At our age it’s really sad that they sit around talking about me.

The person who leaves the group isn’t always the problem. People change and grow.

I've made more (and better) friends in my 40s, more related to hobbies and interests whereas in my 30s it was more school mums. I do agree about possibly not tolerating behaviour you don't like as you get older, and feeling more likely that I would stop meeting people who made me feel bad, but my friendship group is now based on compatibility rather than proximity.

I can't cope with drama any more. I have one friend but I'm mid 40's she is mid 30's we at different stages of life so recently we see each other occasionally. Second friend lives 2 hours drive so we just on the phone a few times a week. Kids teenagers full time job. I joined hiking group and go out for a drink with them occasionally I don't get deeply involved in drama so I'm happy with this set up.

Same here.

I wod focus on having just one or two really good friends that you spend a decent amount of time with regularly maybe try a new interest or group and find a friend there.

OP. My life is the same!
45 now and no friends.
We moved about a lot when I was younger so I didn't hold on to school friends.
College I made good friends but it was a huge catchment area so we lived far apart. I did organise a reunion 15 years ago and it was great. We all said we would do it again and didn't.
I changed jobs and became self employed a couple of years ago so don't have any colleague friends.
I find it hard to make friends as I suffer with anxiety and I just find people hard work! I've had really close friendships and then been so hurt when we've fallen out that I just don't have the energy to try again. And even if I did I live in a small village and everyone is very clicky.
I have one friend but we are not close and all she wants to do is organise nights out and get drunk. I just want someone I can talk to, go shopping and meals out ect. I'm too old to want to spend the night dancing and throwing up!

I think part of the problem here is that friendships get harder and more sparse as you get older but a lot of people struggle to adapt and maintain the same outlook as they did when they were young.

There are so many posts on here (and IRL) involving people getting the hump because they can't sustain the same friendship intensity that they did when they were in their 20s. Of course they can't. When you're in your 40s you have far, far more going on. You probably have either kids or a job or most likely both. But failure to respond to texts in a timely fashion or inability to attend social meet-ups lead to flouncing, blocking and high drama.

Some of the bizarre behaviour manifests in odd ways with people getting pissed off about relatively trivial things. In a friendship where people see one another all the time this would get ironed out. In a world where you don't have the same access it's much harder to smooth things over.

I think it's about just learning to let people do their thing and not take everything personally. Friendships should be elastic and have a bit of stretch. If people are meant to come back or reset they will. Forcing showdowns and drama and hand-wringing won't help this.

Same. I would never had thought it, I had a very good network of friends. 2 have completely cut me out and some are just busy with much younger children than mine.

I had the same experience in my 40s. I have come to the conclusion that when women hit their forty’s they sometimes start acting like young teens again, with all the drama and mean girl BS. You might try talking about it with other women who are a decade or so older then you.

There was another thread running yesterday where someone said they wanted to drop a childless friend because everything she text about was boring now the OP had children. The OP said she couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm to reply to texts about clothes or food and only wanted to talk to other mums now. I have a feeling this sort of thing plays a huge part in why friendships dwindle.

I had lots of tennis friends, I became chronically ill 6 years ago. Only see a few occasionally now for coffee, the rest I never hear from, I’ve found friendships rare and for me never lasting as I’ve always been the one making arrangements, once I was unable to continue those people had no interest. I’m 65, youngest if 8, all 7 passed, only close to a few cousins and my 3 godchildren. I do love hearing about friendships from childhood, we moved a lot so that wasn’t lucky for me. Different for everyone. I’ve learned to rein in my expectations!

I know a lot of women in their 70’s ( my mother, her friends, in laws, aunts) and these are some of the biggest ‘mean girls’ I have ever met

What you are describing is very normal. People continue to grow and to change and to figure out what they like and don't like, and who is a mutually delightful buddy and who isn't.

You tend to find that some friendships - especially for caregivers who do most of the school run contact etc - are a construct of whoever your children are buddies with. It's totally normal for those "school mum" friendships to fall by the wayside - especially when children aren't having playdates etc all the time and have a far more selective group of buddies/different activities and are becoming more independent. Those mums will - and should - pick their children over a friend - so if there is a falling out between your kids then you should expect there to be a parting of friendships - unless your friendship bond existed prior to having kids etc and the falling out is just normal kid personality clash stuff.

Your other accounts of friendships ending seem normal too: it's fine for people to have boundaries about what they view as acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Your friend clearly finds giving up pets to be unacceptable, and that's absolutely fine - she is entitled to that opinion and deeply seated belief, and also entitled to not wish to be your friend anymore. And you are entitled to feel upset about that.

Try doing some different activities - volunteering is a great one - that will introduce you to some like-minded people so you can continue to develop new friendships of your own. It's not easy (gosh, I wish I could be 20 at university again! Friendships were so easy back then!!!) but the point of friendships is not quantity but quality. You might also benefit from seeing a therapist to talk this through with and to identify coping skills for what clearly is something that is upsetting you.

Oh, they never stop acting like young teens. There are always cliquey groups of mean spirited women out there. They can put that on hold when they all have young children and need to be nice so their kids can have play dates and be invited to stuff, but that "reason to be nice" dwindles as children get older and more independent.

Here's an example for you: I remember moving to the place I live now, and being invited out on a "girls night" involving a load of local mums who knew each other because their kids all went to the same primary school (I was a fly on the wall essentially because at the time I didn't have kids): it was FASCINATING to see the way these women treated each other: there were a couple who seemed to be friendly with all of them...and they ALL would act as though they were very happy to see each other etc etc etc...but when one or two of them would leave to go to the loo the snide comments and backchat would immediately commence.

They were all - with maybe one exception - mean girls. And what was funny/gross is that they were all being bitched about behind their backs when they left/went to the loo etc. What was worse is that they all had various nasty things to say about the children! That was absolutely grotesque too me - that people could sit around making nasty comments about kids who were 8 years old (or thereabouts). But of course they ALLL wanted their kids to be doing activities and being invited to things and being viewed as popular etc so they had this very weird co-dependent abusive relationship going on with each other.
Needless to say I declined future invites to those "girls nights out".

In my 20s I could maintain long-distance friendships. In my 30s children got in the way with that, and it got harder as each side had multiple children.

In my 40s, I find people rarely have the combination of money and time. Going out is expensive. Hanging out is awkward with teenagers loitering around. Well paid jobs are demanding of time and energy, and in general workplaces demand more of workers than 20+ years ago after 15+ years of flaky economics.

We're a cohort where it became increasingly common to move away to uni and settle away from home towns. Many were priced out of childhood areas as the 00s property boom hit before we could buy. Our connections often aren't local. We're the first cohort to have had constant access to messaging and social media which enabled us to keep the essence of a friendship longer than was previously managable. I found friends' capacity to return to socialising quite dented for a long time after 2020, and many of us were burned out by the impact on children/ schooling and keeping family life going often against keeping work going too. Many of us were also hit by other life-shit in that time such as health or bereavements, and the absence of a mutual network made it harder to have the capacity to reconnect it and share the load.

Large groups get hard to maintain over time as closer friendships are maintained but patience is gradually lost with more peripheral members. This can be awkward when those strengths of connection differ within a group and the friendships aren't even.

40s are a hard phase for making new connections when old ones have run their course. It's a fairly unavaliable age group and anything social seems to be pitched too young or more commonly, older towards retirement which is quite a big jump.

Yes not easy. I try to have a few friends. Met a lovely old neighbour sat but feel it will be left to me to keep in touch.. but like other replies hard at our age. Im 50. Alot have elder parents so are tied at wends. I suggest date then no reply. Knocks confidence too

Large groups get hard to maintain over time as closer friendships are maintained but patience is gradually lost with more peripheral members. This can be awkward when those strengths of connection differ within a group and the friendships aren't even

This is very much my experience in my late 40s with DC moving out of the primary school years. The friendships I made when they were younger have all mostly fallen by the wayside because of people moving away for secondary, and the people who have stayed have formed closer attachments within the group through new shared interests - eg dog walking. Plus most people have gone back to work full time, so just have less time overall.

Then the friends who have moved away want to meet up as if nothing has changed or arrange group weekends away, and it's all very awkward as everyone gushes over what an amazing group we are, but I've not not seen anyone locally in a year. I'm very much one of those peripheral members!

I had many, many friends when younger. I realised it was changing when I went ot with groups of other young mums & all they had to talk about was baby clothes. I wanted to get AWAY from home stuff & talk about politics, books, ANYTHING but babies. So I guess I was the problem!
Now, I just can't be bothered. I'm entirely happy on my own.

Same reason I didn't have " mum" friends

You’re being catty about the friend who is seeing a bloke you fancied. Why would that spoil the relationship? He was interested in her, not you. Asking for his number didn’t give you dibs.

You’re also prickly about two of your friends discussing you. Friends do that, don’t they? Chat about the people they have in common? Unless you’d told her something was in confidence, I can’t see the issue.

So I think it’s a ‘6 of one, half a dozen of the other’ kind of thing. You are being pretty judgmental in what you require from a friend and I guess they are too.

Perimenopause definitely plays a part - no nice sociable hormones anymore, and a head full of “fuck this shit” in my case. But it also allowed me to shake off any drama because I couldn’t be arsed.

In addition, in my 20s I could easily finish a week at work, catch a late train to stay with friends, stay up half the night chatting over some wine, have a relaxed day with them, another night up chatting, then head home ready to start work again the following day.

Its a lot harder to do that in my 40s with a more full-on job, I seem to have lost the ability to stay up late, and children, home ownership, pets etc mean that casually going away like that is a rare occurrence.

Wait till you’re in your 50’s OP. Menopause helps us see people for who they really are and we don’t stand for any BS any more. End up with fewer friends but better healthier relationships with people you have around in your life.