Friend keeps doing this...

[fishfingers79]

I have a really good friend who I spent a lot of time with when we were both single parents with young kids. We lived close and walked to school together and went on holidays together, lots of days out, shared a bottle of wine on a Friday night....

Life moves on and I haven't been a single parent for several years now and have moved away from our street, but I still make real efforts to spend time with my friend, phone her etc.

My son and her youngest daughter are close in age but as he's now 16 and she's 15 and go to different schools, they no longer have the same bond or choose to be together.

However, every summer holiday and usually another school holiday, I try and engineer a meet up with both our kids (like old times) and the friend always seems enthusiastic. But, it always seems to end up being something that A. she chooses (that suits her girls and not necessarily my son) and B. That she invites other members of her family too. I feel it becomes something different from how I want it to be or even how we originally discuss it.

This happens with meeting up "just the two of us" too. A "girly lunch" nearly ended up being her, me and her daughters. I did explain to her that I would like it to be just the two of us that time. A bottle of wine on a Friday night at hers, ends up being me and all her extended family whilst my partner stays home with my step children and my son. Whilst I don't mind now and again, it's starting to feel like she expects her family to join in whilst never asking about my family and I suspect, she wouldn't like it if they did come along.

I do feel a bit put out that she will invite me for an evening at hers and then she has her extended family "just show up" and she doesn't feel she should explain to them that we have an evening planned and that they would be welcome another time.

It feels like all the dynamics are in her favour and I find it really hard to say "actually, I don't want your grown up daughter there" or to turn up at hers with my bottle of wine and to say "actually I don't want to make small talk for 2 hours with your ex mother in law".

It's different if I just pop in for coffee, but these are planned days out and if feels that she is just thinking "oh it's ok, fishfingers won't mind" but actually I do but am finding it really hard to tell her without seeming rude.

This Saturday, we have agreed to go out and she's suggested something that I know will not really interest my son (who at 16, needs a fair amount of persuasion to come out anyway!) but whilst I was happy to compromise on some of what we are doing because the experience of going out as the four of us, is what it's really about. She has now mentioned that her eldest daughter (who is in her twenties and lives with her partner) is going to come too in a "wont' that be nice" kind of way. I fully expect her partner to now tag along too and possibly her mates.....

I like her eldest daughter but it's not what I expected or planned for. I could take my step daughter with us too, but again, it's not really what I planned, and feels my friends decisions also force me to make decisions about my own family that I had not planned for.

I should just tell her, but actually now I feel like I don't want to go.

Perhaps she feels she doesn't have as much in common with you as she once had.

If she sees these visits as 'duty visits' she probably wants other people around to avoid the risk of it feeling 'flat'.

Arranging things with teenagers isn't ever really going to work, they have lives and interests of their own.

It doesn't sound as though either of you are getting much out of the arrangements, so I'd just put an end to it.

You're probably right in that we don't have a lot in common. I've started to notice an undercurrent of unpleasant comments about how involved her daughters are in her life (when I have been bemoaning my teen son's uncommunicative-nes!).

Her daughter wants to do everything with her Mum still, which I think is unusual, even in girls, my son wants to sit in front of his pc and talk to his mates. I think my friend is very "disapproving" of what I see as normal, if frustrating, behaviour in my son.

My son is far better in a smaller group but (like me) doesn't like large groups. so again, inviting all her extended family along, doesn't really help my son.

I feel really sad at the thought of letting go of the friendship though and not pushing it anymore. I actually went out all day last Saturday with her (and her daughter) to something I knew my DS would hate and it was fine because it was planned and something "girly".

Sometimes folk outgrow each other. Maybe that has happened here.

Btw I don't think you have the right to dictate who she brings along with her to meets or who comes to her house when you're visiting.

Maybe you should focus your attention on other friends. Also if your son is 16 might those childhood friendships with her daughters have run there course aswell?

Nope daughters love to hang around with their mum!

But really is it any different to arranging to go for a night out with drinks with mates and someone brings their husband whilst the others felt it was a night to leave them at home? Plenty of us have seen that happen.

If you invite someone over for a bottle of wine "like the old days", do you then invite extended family round? I certainly wouldn't invite a friend round and then invite my in laws to sit with us, unless it was a planned family event and I had made that quite clear from the outset. It's different if those people live with you, of course.

I kind of think there are unwritten rules, lunch with a friend, talk of a few glasses of wine etc. isn't the same as a lunch with the kids (or teens) or lunch with partners/husbands etc.

Some daughters love to hang around with their Mum, some don't. I know many teenage girls, and would say actively wanting to go out with Mum is not actually the norm. Either is fine by me. I also know teen boys who are far more sociable than my son. Neither is "wrong" is it?

Personally I don't think it would do any harm to not have a 15 year old join in with everything but I understand being a single Mum, your kids can tend to be closer to you.

And actually I mostly expect the 15 year old to be around, that's fine, with the exception of a planned girly lunch for two. The 23 year old and her partner who don't live with my friend and the 23 year olds Gran and the 23 year olds partners brother.....

I could easily invite my extended family too, but actually I think it would be a bit rude and not really what we had planned.

When I'd had enough of an old friend, whenever she suggested lunch I invited other people along... I didn't want to spend one on one time with her anymore...

Either she's really dumb or she's doing this intentionally.

I think you're right. It never used to happen when we were single parents, although I assumed it was because her older daughter was a teen who didn't want to hang out with us and we never really had time just the two of us because we both had young kids to look after full time.