I'm guessing this kind of thing has come up before, but I'd be interested to hear views.
We (as a couple) have a number of friends who we used to see a lot of. They were originally my OH's friends, but became mine too. We live about a hour's drive away and regularly used to go and stay with them, prior to having children. They already had children so us going to them always made more sense. However since we had our first, things seem to have changed and we hardly see them at all (last time was 8 months ago).
We are obviously busy with life, but try to sustain the friendship, however have noticed that it's always us making the effort to 'phone (if there's no reply they never return our calls) or email (never a reply) to maintain contact. When we do speak to/see them, things are fine, but they never make the first move, it's always us asking when they're free to get together.
We always make an effort to remember birthdays and get presents for their children, but this is only occasionally reciprocated. It's not about the present, but about the thought behind it (tbh even a text to say happy birthday would be something).
I don't want to be a limpet hanging on to a dead friendship - although I think this is harder for OH who has been friends with them for 15 years - but I'm truly ready to give up on them completely.
But then I wonder if anything has changed - perhaps they were always like this and now we're in touch less, initiating meeting up etc. it's actually we who are the ones who have changed.
I'm just feeling sad about this as I/we seem to be losing friends over the past few years, some for reasons I understand, some I don't understand why. At this rate I think we'll struggle to have any friends left and I'm getting concerned that we're doing something wrong...
Any thoughts on the best way forward?