Why do DH & I not have any 'good' friends?

[Gameboy]

DH & I were discussing this the other day and we are hacked off with the fact that we don't seem to have 'good friends' anymore (I.e. the sort you can get have a really good laugh with, won't judge you (too much) and you can have an honest heart-to-heart with)

We are certainly sociable, but many of our 'friends' now are parents of child our children are at school with, or local neighbours etc.

DH was at a local boys football thing yesterday with a long-standing 'friend' - the father of one of our DS's friends/ neighbour/ we've been on holiday with them etc etc - and came back really annoyed because this bloke was just so competitive, arrogant about his son, and didn't even congratulate our son when he scored 3 goals!

Where have all the nice, chilled, friendly folk gone? Is it being a parent that brings out the worst in all these people?

Dh and I had exactly this conversation this weekend. Got to go now, but will get back to you.

I always make it a rule never to go on holidays with friends.

Snap we are the same.
perhaps we should all get together.
Sometimes I get on really well with the woman and the husbands just don't. My close friend is lovely but when her husband is around she's so different. The children are a little spoilt ( I love them though ). My kids are easy going and kids at the end of the day. Her husband follows them around when he is not boasting about how much money he has.

OMG, we could have written that post!!! I will also post later, mad rush trying to get to supermarket now x

The only people I socialise with are my sisters & their husbands.

I have one sorta best friend, she has 3 children & we never really have time for each other anymore. I mean, we visit, for a few hours at a time, but it's not a weekly thing, or even a monthly thing. We last visited her a few weeks ago & next it's her turn to visit us, which will maybe be in May after I sit my exams.

I'm not really a people person & don't care about going out etc, which is probably why not having any friends doesn't bother me as much as it most likely should

Hi there,
Our children are to young to be at school so we haven't got the competitive parent hing yet(except maybe sister in law)
Most of our old friends (pre children) haven't got children yet, but they seem to have abandoned us, very rarely coming by.
I think they think that because we have kids we have no time for anyone else.

I think that nowadays people tend to look after themselves and no time for others.

It's such a shame because my parents who've been married for 30 years still have best friends from school and college.
What's happened to folks?

I think children can be a real problem between friends sometimes. Especially if they are the same age. Our best friends have children of different ages to ours so its not an issue, but other friends have dd in same class as our dd and it can be very difficult at times.

I think you're right, parenthood does put a spanner n the works. Everyone's children are so precious to them - and not always to everyone else - and everyone has different ideas about how to parent - and it's very easy to put your foot in it. With a couple of friends of mine who've had babies, it's helped me bond with them - generally if our babies/attitudes are similar and we can compare notes - but often I've noticed we just see less of them.

Interestingly me & DP's closest friends are a couple we have known for years who don't want children. They can actually be quite rude about children and parenthood, they are reasonably nice but definitely not over-friendly to DS, and they like doing things with us without DS, eg going out for dinner/cinema while we get a babysittter. And I think we have stayed friends with them because of their great atttitude. They are childless and free, that's their choice, and while they understand we're different - and were amazingly kind and helpful to us around the birth - they're not about to deny who they are just because we have a baby. And it's refreshing to spend an evening with them and talk about other stuff. If we all had kids I bet it would be a lot harder.

Can you get back in touch with any 'old' friends?

Our closest friends are just that, because the 4 adults get on great and love each other's company. They don't have kids, which can cause a few difficulties in them understanding about babysitters etc, but we make a special effort to stay close to them because of the adult relationships involved. Friends who don't judge you and who you can laugh (and cry!) with are so important.

We have some friends who are friends mainly because we all have similar age children and live close, and I agree that those friendships just aren't the same. If the only thing you have in common is actually having children, it's pretty hard to build a meaningful and lasting friendship. Constant walking on eggshells, competitiveness etc - it's a waste of time! Better to stay in, watch a dvd and have a bottle of wine!

If I were you I'd try to get back in touch with old special mates who you love to spend time with. Or focus on meeting new friends that you have lots in common with through work, nights out, etc and stay away from false friendships that are more for convenience. Good luck though. I know it's easier said than done.

Sounds like it's not just us then

Mylittlestar - we DO have some of my old (Uni) friends about 30 mins away, and we do sometimes see them (although 2 or 3 of them live close together, and are their own little 'clique' now, so we often feel like we're breaking in...) but even then, the relationship has changed, usually based on our parenting attitudes. My REALLY good friend and I fell out a bit over schooling when I said I was thinking of private school for DS2, and it turns out that she has really strong pro-state school beliefs.

I wonder if it's also an age thing? Everyone constantly seems to be 'sizing' each other up in terms of wealth/ holidays/ cars whatever.

DH and I actually run our own business, and although it hasn't been easy over the last few years, things are on a more even keel now and we are getting the time and flexibility to enjoy life more. We've had a few "it's alright for you two" type comments from people too, so I wonder whether people are envious or something too, which makes them more hostile

I don't think we're the friends from hell - I try to be friendly, think I'm fairly easy-going etc, but it just never seems to be reciprocated in the same way...

Think I'm becoming paranoid.....

Well you sound lovely to me

Perhaps there is a bit of jealousy there. Definitely sounds like it. And the age thing too. People can get so hung up on what you have versus what they have. What your kids do versus theirs. And generally feel that have a right to assess and criticise every choice you make!

At the end of the day though it seems like it's them with the issues, not you. You're just happy with your life and what you have. They're not! Sad for them I guess.

(And how a grown man cannot congratulate his mates child on scoring three goals?! I meant to mention that before. Sounds pathetic )

Any way to get out and meet new people? Any MNers close by?!

Could it be that all you have in common is the children which then means all you talk about is the children which then means they end up being compared and hence the competitiveness?
Sounds like if you have been having kids and setting up a new business maybe you have not spent much time with your old friends and they have dropped by the way side. (just guessing here)
Of course you must not think too much about it because as you say, you end up analysing everything and not just enjoying the friendship for exactlt what it is.
Good luck!

i could have written the OP.

we used to play pool and hangout with all the members and it was such a laugh. one couple moved abroad, one couple split-up and another couple had a break-down after losing a child.

i'm trying to force myself to find a new club/group to join, but real friends with the same ideals is so hard to find!

or maybe i'm just more picky!

we find it really really hard to go out due to severe lack of babysitters!

have missed a couple of 40th parties we'd have loved to have been at due to being let down/or couldn't get anyone to babysit

also a few friends have no kids/older kids and we never seem to meet up anymore

sad isn't it

What I don't understand is how come my parents, who went through the same sort of things as we do through having children, have a galaxy of friends, many of whom they've known and been friends with for 50 or more years - ie since before having children?

Prettycandles, my parents are like that: friends at their 50th wedding anniversary were sometimes peole they'd known since their teens (yet in some cases they hadn't seen them for 5, 10 or 20 years).
I think there are a lot of things that make a difference to the way people regard and maintain friendships now. People move about a lot more and jobs are more demanding (in terms of the time you have to spend on them and, in some cases, the amount of moving about you have to do).People previously tended to stay in the area they were born in and stick with the same friends and acuqaintances for all their lives. I don;t think it was necessarily better then: if you were an unpopular child or just not like the people who lived near you, it would be a pretty rotten life if you couldn't escape.

I'm OK for friends: there are folk I only see every year or two(sometimes longer), peole I see once a month or thereabouts, and the rest of my dance team who I generally see on a weekly basis. I have acquaintances who live near me and are parents, and while most of them are pleasant I don't see them as "friends", we don;t have much in common apart from parenthood and most of them are, unlike me, in couples.
THose of you feeling short of friends: get involved in something that interests you and then you're more likely to hook up with people that you have shared views and interessts with.

Thank you all. This thread is a real comfort - I thought it was just me/us. I have found it immensely hard to make new friends. I agree with the couples and children thing - people do seem to be very competitive. I just don't care about who has got what or if their house is more perfect than mine - a lot of people just don't seem to be on the same wavelength as me. Surely being friendly and kind matters more. Or does it ?

I think years ago women were at home and had more time and need for friendship. Now everyone is so busy and out at work. My best friends are all from when I was much younger and where I was brought up - a good 150 miles away. I also think that with children you just can't go out and make friends freely or do what you want.

I think friendships with other mothers tend to be very transient. I always try to be loyal but can only conclude that some people would rather just move on - i.e. when children go to 2dary school. I have been pretty well dropped by someone I saw a lot of - but then our dds' friendship has cooled, so that's probably why !

Maybe we should start an internet support group !

My parents emigrated to UK 45 years ago, and their friends have also spread all over the world, yet maintain links. Partly I think it must be about shared trauma - living through wars together etc - but my mum was desperately lonely and isolated when we were born, especially when my (elder) brother was born, living as she was in a foreign country while my dad worked long contracts abroad.

We are the same.
Alot of dh's friends , of 25 years, seem to be based on going out. If you aren't there, regularly going out/ to the pub you are not remembered. Even when there is a small Bar-b-q. I don't understand this bit. Is it just a male thing ?

I 'm not sure what the answer is.

I could have written that OP as well (seems there's lots of us around? maybe we should all meet up ).

Dh and I have the additional problem that we are both expats in UK, so having left all our friends and family abroad we 've had to build up a whole new group of friends. I think the kids-factor is probably v.important here. I always thought that once we had children it would be easier to socialise with other couples with children as kids meet at the playground/group/nursery etc. But this doesn't seem to quite work like that. Sure we do meet the parents of friends that we get along with v.well, but real friendships, no... We were actually even wondering if it would help to at least move back to one of our home countries, so we can re-ignite the friendship with one of our group of friends, but reading this thread i am actually not so sure that would even work....

I actually asked my mum about it, as my parents also seem to have a good number of friends that have been around for absolutely ages. She actually said that once me and my younger brother were born those friendships were also on the backburner for a number of years, but now that we've both flown the nest, the friendship bonds are strengthened again. Maybe we're jsut all in that backburner phase???

Everyone we know lives miles away and so when they come over, it has to be a substantial meal. Entertaining is expensive. Hell, everything in Switzerland is expensive! Also, it's impossible to have friends round without having all our kids & their kids, too, which totally degenerates into parents bolting out of their chairs every 30 seconds & screaming "stop that!" and "don't hit your sister!" and "careful with that juice!" And then there's the fact that we're usually so knackered by the weekend that planning and preparing a meal for a crowd is too much trouble. Ugh, we sound boring.

Well I don't have ANY friends. All of my friends were from school or unversity and most of these just ended up moving on, both from friendships and geographically. I made friends with DH's friends from college but we were the first to have a child (still the only ones) and that has meant that we never see them. A lot of them are still students and it's just inevitable.

I guess priorities change. The only person that I can call to talk to is my Mum. And that's not ideal.

hmm

dp and me don't really do "his n her friends" and never have

his friends are all whiny needy women and computer nerds

my friends are all uber cool and - well, that, really . ok there's a lot of lentil weavers and several men in there.

the partners of most of our friends seem to be pretty dire and, anyway, a bit transient

We don't really do joint friends, apart from a few. THe trouble for us (and this isn't anything to do with having children) is that the jobs we have both worked in mean that people tend to move after a year, three years, whatever, so you make lovely friendships and then you see them once every five years or so.
And in the interim there is the issue that making friends as we get older/more bogged down in the children thing seems to be harder.
I bet you do have good friends, you just don't see them much. I suppose a campaign of catching up with people isn't out of the question? Keeping up friendships (the ones you miss when you feel the bond has been left to weaken for a while) is time consuming but worth it imo.