Is anyone else taking the step…

[Flower212]

To stop being always the first one to message others or be the only one making effort? I noticed I was the one who was always doing this with friends and family particularly mid to end of last year, and it was impacting my mental health. It was a hard decision to make, but I know it’s the best thing for me and if people do get in touch I will always be there still. Btw I was never needy, I was just trying to keep up communication in a more consistent way to how it’s always been.

My family have always been quite emotionally unavailable due to various issues. I also know friendship changes but I find any change in relationship hard because of my anxious attachment. I do luckily have a supportive partner and I am trying to throw myself into other things, but I’m finding it so hard, has anyone else taken a similar decision? I’m also doing therapy too to help me along the way as I have a lot of healing to do from childhood.

I have one really good friend, we've been friends for 40+ years, message every day and try to go away for a long weekend once a year. We both have disabled adult children, and though I think she leans on me much more than I do her, between our daily chats and her talking me through some tough things, the relationship feels equal enough.

I have a couple of other friendships that I let fade away, one felt pretty one-sided, and when I had an unexpected mid-40s pregnancy it was easy to let it run its course. She liked spontaneous outings, it was rare I could just drop everything and go out. Our lives just went in different directions.

The other is my daughter-in-law's mom, we were quite good friends before our kids married one another. She became very opinionated about how she would do things so much differently (read better) than I do with my adult kids and we couldn't go a visit without her talking about how very special her relationships were with her adult kids and their partners are compared to, well, anyone else. I even called her out on it once and she doubled down. I took a huge step back then. There were other things, too.

I have 4 married kids, another getting married in 2025, and 8 grandkids, I have all the social obligations I can handle right now. Down the line and as we age, should we need more, we'll find some groups to fill that need. That's what my parents did when they moved away and retired, they had, for many years, done the reciprocal dinners and outings with friends, but as they got older, they did group things to get the social interaction and their home was their hideaway.