Friendships disappear

[cdcengineer]

I'm starting to wonder, is it me, or since my wife and I started our family - what has become of all my buddies? It seems if it's not a play date or a dinner with friends, there is no guy time watching games and hanging out.

It applies to friends with kids and friends without. My theory is as follows: The friends with kids are super busy and when I have free time, perhaps they don't. And my friends without kids don't want to hang around since they think all I'll want to talk about is the the wee ones.

Is this what becomes of us when we become parents, or am I just an A-hole?

Thoughts? Theories?

 

[navyasw02]

I'm starting to wonder, is it me, or since my wife and I started our family - what has become of all my buddies? It seems if it's not a play date or a dinner with friends, there is no guy time watching games and hanging out.
It applies to friends with kids and friends without. My theory is as follows: The friends with kids are super busy and when I have free time, perhaps they don't. And my friends without kids don't want to hang around since they think all I'll want to talk about is the the wee ones.

Is this what becomes of us when we become parents, or am I just an A-hole?

Thoughts? Theories?

By a certain age, most of my friends got married as well and naturally spend less time with friends. After all, you marry the person you want to spend your time with. Regarding the kids part, my wife and I dont have kids and prefer to socialize with kidless couples. Most couples with kids either cant or dont want to park their kids with sitters and hang out and we dont want to hang out with them AND their kids.

 

[Dleg]

It's normal. You're not an A-hole. You've just got to try extra hard to keep up with your friends and make a little time for them here and there, but unfortunately it will never be the same.....

I have two things I "get" to keep as my own personal fun - the weekly Hash House Harriers run, and the occasional book club dinner. But even then, it's kind of disappointing when I hear about parties thrown by my friends from those groups, after the fact, that I was not invited to. But the reality is that they used to invite me all the time, but I never showed because of family obligations, so they just give up on you.

Another option is to try to make friends with other people who have kids that are more or less equal to your kids age. That's OK too, but it never seems as fun for us guys to know other guys only through our kids.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Yeah, it is completely normal.

 

[csb]

Normal! It can feel really isolating, but it's normal.