I don't call or email friends back... Long vent!
tinyhumantoe
member
Read bold parts for the short version:
I have a demanding job - stress-wise and time-wise, it's absolutely ridiculous.
I run rampid every day at work getting calls on the office phone, cell
calls, and responding to emails. I travel a lot which backlogs my work
even more. I used to work 10a-6p; now I'm doing 7a-8p and still can't
manage my work load. I have an hour commute to work, and at 6am my
phone starts ringing with work calls for my drive to work. I spend the
entire hour commute home trying to return personal phone calls, but I
can never get them all done. You have no idea how badly I want to
listen to music or silence and unwind. Instead I get stuck on the phone
until I walk in the door, and sometimes I just have to eat dinner &
do laundry while my friends/family blab my ear off. And even with all
of that nightly phone time, I can't call everyone back and I can never
keep everyone happy. I'm so tired 
My friends expect me to communicate with them constantly by phone & email and when I don't they are outwardly upset with me. I'm tired, and I'm sick of constantly being in the dog house with them. I don't guilt trip them, they shouldn't do it to me. They know I'm stressed, depressed, tired, and working a gazillion hours a week!
Anyway, I've finally reached a breaking point. I stopped calling &
emailing friends back about 2 weeks ago, with the exception of one call or email a week per each friend. I haven't been rude about it,
just told them that I'm exhausted and am having trouble keeping up with
everything. I still have 10 missed calls at the end of the day... the usual. I'm tired, I want to listen to music on my drive home, and I do
NOT want to be on the computer or the phone when I get home.
For the last two weeks, I've been putting my cell in a drawer at night and on weekends. It was so freeing that last Friday I got a landline home phone and gave the phone number to my immediate family for emergencies only, so I can continue abandoning my cell when I'm at home. I had the best weekend I've had in 3 years this weekend, and my husband is happier than ever because I cleaned, did laundry, hung wreathes, planted flowers, and was just HAPPY. Three years I haven't done that. And you know what I missed out on? Nothing! I don't do the talking on the phone. I listen... to gossip, problems,screaming kids, disappointment when I can't go on a 5 day trip to Vegas for a bachelorette party. I'm going to start telling everyone NO to weekend plans too! Between work travel/weddings/inlaws' visits/plans with friends, I'm lucky if I get a Sunday to myself every 3 months and I'm sick of it! I loved tinkering around the house this weekend! And I have finally given myself permission to do all of this because I have justified it as preparing for the baby.
I sound like an a$$ so I should clarify that I love my friends dearly. But why do I have to maintain daily or tri-weekly conversations with 8 different people to have healthy friendships? Why do I have to do something with each group of friends each month? It's impossible with 6 different groups of friends.
Someone please put me in my place if I'm out of line. Maybe I'm feeling better because I've officially gone off the deep end, ha! Also, if you read this, I am so sorry for those 10 minutes of your life you just wasted 
ETA: I put the important parts in bold for a short version. Lawdy that was a log post. Whooooops
Re: I don't call or email friends back... Long vent!
I think your friends are being demanding, but I know every relationship is different.
my best friend and I try to email every couple of weeks and call once a month, we do not live in the same city.
in fact most of my closest friends are not local, so keeping up with each other on FB is how we usually do it, with an email or phone call/texts periodically.
I don't feel the need to talk to my closest friends on a daily or weekly basis, dh is the person I talk to about everything every day, I call my mom once a week, that's really about it when it comes to regularly talking to people.
I think it's good to set boundaries with your friends, but make sure you let them know how much you love/care about them while at the same time letting them know you can't talk/text as much as they'd maybe like. You may lose some friendships though if you aren't meeting their expectations. The people that really care about you will understand.
Gretchen Evie, born 7/8/2012 at 35w5d
I don't blame you one bit for wanting to completely disconnect on evenings/weekends--I'd do it, too!
Not asking this in a bad way, but how old are you? I used to talk to my friends all the time when I was in my early 20's. Once everyone gets married and starts having kids, it calms down. We talk every now and again, but we are all busy and want our evenings for family time. I tend to talk to my friends that I met at daycare more than my "old" friends since I see them almost daily at drop off or pick up. My sister and my mom and I email each other all the time at work so we really don't talk on the phone all that much.
Sorry you are feeling over loaded. Try not to let others stress you out.
I was wondering this myself. I went through a huge fight in my 20s with my BFF because she didn't think that I called her back enough. Tables turned in the last 5 years. I'm lucky to get a call back within the last 30 days.
It will pass. And for the friends that still respect that they are not the center of your universe you will be good friends for years to come. I have friends that I haven't seen in 6 months, but we will go out next weekend and it be like we haven't skipped a beat.
GL and try not to worry about it.
Funny that you would ask that because most normal people fizzle out this junk a few years after college. Sadly, I'm 30. I just have exceptions to the marriage and wind-down friends.
--I have two friends from HS who are married with kids and they NEVER bug me. We talk once a month, maybe, and it's perfect, and they are my closest friends.
--I have one friend who is married with kids, but I am her only friend. She calls me every single day and is the most demanding friend I have. She's a teacher so emails come during the day, the calls start at 4pm, then texts, then FB messages. She's the nicest person in the world, but she also thinks it's funny to be extra annoying.
--Another handful of friends, while half are married, try to hang on to our college days when we used to hang out all the time. They don't have many friends outside of that group so it has gone on longer than it should. None of them have kids. Please have kidsssssssssss people.
--Another group of friends are ages 25-35 and they are all in grad school. None are married, none have ever had jobs, and they all think I'm nuts for getting married and getting pregnant. I got the "that was quick" comment when I told them I was expecting. I'm 30. Exactly how Fing long should I have waited? These are the asshats that plan crap during the work week with thousands of emails. And weekend drinking. 30-35 year olds that barhop 3 times a week blow my mind.
Thank you wholeheartedly for all of the replies. They were all very nice and gave me some outside perspective.
I guess I just have to take the heat for dropping the ball over the next few years. Hopefully life will catch up with these friends and things will start to get busy for them.
I love being married and I can't wait for my family. Now to taper my work schedule down, and I'll be back to being a happy and optimistic person. Maybe eventually I'll pick one of my hobbies back up
If taking time for YOU has you feeling happier, why not do it permanently? Don't feel guilty because you want some happiness in your life. It's true breaking up is hard to do, but sometimes it is necessary. If your friends do not understand that you need time to de-stress, then why are you keeping them around? I broke up with a friend of 13 years because of the "funny/annoying friend" relationship you talked about, and trust me I don't miss her incessantly stressful calls.
Friendship is about give and take---it's time for you to stop giving and take time for YOU. Enjoy your new found happiness and all that it entails!
Good for you! You need to take care of yourself first in order to be a good mom, wife, employee, friend, etc. everyone needs some downtime even if its just the commute to and from work... dont ever feel guilty for stating your needs!
I find that the best friends are the ones who a) understand that you are stressed and may not be able to immediatly return a phone call or email b) the ones that you can catch up with after a week, month, whatever.... you are still friends even if life gets in the way...
I had a few "friends" get awfully pissy with me when school took away my attention for a while. but when those friendships ended (because I was NOT going to play their attention grabbing games) guess what I missed out on? nothing
I was much happier doing what I needed to do and keeping the friends who understood that
bottom line, if this change made you feel happier and balanced then you are not out of line, you've just taken some control over your life.
Don't your friends have stuff to do and jobs, family etc? why are they calling you everyday all day? That would piss me off. Get a life dude!
Can't you just organize to meet up with a bunch of them on a Friday night or something and get it all out then? its better than phone calls anyway. I would start setting that up, esp. cus when baby comes and you have work on top of that, they are going to feel like you have fallen off the edge of the earth since they are used to you talking to them everyday.
I would start a weekly thing now, so it gets to be habit by the time you have the baby. This way, its just one night when you can connect and then the phone calls will stop. You will be more relaxed.
Ok let's break it down: to your one friend (the teacher) arranged to meet her for brunch or drinks or whatever on the weekend each week, or every other week. You can catch up then. If its just silly Facebook messages etc. no need for you to answer all day long or in your car. You can answer her on facebook at night for 5 mins.
It sounds like your married with kids friends are ok already.
For the group that is married or half married arrange something every 2 weeks like dinner ...and try to get the group to go out at once so you can all hange.
For the people in grad school, just ignore stuff during the week and say NO. Be like I'm super busy, sorry we can't meet up, maybe we should do something next Sat or something like that. No need to stay hooked in to multiple texts and emails arranging something, just say NO from the get go if it is during the week and its something you don't want to do.
This is way unneccesary and just do what you want to do, and don't do what you don't want to do. You don't need to get sucked into multiple phone calls, texts etc. Just ignore your phone. You can look at it when you get a spare second. Your grad school friends don't need an answer THIS second about plans. I think you are also making it harder on yourself because you feel like you have to be so plugged in. Make firm boundaries and you will be fine. You don't need to say yes to every outing.
I'm glad that you found a way to bring back some happiness. I would agree to a lot of what esalyi said. If you can make a few plans ahead of time, say meeting for lunch/dinner or even an hour for coffee, the constant media frenzy might calm down. While you don't need to say yes to every outing, or answer every text/email, I think totally ignoring the crowds you do like hanging out with could backfire. Especialy after LO comes and you might be looking for an outlet yourself.
I agree with this. I have a question for others: Out of the average 8 weekend days a month (Saturdays & Sundays), how many days do you have to yourself and your husband and kids?
I would say, my breakdown is like this:
-- 1 entire weekend is wasted for work travel (minimum, sometimes 2 weekends)
-- 2 entire weekends are gobbled by my inlaws (Friday through Sunday; long story, I'm working on that too)
-- 1 entire weekend's worth spent satisfying friend obligations - cookouts, weddings, etc.
That is why I literally get one Sunday every 3 months to myself. I would love to know what is normal. Honestly, I would be the happiest person in the world if I could spend 6 of the 8 weekend days each month doing things with my husband and kiddo (when it arrives) alone.
Next weekend I told my inlaws that I will be out of town. My husband works and MIL was still going to come Saturday-Sunday! wtf! no no no no no no no!
Gah! I have had friends go through things like this and I am a good friend to them. Lots of extra support when needed, and completely giving space when needed. It doesn't bother me, I don't have to be completely connected to be a friend. In the long run... maybe you're better off without her. I know it's sad, but can you imagine the stress that would be caused by her over the next 20 years? WHEW! Makes me tired thinking about it. Congrats on your new little family you're making!
My friends and I used to try so hard to keep in touch and hang out whenever the opportunity arose. But I think it exhausted all of us. I seem to have two groups of friends now, those who are married with kids, and those who are still single and enjoy going out all of the time. We're all 26 and 27, and the ones who aren't married yet still live like they're in college. Fortunately, we all realize how busy we are. My best friend might call me today and I probably won't answer. But I will appreciate her call. I may call her on Sunday and she probably won't answer either, but I'll leave her a nice voice message letting her know I'm thinking about her, give her a quick updated on my life, and then ask about hers. But when we do manage to actually talk to each other, we'll probably talk for two hours and pick right back up where we left off. It's the same with most of my friends.
At work, I'm on the phone or the computer all day. When I get home, I either want to play outside with the dog or veg out on the couch with DH. I don't want to be on the phone anymore, and I'm ususally sick of the computer (unless it's baby-related). DH is the same way. Fortunately, our friends are pretty understanding.
Our families are pretty demanding. DH's parents are divorced so we're usually trying to balance out spending time with them. Plus, my father passed away in 2007, so my mom is always wanting us to get dinner or do something with her because she gets lonely. I don't think people realize how demanding they can be. I appreciate that people want to talk to me and spend time with me, but some times I just want to be alone in the quiet or just chill out with DH.
Some people are selfish a$$holes. Others are self preservationists. I think you fall into the latter category. I have the same kind of communications-specific job that you do. I HATE HATE HATE talking to people after work, or listening to voicemails. In fact, my cell phone vm says: if you really want to reach me, send me a text please. People who love me know I don't respond to vm. If it's an emergency, call the hubster or send me a 911 text. (Except for mom. I always answer for mom.)
But, you need time for you. Gardening isn't fun if you're on the phone with someone yapping about whatever. and sometimes laundry can be meditative, so I understand wanting to do that without hearing about any one else's life stress. I don't see anything wrong with your "you time."
also, I lost a best friend over this mess right when I was your age. (Not that I'm that much older than you..) I had to let chickie-poo go. We are still friends, but if you demand more from me than my husband or my mom? No thanks and no sir.
Just do YOU. Don't feel guilty about it. And if you lose some friends, so be it. You've got plenty and when the dust settles, the ones that count will still be around.