For the first seven years of my son's life we've had a very close friendship with another mom and her boy of the same age. The kids have known each other since they were a year old and I quickly became close with the mom as we just clicked. We arranged playdates or outings for the boys and our families almost every weekend, hang out while the boys played, and would go on mom dates without kids almost monthly. We were practically like family and shared all aspects of our lives. I would say on average we/ the kids would see each other at least 2-3 times per month.The kids never went to school together nor were we neighbors, so this was always a friendship that we had to make the effort and make time to see each other. Even as the kids grew older and started developing different interests, we still kept it up. Until last year things changed. My friend moved houses and had stress at work and kept bringing those stressors in her life up as excuses for not hanging out. I didn't push the issue too hard, because she can be pretty introvert and assumed that she'd rather deal with the problems by herself. That's not exactly my perspective on friendship, but to each their own. I kept trying to reach out occasionally, when she said she didn't have time because of so and so, I offered my help, but she never accepted. I saw her maybe 3 times last year, she never initiated any contact and the kids playdates were only monthly now and just a quick drop-off.It took me a whole year of such disappointment and rejection to understand that she was no longer interested in the friendship in the same way, and I was grieving over the loss for a long time. At this point I have accepted that our mom-friendship is over, and I'm trying to figure out what's happening with the kids friendship now. Even though she said a few months ago that she still wants the kids to continue seeing each other, it has become a similarly one-sided effort. I don't remember the last time she initiated a playdate. My son is lucky now to see his friend maybe once a month and that's after me asking multiple times and offering to pick him up. The kids have a great time together when they see each other and her son usually asks for the next playdate right away, so I'm not sure if it's the boy pulling away or his mom not wanting to put effort into it anymore.After dealing with rejection for a whole year I am getting very emotionally tired of this whole situation and almost want to have clarity and ask her if she really wants to keep the boys friendship up, or if they want to pull away completely. At this age, if they don't get to see each other regularly, a friendship pretty much doesn't exist. I would hate for my son to go through the same prolonged heartbreak that I have been going through as I can already see him hurting the same way. He still asks for a playdate weekly, gets his hopes up, only to be rejected most of the times. I've already reduced my outreach to once a month, and it's still hard to get them to commit.I'll do anything for my kids and I know that he will have to learn to get through heartbreak sooner or later in life. I just wish it wasn't this early in life and am not sure if a clean and immediate cut would be better than this long and drawn out process. What do you think? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Oyn2wI
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