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I had a friendship like this. She was, for the most part, into hanging out if I initiated it, but never ever invited us places or to her house. Ultimately, I just stopped inviting her places and she disappeared. She clearly didn't want to pursue the friendship, and I was sick of being the only one initiating playdates etc. Life is tooooo short to play games.

Haha, I haven't had good luck with speaking up! A few years ago, I felt that one of my very closest friends was becoming increasingly selfish, and I was getting resentful, so I decided to directly (but nicely) bring it up with her. She was quite dismissive during our conversation and didn't make any subsequent attempts to change her behavior. That angered/hurt me enough that I stopped making any attempts to facilitate our relationship, and now we basically don't have one! Another friend of mine started ghosting on me when my mom was dying of cancer, and when I emailed her that I needed *more* support from her (not less!), she never replied and never spoke to me again.

And then one time I intervened on my DH's behalf - a friend blew off his birthday after many similarly selfish actions, and DH was reluctant to say anything, so I sent the friend an email saying something along the lines of, "Hey, DH was really hurt by you doing XYZ, and I thought you might want to know in case you want to talk to him about it." That turned into a giant shitstorm that involved the friend calling both me and DH lots of names, and that relationship also dissolved completely!

Soooo, I guess my advice would be to encourage your DH to speak up for himself, but also to prepare yourselves for a potentially non-ideal result. Good luck - relationships are hard!

The only thing that I'm thinking in this particular case is maybe she wasn't to have a family-only trip to the pumpkin patch (I'm assuming she didn't post a picture of a big group) but didn't want to hurt your feelings by turning you down? I know sometimes I have it in my head that I want to do something just with my husband and son and if somebody else invites me I find that hard to explain.

That being said, sounds like this is a bigger/ongoing problem. I think it might be weird if you said something on behalf of your husband - if this girl is that close of a friend to him he should be able to say that he misses her and wishes they could find more chances to hang out? I get this feeling with a lot of my friends, that I do all the work and if I didn't I'd never see them. I've had to decide that in some cases it's worth it - I want to maintain the friendship, we always have fun when we get together, and it's fine. With other friendships I've decided I didn't care enough to make all the effort and let it go. A friend did say to me last weekend "J and I were talking about how good you always are at organizing things!" which made me feel better - at least my efforts are appreciated.

Yup. I'd just stop inviting them to things. We've had this happen several times. It is what it is. People grow apart and some people just don't value having friendships once they have a family. They are so focused on their own lives. What can you do?

When faced with stuff like this I just stop making the effort. Either they'll step it up or the friendship fizzles. I used to obsess over why I wasn't "enough" for people, but I had to get over that and realize that I am a worthwhile friend to people who are willing to reciprocate!

I usually just back off a little and see if they make an attempt.

But . . . We've been the hard to reach couple as well. Life gets busy and last year I was very protective of family time since it happened so rarely. It was quite frustrating at times that not even our families seemed to understand the craziness and would get offended. DH finally said to my mom at one point - you realize you've gotten to visit with my daughters way more the past few months than I have (even though my parents live several hours away). Give them a little space then give them a more open ended invitation, maybe life just got hectic for them.

I would just back off and let it fizzle. If she is "too cool" and doesn't want to really be friends any more then why waste the emotional energy on someone like that? I've gotten over not being good enough for certain people to bother inviting or including... life is too short plus I just don't have the energy to be sad about it anymore.

@nana87: another vote for let it fizzle. The pumpkin patch incident....I personally find it hard enough to coordinate my own family to go to do something like this, so the last thing I want it another family with their own kids and schedules to coordinate with, too. So I would also have a hard time telling you (even if we are friends) that I prefer to just go with my own family instead of in a group.

But if you guys want more and they aren't capable of giving it right now, then it's best to let it fizzle. I think bringing it up will make things worse.

@nana87: Have you tried saying something subtly like "it's been hard to get in touch with you guys, what have you been up?"

In this situation, I'd probably just let it fizzle out. Maybe there are no bad intentions, but it seems to not be working out at least right now.

I've just slowly distance myself and let the friendship fizzle out. Most of these friendships are due to distance anyway; they were mostly friends I made from a old job and I've since moved 1+ hr away.

I've had a friendship that didn't make it as we changed, except I was the one trying to distance myself. And now I think an old friend is trying to step out of my life. Both times there was no conversation about "this is the end"... I just don't know what you can say really, it's not like you're going to sit down and tell the other person they're an awful friend! They're just being them, and you're just being you, and sadly one of you feels that you're not close any more. I think the conversation would be just as painful as letting the friendship fizzle.

That said, maybe they're just struggling with little help from family and all the time and mental energy they have goes to each other and their LO. They might be more reachable when their child gets older!

@nana87: was it just family at their LOs birthday?

@nana87: aww, that's a bummer. I'm sorry.

I agree with previous posters. I would just stop inviting them. That way there is no hostility. They have already decided to cut themselves out, so there is no sense in putting forth the effort. If you decide to rekindle later, fine. Odds are that won't happen though.

@nana87: I find this super interesting. I had this issue with a friend a little while ago, and it was really hurting me. I mentioned something to DH, who told me about an article he had read. It was about meeting people where they're at, and that sometimes this is just how the friendship works- there might be a person who always reaches out, and another who never does. It's not that the person doesn't want to be friends, it's just that is where they are at. It made me feel better, and has changed my perspective of my relationship with my non-reaching-out friend.

ETA- I missed the birthday party thing at first. I change my original thought... seems like you should stop inviting them places.

Hm. I don't (well, I try not to) take things like that personally. Maybe they already had plans for the pumpkin patch (?) Do you know what I mean? And everyone communicates differently, maybe they felt awkward because they already had the plan and they are not confrontational(?)

I would try not to let fb and ig influence me, but then again I am not on those outlets because I think they cause ... potential for problems. Anyway, I have friends I don't see that often, but I just figure they have their own lives, and DH and I are busy and tend to do things just together as a family a lot of the time (with LO).

I guess my approach to friendship is to choose people I really adore, then I guess those things don't bother me?