Tips For Balancing Adult Friendships

Recently I was listening to one of Mattie Jame’s podcast episode Mattieologie ( if you haven’t listened to any of her podcasts I highly recommend them, especially for new bloggers she shares many tips to run a successful blog) Anyway back to the podcast I listened to, she speaks on how balancing motherhood, marriage and owning a business has made her a bad friend. After listening to it, it got me thinking and I realized she was kind of talking about my life currently. I think after I became a mom I went from being an okay friend to a terrible one. I will be honest I already sucked at keeping in touch and reaching out to people, but something about being a mom, wife and working a full time job really makes you forget you had friends in the first place. I feel like my life revolves around those three roles, and when I do finally have some free time I would really love to spend time with friends (I really would), but me time just sounds so much better.

Clearly I know I am not the first woman to ever be married, have a child (imagine when I have more than one lol) work and still have some type of social life how are they doing this? so I have decided to try some new habits within the last month and hoping it will stick  so I thought I would share and I hope this will help someone in the same boat as me.  And you don’ t have to be in the same exact situation as me, you could just be a newly wed like me with no kids that still wants to enjoy being a wife and not completely ditch your friends or you could be a single mom (or dad) who doesn’t want to have your life completely revolve around your child and not remember who you were before your child came around. Here are the new habits I am trying out:

• I have learnt to stay in touch whether it be via calling (I really don’t remember how to do this though) texting and good old social media (thanks to so many social media outlets know my life has gotten quite a bit easier lol). I get so upset that my girlfriends make plans and don’t even try to include me. But I think if the tables were turned and I constantly invite someone out, and they are always giving some type of excuse you bet I will not be inviting them anywhere anymore. So by reaching out I at least I am still doing my part, yes I sure as heck can’t be out in them streets every weekend for happy hour or be on every single girls’ trip but, I am still trying to catch up and see how they are doing and they can see the effort on my end.

• I am trying very hard to actually make time, its very easy to say “oh I have so much going on…..” and constantly flake out. Like the other day, some girlfriends were in town and had invited me out for drinks, honestly I went back on forth about how I really just wanted to stay home on a Friday night and do nothing instead just because I was tired from a long week and i have become very lame anyway , but honestly as much as I make scarifies for my husband and daughter I should be able to make a few sacrifices for good friends as well. I ended up going to happy hour for a few hours, and had fun and it was a better idea than just seating home and doing nothing. 

• Plain ole Communicating why I can’t make certain things and try to explain why I can’t do certain things. Obviously my friends understand my life is at a different place than it was 5 years or even 2 years ago so they will understand me canceling or going MIA certain times. But as a good friend I have to understand that, I can’t always just flake on someone and expect them to ALWAYS understand. If the tables were turn I would see it as I am not really that important of a friend to this person which is why they can’t make any time for me. So just explaining sometimes and giving a back story, I believe a person is more understanding because they get the full picture.