Is DWs close relationship with her parents keeping us from

[Anonymous]

DW and I lived in a large city about three hours away from the mid-sized city where she grew up, and her parents still live. While we enjoyed living in the big city, we knew that eventually we would move closer to her parents. However, after having our daughter in the summer of 2020 during Covid, and both of our jobs shifting to fully remote, we decided to make the move in the fall of 2021.

One thing that we've both struggled with is making friends, as we're both somewhat introverted. We had a small group of friends in our previous city, but they had mostly moved away (part of the reason that we decided to move when we did). When we moved to our new city, we struggled to make friends. We rented in a part of town that didn't have a lot of families, our daughter was going to a smaller daycare where there wasn’t a lot of parental interaction. As a result, our social life almost exclusively consisted of seeing my in laws on the weekend. To be clear, I enjoy my in laws company; they’re great people, and they have a great relationship with our daughter. That said, both DW and I were frustrated that we weren’t able to meet any friends our age. Both DW and I gre up with parents who had a strong group of family friends, and we both wanted that for our daughter as well.

In the summer of 2023, we bought a house in a neighborhood that was much more family friendly, and sent our daughter to a preschool that a lot of the neighborhood kids go to. Fast forward to now, our daughter is thriving socially, and has a good group of friends from the neighborhood. I’ve become friends either some of the Dads from the neighborhood, and we hang out every so often.

However, things haven’t gone as well for DW on the social front. She’s friendly with a few of the Moms in the school/neighborhood, but nothing beyond that. She frequently expresses frustration that she doesn’t have any friends. Here’s the thing though, I know that she enjoys the company of some of the Moms in DDs class, and I know that these Moms have asked her to have a play date with their kids, but when I’ve asked DW if she’s interested in setting up a play date, her response is always “eh I don’t really want to” or “what if my parents want to do something?”

I want to reiterate that I really don’t mind us spending all this time with her parents, but it feels like we’re constantly spending time with them instead of trying to form friendships with other parents. For what it’s worth, her parents are in good health, live independently, have an active social life, and are very supportive of us trying to build a social circle. Am I off base in being frustrated by this?I worry that these opportunities to build a social circle will pass us by.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to keep in mind that the way you grew up doesn’t really exist anymore. People are really busy and they’re not really big groups of parent type friends with kids and if they do exist, they break apart by the time a kid is five years old anyway when the kids are going to school and activities start.

My kids are 10 and 13 and we never had a close knit group of parent friends. A play date is not going to ensure any kind of long lasting friendship and I think you’re naïve to think that that could end up being that way from a single play date. Most people are not that close it anymore with both parents working and people being really busy. I think you would experience this regardless of living near her parents.

[Anonymous]

I had no interest in traveling in a pack (wife, husband + child) every weekend. If I were you, I would seek out some hobbies. Do you have an interest in any sports? Perhaps a pickup league once a week would be some nice socialization for you. A church is another idea. In an6. Are, when you are new to an area, you need to make an effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had no interest in traveling in a pack (wife, husband + child) every weekend. If I were you, I would seek out some hobbies. Do you have an interest in any sports? Perhaps a pickup league once a week would be some nice socialization for you. A church is another idea. In an6. Are, when you are new to an area, you need to make an effort.

This, above, but PP, it's the DW and not the thread's OP (the DH) who needs to make the effort. He's making friends among dads in the area.

OP, encourage your wife to find some things to join which interest her. Not kid-related, not rooted in other parents at your child's school, or in neighbors in the neighborhood. She may just not be a person who is clicking in those "we have kids in common but maybe not much else" situations. She might be more social with adults who share her interests beyond kids, home, school. You, OP, will need to be sure you make this easy for her by being ready and able to spend time with your DD so mom can get out for real time to do grown-up things. What interests her? Books? Book club or volunteering at the town library. Crafting? There are crafting groups, or classes where she would both learn and maybe meet new people. Sports? She can check out the local women's sports league for whatever sport she likes or whatever. Or she can volunteer for something she cares about anyway (food bank, clothing bank, local group that cleans up parks/plants trees, whatever).

Even if she doesn't end up socializing with people from those activities, she will be getting out, doing something of genuine interest to her, and not confining herself to parents-kid-spouse as her outlet for interacting with others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to keep in mind that the way you grew up doesn’t really exist anymore. People are really busy and they’re not really big groups of parent type friends with kids and if they do exist, they break apart by the time a kid is five years old anyway when the kids are going to school and activities start.

My kids are 10 and 13 and we never had a close knit group of parent friends. A play date is not going to ensure any kind of long lasting friendship and I think you’re naïve to think that that could end up being that way from a single play date. Most people are not that close it anymore with both parents working and people being really busy. I think you would experience this regardless of living near her parents.

But PP, you're discouraging the OP and his DW from even attempting play dates. Good grief. Sure, they aren't necessarily a magical path to deep, long-lasting friendships among the adults, but they aren't useless either. At least his wife would be spending some time chatting with another adult who isn't her husband or her parents. She doesn't have to find her forever best friend, she just needs to make a start on socializing.

And if everyone's too busy for playdates these days, why does OP say that more than one parent has asked his wife about setting up a play date? Wherever they are, there clearly are some parents who want to make play dates work.

It's just not as much of a downer drama, or a big deal, as you're making it sound here. The OP doesn't need discouragement, he needs ideas for gently encouraging his wife to get outside what sounds like her comfort zone -- which isn't very comfortable since she's saying she lacks friends....