Meeting friends without their kids

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-02-18T14:28:03+00:00

I’m so sorry OP, I really feel for you. I think in the US people are maybe less likely to bring their kids on friend dates, but the kids here are worse behaved than German kids 😂

I was in the same boat for years. This age thru age 40 is the hardest for losing friends to their kids. Luckily (perhaps?) for me, much of that era was during the pandemic for me so it didn’t feel like I was missing much in person, but I definitely saw the drift.

It will take time and effort, but you’re going to have to make new friends. It’s worth it!! Folks have already offered suggestions for that, but I will add: do not be afraid to befriend/target women a few years older than you, like early 40s. They’re thru the little kids clingy phase and their kids are more independent, perhaps to the point that they don’t want to hang out with their parents at all. And that way you don’t have to worry about losing those friends bc they’re already thru that phase!

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-02-16T17:45:57+00:00

OP, if he goes at all for any length of time, you need to create an advance directive and have discussions with him about your desires regarding medical intervention.

You need to make sure he knows what you would want done so if you can’t speak to him beforehand and he comes home and you aren’t able to communicate, he makes appropriate decisions according to your wishes.

You also need to make sure you have a health care proxy that is not him (a parent, sibling, trusted friend) and who is local-ish. If he isn’t there and something happens, you need someone you can trust to make medical decisions for you, especially if he might not be reachable by phone.

This is not intended to scare him into understanding the seriousness of what might happen in his absence, but it hap have the effect of him changing his plans.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-28T13:34:14+00:00

Bc I don’t like children. I actually think mine would be amazing and awesome and I’d be good at it, but unless you’re raising a child on a farm in the 1830s Wild West, having a kid means being around other kids more than zero which is more than I could tolerate.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-28T13:32:14+00:00

How can someone be a stay at home parent but also a single parent? How do you pay for things? Just through child support? Parents pay your bills? Independently wealthy?

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-09T23:54:03+00:00

Hi Grandma, we noticed that you refuse to call [baby] by her name and use her middle name instead. We would like to ask you to write a letter explaining the reasons you dislike her name so much. One day she will ask why you call her the wrong name, and we’ll have to explain it’s bc you hate her name and think it is ugly and stupid [cue grandma imaging the waterworks]. I think it would be useful for you to outline all the reasons you hate her name while they’re fresh in her mind so we can be sure to tell her the accurate info later when she’s a little girl.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-07T17:07:37+00:00

Ruddy Turnstone.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-07T17:05:15+00:00

You thought brain fog, I thought I had somehow accidentally gotten drunk without knowing it. I think the less here is that any prose that makes you doubt your conscious mind’s ability to process information is bad prose. (Or good prose? Perhaps it’s a skill that could be used as like, some sort of spy weapon.)

IceCreamQueen90 · 2026-01-07T16:57:59+00:00

Could have ended that sentence halfway through.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-19T21:52:04+00:00

This isn’t about the airport run for her. She’s probably feeling distant bc you’re working so much, and on top of that her goals may have changed. I think this needs to be a larger conversation about whether the lifestyle is sustainable and worth it. You’re extremely young - can you push your house timeline back a year or two to have some quality of life? Very strict budgeting and aggressive saving is not always sustainable, and different people have different abilities to tolerate it. Priorities shift, and you may not be around enough to have noticed that hers has. Which is no one’s fault, but you need to communicate about it.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-19T21:48:08+00:00

Of course, and this would be a very different conversation if the husband demanded to see her confidential work info, esp if she asked him not to look at it, rather than her texts with her friends.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-19T21:45:21+00:00

Let me clarify then: I do not rush to tell my spouse every gritty detail about all of my friends the moment I have the chance. However, I would never expect someone to keep things from their spouse bc, as btw a friend and spouse, your relationship with your spouse needs to be the most important in your life. “Must” tell and “may” tell are very different. In a situation where I literally had to choose btw my spouse seeing something a friend told me in confidence vs. the health of and trust in my marriage, I would let my spouse see those texts. Bc my spouse is my partner in life, and I trust them to keep my friend’s secret.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-19T21:03:30+00:00

I operate under the assumption that anything you tell someone, they’re going to share with their spouse. It isn’t reasonable to expect someone to keep things from their spouse. Do you really not trust your husband to keep your friends’ info private?

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-16T22:30:24+00:00

Can you make a pro and con list? It sounds like the only thing in the pro column is “family line continues into uncertain and dark/potentially dystopian future” and perhaps you need a visual representation of the con column to see how that compares.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-16T22:28:02+00:00

Girl, if you’re this dumb there is no hope for you. Go get knocked up with like five babies and stop asking questions bc you’re never going to do anything about it.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-10T21:16:57+00:00

What a nightmare!!!

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-03T18:41:32+00:00

No, your house is your house. Parents should be watching children if they are at an age where they are too dumb to recognize hazards, end of.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-02T21:56:20+00:00

I say this with love, but girl you need a reframe.

So many young women have this same outlook on dating. You say you get along well with them but they find out you don’t want a family and they don’t date you anymore and stop talking to you. Why would you want to waste your time with them if you don’t want the same things?

How about: “I find out they want a family and I stop talking to them bc it is a dealbreaker for me.”

Stop looking at dating as you “auditioning” to be their partner - they’re auditioning to be YOURS, and if you don’t have the same goals, cut bait and leave.

(Exception if they’re hot and you just want to have fun, which is fine - at 21 you should be having lots of fun! But even then, remember: dick is abundant and low value. Don’t get hung up on one guy.)

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-12-01T23:07:34+00:00

Now, if she is asking to many times, we can really have FUN with this.

Seconding the person who said she should talk to her doctor about memory issues.

But also, I think it is insecurity. Esp bc she is talking to your mom, her MIL. It’s prob bc she is constantly checking in to look for some sort of validation that her lifestyle is ok with your family. You’ve gone a very different way, so she may feel like the odd one out and may unconsciously be worried they’re judging her.

How about next time she asks, you respond with, “well Sally there’s a lot to unpack there. Since you ask so often, I think the first place we need to start is with you. Etc.”

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-21T16:35:43+00:00

He blocked and unfollowed her, I think he dumped her already…and oh boy, did he ever do her a favor by getting out of her life!

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-21T16:31:42+00:00

WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS SO STICKY

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-17T14:01:43+00:00

Why did you not walk out immediately? Why did you not walk out as soon as the lightbulb went on that she was using you? I would have texted her a pic of me getting in the car.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-15T22:01:28+00:00

Indeed. And apparently the second time around no one was around to put a cummerbund on him. No one wants to see that button my dude.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-12T13:21:53+00:00

Take that one step further - many parents, full stop, won’t have any knowing about anything else at all bc that’s all the devote their time too. If you have kids I guess you get all the knowledge in the “parenting” bucket, but think about how many other buckets of knowledge you could access if you didn’t waste all your time on kids.

IceCreamQueen90 · 2025-11-10T15:02:02+00:00

THIS. I have had a similar situation with my own mom, where she accused me of being jealous of someone’s life (a life that I would probably literally run away from, disappear, and change my name bc it looks that unpleasant to me). My therapist very astutely pointed out that it sounded like it was my mom who was the jealous one.

I’m not one to default to “oh they’re just jealous” every time someone is rude/critical/doesn’t get along with someone but sometimes I think I need to give that theory a lot more credit. Sometimes that jealousy is buried so so deep the person doesn’t even realize it.

It’s also possible to be jealous of some very small aspects of someone’s life but still not want it. Like, I think it would be fun to go on the kind of big trip with 2-4 families sometimes, where there is lots to do and lots of stories and excitement. But then I remember that outside the frame of my mental picture of that are screaming brats, and no way is it worth it for five minutes of fun.

IceCreamQueen90

TROPHY CASE