Getting married and having a kid is a significant life shift, so sharing the experience with a group of friends is an excellent way to bond. Unfortunately, for some people, these home changes may dominate their lives and shape their entire identity.

People who are unmarried and do not want to have children in the near future may find it difficult to relate to their married friends who have children, since they have fewer similarities. Furthermore, if you do not have children, listening to folks discuss nursing, sleep cycles, and spitting up all day might be monotonous.

People who have children may also find these topics uninteresting.

A Redditor known as Remarkable_Lake410, or user RL for short, recently had this difficulty with her pals. Instead of pretending to be interested in married parent life, she chose to be open with them about why she didn’t want to accompany them on their trip.

“I (27F) have eight female buddies. We’ve been friends for more than a decade, dating back to school. We no longer live together, but we do get together for a weekend on Airbnb a couple of times a year. This used to be a weekend of good food, drinks, and a hot tub,” she commented on the AITH forum.

“About five of my pals are married or in long-term relationships. Two of these five have a kid or are pregnant. This year, I’ll see all of my pals at weddings, friend gatherings, and baby showers. I was invited to this year’s girls’ vacation, but I claimed I couldn’t go. “I didn’t initially give a reason,” she added.

However, a friend pressed her to explain why she didn’t want to go on the trip, and she was honest: she would rather not be stuck continually hearing about babies, marriage, and weddings on a vacation that would cost a lot of money.

“[Last time], I spent almost an hour listening to one of my friends discuss her nursing plans with ferocity. She isn’t pregnant or trying. “Honestly, it’s boring and dismissive,” RL wrote. It’s also a very costly way to feel horrible about yourself.”

When her buddy heard her rationale, she was “really hurt,” and it appeared that RL did not care about her or her other friends. So RL asked the Reddit group whether she was terrible for being honest and missing a trip focused on marriage and babies.

Over 4,000 people responded to the message, with the vast majority of them supporting RL.

“On the surface, it appears that this is only about engagements, weddings, and babies.” You go out of your way to always assist them. However, they do not reciprocate for you. They are unable or unwilling to relate to anything other than their life. In the most popular remark, Dependant_praline_93 commented, “It’d be like winning an award, and all they talked about was the pie they just ate that morning.”

“We all change as we get older. Some friends naturally grow away, especially if their lifestyles change substantially (for example, married with children). I wouldn’t want to pay a lot of money to spend three days with people who had such different interests. And I don’t believe it was bad, to be honest, when your buddy asked you why you didn’t go.” Smokin_Hot_Ice was added.

One commenter with children has a close friend who is childless, and she has made an effort to question her about her life and hobbies, rather than only discussing parenting.

@tmurph When I’m on Vacation I don’t have any kids🤣…those kids are US citizens I’m Jamaican unit next week 🤷🏾‍♂️😂 . . . . #tmurph #parenting #momsoftiktok #mom #momlife #dad #dadlife #parentinghacks #millennial #reels #explorepage #fyp #adultchildren #parentstruggles #foryoupage #parenthood_moments #vacation #jamaica #parentsvacation #getaway ♬ original sound – T. Murph

“I was 38 when I had my first child, and I read an article in Working Mother magazine when I was pregnant, and it said not to be the jerk who always talks about your pregnancy and your baby to your friends, especially the ones without babies,” commented JellyBear135 in an email. “When I see her, I usually ask about her career, her extracurricular interests, and, most recently, her new puppy dog. She lives alone and doesn’t have many people that question her about her life, so I make it a point to do so. I email her every few weeks to ask about her life.”

After receiving a significant response to her message, RL posted an update indicating that another friend in the same situation chose not to go on the vacation as well. “I have spoken to one of my other friends invited on the trip (who is past the baby stage of life); she is also skipping the trip and said she is not attending for the same reason,” says RL.

It appears that the main message from RL’s predicament is more than just how stage-of-life events like marriage and having children may cause schisms in friendships. However, we must ensure that we not only talk about ourselves to our friends but also listen to them. This is crucial because a friendship that is solely focused on ourselves is not truly a friendship at all.