Hi moms,

How do you manage a mom friendship where your mom friend has a different love language from yours? My friend whose son is my godson always wants us to spend time with them because she only has one son but her son also likes my son very much. My son likes him as well. The problem is her son gets physical with mine during the play dates. He kicks, pushes, yanks and beats my son. The other problem is literally the most sensitive person I’ve ever met. Like it’s hard to intervene because her feelings because she doesn’t really like it. She wants to be the one to stop her son.

So her love language is quality time but when I’m able to give time (because I used to get distressed from seeing my son being treated that way), she perceives it as me not loving her. The issue is when I tried to address things directly, she disappeared and stopped taking my calls and then sent my other son a birthday gift, acted like nothing happened.

She gave my son a $300 (birthday, Xmas present but didn’t seem happy I never opened it at their house. (It was her husband’s birthday, all her relatives were there, I hate being the center of attention and I had a crying baby). Now my love language is gift giving and I feel like she’s always disregarding the gifts I get her because she’s upset about my not spending time.

I got her family xmas presents, was so excited to share them and I asked her when is a good time, it’s the 3rd and she’s not even given me a day to drop them. She just said “let’s check in a couple of days.” I tried giving them to her before Xmas, she said she was planning to go out of town and turns out, they didn’t. Now she said to hold on to them until the kids get together to play but with no day. She wanted us to go to her house but it was raining and I have a baby. I didn’t want him to be in the rain.

On her birthday, my husband woke up at 7am to buy her a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some gifts, when I went to drop them off, she was more upset that the kids didn’t play together. This was because I told her it was too late to play and asked to reschedule. It was coming to 6pm and I had two kids with a not so well husband in the car. But her response was, “if the kids can’t play, then I don’t want these gifts.” I know she has the money to afford the gifts but if someone gets you Xmas presents, wouldn’t it be thoughtful to let them drop them off instead of having them hold onto them until there’s a play date?

How would you manage this friendship and your mom friend’s expectations?