I feel so inapt in dealing with some friendship issues, so I hope to get some help with this one and not turn my friendship (?) if I have one into no friendship.
When my husband and I lived in another State I had what I felt was a great friendship with this woman. We went places together, etc. When we moved she cried and said that she knew I would keep in contact, which I have, but she seldom calls, so it is a one way street here. I can always remember her telling me that when she doesn't want someone for a friend she just quietly moves away from them. Her other two friends have complained and given up on her because of her lack of response to their emails to her after they moved away.
The situation is that we have exchanged gifts on Christmas and birthday over the past 6 years after my moving, and she would write a short note in them. In six years she may have called me 3 times. Well, this year I wrote her a nice long letter in June, no response. My birthday came in August, and I got a mail order gift, no note. I have left messages on her phone, no call, not that I expected it. I called last night and her husband said that they were canning corn, and then said, I will tell her and she MAY call you back. The MAY got to me, but everything is getting to me about this so-called friendship. Christmas is coming, and I think maybe it is time to stop the gift giving and for my to stop calling her, but I want a graceful way out of this instead of getting angry like I have with others in the past. Someone in my growing up, I never learned how to gracefully get out of anything.
If I called her I wouldn't know how to ask her point blank and wouldn't expect an honest answer anyway. I remember one time she called and said, "I bet you think I forgot about you!" I just laughed.
Any suggestions would be grateful. I don't want to hurt her feelings, and if I am wrong then I don't want to upset the apple cart.
When my husband and I lived in another State I had what I felt was a great friendship with this woman. We went places together, etc. When we moved she cried and said that she knew I would keep in contact, which I have, but she seldom calls, so it is a one way street here. I can always remember her telling me that when she doesn't want someone for a friend she just quietly moves away from them. Her other two friends have complained and given up on her because of her lack of response to their emails to her after they moved away.
The situation is that we have exchanged gifts on Christmas and birthday over the past 6 years after my moving, and she would write a short note in them. In six years she may have called me 3 times. Well, this year I wrote her a nice long letter in June, no response. My birthday came in August, and I got a mail order gift, no note. I have left messages on her phone, no call, not that I expected it. I called last night and her husband said that they were canning corn, and then said, I will tell her and she MAY call you back. The MAY got to me, but everything is getting to me about this so-called friendship. Christmas is coming, and I think maybe it is time to stop the gift giving and for my to stop calling her, but I want a graceful way out of this instead of getting angry like I have with others in the past. Someone in my growing up, I never learned how to gracefully get out of anything.
If I called her I wouldn't know how to ask her point blank and wouldn't expect an honest answer anyway. I remember one time she called and said, "I bet you think I forgot about you!" I just laughed.
Any suggestions would be grateful. I don't want to hurt her feelings, and if I am wrong then I don't want to upset the apple cart.