How do I change who I am?

[kanga1622]

This might seem like a bit of a vent but I'm honestly looking for suggestions on how to change who I am.

I am struggling in my life with figuring out how to truly separate my home and work life. Essentially I have no friends outside of work. The last time DH and I made "couple friends", our lives were taken over and somehow everything revolved around them to the point where they practically moved in with us by virtue of them coming to our home so often and leaving belongings behind so that the had taken over several cabinets and their child had a toybox in our home. This has made me EXTREMELY gunshy about making friends outside of working friendships.

With this in mind, I am struggling with how to keep myself pulled back at work. How do I gloss over everything and paint a rosy picture? How do I not mention all the wonderful or not so wonderful things that DS is doing?

I am not shy about sharing our BF challenges, teething struggles, sleep issues, etc. when people ask. How do I learn to say nothing and just move the convo to something else?

I'm starting to feel like I am too open about who I am and want to put some distance between "work" people and my family. How do I distance myself from well-meaning people without hurting them or appearing rude?

[caenach]

I’m not sure I totally understand? You feel like you’re making yourself too vulnerable to coworkers by “over-sharing” details of your personal life? But on the other hand, you don’t have or want any close friendships outside of work?

I guess I would think about (or even make a list) of the kinds of things I would like my work relationships to be based on…i.e., something like “ I’d like friendships with my co-worker to revolve around our mutual tasks at work, office chatter, interest in current events, and generic information about my recent activities (DH and I say TheNewMovie this weekend, we went to an orchard to pick apples on Thursday) but NOT intimate details about my marriage or children, no specific information about my lifestyle choices, no politics, and no sharing of my conflicts in my personal life.” And then I’d just try to stick to that.

I admit that I don’t find it hard to keep a distance between myself and others (I’m the kind of person likely to post the opposite of this thread!). Honestly, I find the easiest way is just to talk less and listen more. Most of the time, people are completely willing to blather away about their own lives without asking about yours. If someone does ask you a specific question that you find invasive and you’re not interested in answering, it’s usually easy to provide a kind of blithe, generic response and change the subject.

My guess would be that if you have formed very close relationships with coworkers, they might be hurt if/when they sense you retreating from that level of intimacy and reducing your stake in the relationship. But if that’s what exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, I’m not really sure it can be avoided.

One last thing--that "couple friendship" doesn't really sound all that pleasant or normal at all. I hope you don't let one rotten experience set you off the lovely parts of having a close friendship. Maybe now that you've seen the dark side, you'll be able to notice any warning signs of something not quite in balance!

[neonalee]

I am the same way - too open and I want to stop being that way. What I'm trying to do now is pay attention to how others at my office answer the questions. Do they just say 'good'? Do they elaborate just a little? Do they overshare? And then I try to apply what feels like the right response for me. I try to remember who I'm talking to. If it's a work acquaintance at the coffee pot I'll just say we're good, or maybe DS was sick but we're getting better. If it's one of my team members (2 of which have kids) I might elaborate a little more - 'Oh, DS was up every hour last night' or something like that. Not sure if that helps, but that's how I'm approaching it.

Also, I had to realize what truly is and isn't rude ("we're good, how are you" isn't rude), and that many of the people I talk to daily don't really want to know, or have the time to hear, all the details anyway

[kanga1622]

Thanks for the perspectives. I guess I'm starting to feel like people I thought were my friends are starting to turn on me or not support me, y'know? I try very hard to be nice, respectful and want to form friendships but feel like lately all those people are throwing me under the bus and acting like being a responsive parent is insane.

Maybe being from such a small town growing up means that I never learned how to truly read people and make friends. My hometown knew what you did before you even did it.

Thanks for the advice. I'm thinking that I do indeed need to list things I am/am not willing to discuss and just keep that as my reference point. Maybe the issue is more one of crappy parenting advice than anything else. Perhaps I'm just more opinionated about AP than I ever knew.

[marybethorama]

It sounds like when you tell your co-workers about your child, they offer their experiences or parenting advice that is very different from what you are doing. I think it's fine to not share the details of what your daily life if people are not receptive.