A girl moved abroad to Australia to study; she settled there and paid visits to her family several times a year. They never went to visit her, even though they have traveled around the world and she offered several times to pay for them to visit, so now she refuses to keep going as often as she did. 

How does one handle unilateral relationships where the other person (or people) doesn’t put as much effort into maintaining contact? 

As sad as it can be, sometimes we need to take a step back and acknowledge that the other person with whom we have a relationship might not be as interested in keeping contact as we are. It happens a lot with friendships, especially when you grow up and have the same group of friends since high school. Life happens in between, and you grow apart. No fights, nothing dramatic, just life playing its tricks on all of us. It’s hurtful either way, but we accept it as a part of becoming adults. 

However, what we don’t usually expect is our own family leaving us behind and choosing not to make an effort to keep in touch, especially if we’ve always been close and never had serious problems. 

This girl got a reality check when she finally figured out that her family had no intention of actively keeping in contact with her after she moved abroad.