Why do I feel so guilty?

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What happened today is an example of a common occurrence in my life. A friend of mine asked me a couple of weeks ago if my family wanted to get together with her family tomorrow, and I agreed. She confirmed a couple of times with me. Since then she started making it clear that it's my 'job' to make the plans and/or entertain her family (even though it was her idea). I became very overwhelmed by this because I couldn't think of a thing to do. I told her that I had a lot of work to do and that I was very distracted and busy. Eventually I presented her with a few options, to which she offered no opinions or input. Then all day today my son wasn't feeling well and I was completely overwhelmed with work. I came very close to having a melt down due to all of this overload, and decided to ask her to "reschedule" our plans, and explained why (this was on instant messenger). She just responded by saying "ok no prob" and signed off immediately, and she hasn't said another word about it.

I canceled to relieve stress (and because my son is legitimately not feeling well, he might be better tomorrow, maybe not) - but now I feel just as stressed out as I did before anyway. I keep feeling like she's offended, and then reassuring myself that a "good" friend wouldn't be offended if my kid was sick and I was too overwhelmed to get together. I feel so guilty though, like I did something terribly offensive to her.

It's 'socially acceptable' to cancel your plans because your overwhelmed, right? Or because you're afraid that your kid might be sick and/or contagious? I tried telling this person about AS but she doesn't seem to believe me and mostly refuses to talk/hear about it. It's not like I could expect her to understand the concept of overload, but even so, I assume that NT's get overwhelmed from time to time and need to reschedule plans when there's too much on their plates, right? I feel like I did something wrong

I don't think you did anything wrong. Besides you are right, NTs cancel out on things too or not do things because they have too much stuff going on in their lives. You have lot of stuff going on in your life. Difficult marriage, sick child, trying to sell the house so I think it's your friend that is the problem and being selfish because she didn't care about your situation. She does know about your situation right? If so, then she is being selfish and is the one with the problem, not you.

I ditto League_Girl.

You definitely did nothing wrong you had a legitimate reason and called to cancel. She said it was "no prob" that doesn't sound like she was offended and you couldn't have felt she was because of her non-verbal behaviour if it was over the Internet because there is no non verbal communication so she probably wasn't. Sometimes I feel guilty or think people are offended when they are not bcs I have offended ppl in the past and I'm really insecure about it.....maybe you're like that too?

There's no reason to feel guilty. It is mostly socially acceptable. Most people prefer that you not infect their children, so keeping a quarantine is reasonable. They won't be upset. Also, normal people also have occasional unexpected demands on their time that result in cancellations. I will say that being overwhelmed is not something that comes up a lot, so substituting 'feeling ill' may be a better call if your friend is not too accepting. Not sure myself.

In terms of fitting in, I've found that if I cancel more than 40% of the time or more than 3 times in a row, people may start to get upset. This depends on the person, of course, but I've found that 'sensitive' people are a hassle to keep as friends anyways. The main worry is that some NTs will read repeated no-shows as a desire to avoid them - so if you do have to no-show repeatedly, a really friendly call is in order.

Personally, my target is canceling 1 time in 3 and not more than twice in a row. I mostly don't run into trouble. Most NTs with children seem to cancel 1 time in 4 and not more than once in a row, but they don't mind a bit of deviation.

You might want to table that particular occasion indefinitely - as it stresses you and do something else instead.

--Argyle