Maintaining Friendships With Other Couples
One of the most interesting phenomenons occurs soon after you are married. As you and your spouse continue to want to spend time together (hopefully not a phenomenon), you notice yourselves having opinions of other couples and soon find that you must strategically plan how to spend time with them. After all, there are much higher odds that at least one member of the two couples doesn’t particularly like another person than all four equally enjoying each others’ company. It is also just as likely that just because one spouse doesn’t enjoy another person, that the friendship needs to drop all together. It is just that it needs a bit more strategy than when everyone was single.
Keeping Friendships together
1. Find an activity that everybody enjoys. One newlywed, Katie, was frustrated at first because she found that the wife of her husband’s best friend was just plain boring. “She was really nice. It was just that after about five minutes of talking, I could tell that this is someone I
Discussing with your spouse about how much time you want to spend with other couples will help keep expectations reasonable.
By limiting the time you spend with other couples, you and your spouse can enjoy quality time together.
2. Limit the time you spend with the couple. One bride, Kristine, felt that her husband’s friend just wanted him to himself. “He would come over unexpectedly, even early on a Saturday, just to talk to him. We would go out with him and his wife and I just felt like he was pawning his wife onto me and would just talk to my husband and disregard me when I tried to join the conversation.” Kristine explained that the last straw was when the couple was at their house for a few hours. She was hinting very strongly that it was time for them to go, and they were just not catching on. She finally just left. At first her husband was mad that she left in the middle of a double date, but he soon realized that she only was part of the friendship for him and he needed to help set boundaries. Since then, the couples have continued to spend time, only less often and for a shorter number of hours.
3. Have girl time or guy time away from the spouse. If you and your girl friend love hanging out together and your husbands are just not feeling each other all that time, totally cool! As much as you love spending time with your husband, there is nothing like hanging out with an old friend and reminiscing on old times. Plus, you don’t feel the pressure to limit the activity or amount of time you spend together when it is just the two of you. Of course that doesn’t mean that your husbands are never included, which brings us to the next tip…
An annual weekend trip is the perfect amount of time to spend with some couples.
4. Plan or a party or weekend trip with other couples about once a year. This does two things. First, it means it helps avoid awkward conversations about how your husbands do not particularly like each other. As long as there is occasional interaction, no one needs to talk about it. Second, it lessens the pressure for the men to feel like they have to be friends, and in turn, they may actually want to be friends as time passes.
5. It is OK if some friendships dissolve. Sometimes people change, especially as they get married and have families, which means that affection for each other changes. In the end, the most important relationship is with your spouse. If you find that neither of you enjoy spending time with either member of a couple, it is OK! It is a great opportunity to discover together who you want to be friends with and how you want to spend your time with others.