How do/did you feel about losing your friends after being married?

Question

A lot of people dissolve or completely obliterate friendships once they get married, knowingly or unknowingly. I guess because the change in priorities or the need to have friends with other married couples who understand (kind of like with new mothers wanting friends who are also mothers), I only assume.

So for those who are married or have been married, how did marriage affect your relationships with your friends? Did you lose most of them? Did the relationships just become strained?

Or if vice versa, how did your friends feel about your marriage and the affect it has/had on the friendship between you and them?

Answer 1

I actually lost all my friends before I married my husband. Two of them were married before me, but they married two guys that were friends, so left me in the dark. The others, I just stopped hanging around them. My husband never cared much for my friends.

I do think that when you get married, your friends can never be his friends and his friends can never be your friends. (not in all cases). I think as a married couple, you need to find new friends as a couple.

Answer 2

They all decided to believe his version of our marriage story and I haven't spoken to them in years. It is very difficult to come to terms with, especially at Christmastime when we used to get so many cards as a couple and now I don't get many as a single person. They obviously weren't my friends in the first place if they so easily threw me away. It hurts and you never really get over it.

Answer 3

I didn't have many friends before I got married, my husband turned out to be very controlling and also not social so I did end up losing my friends. It didn't seem like such a big deal until we divorced and I found myself all alone - now I am trying to make new friends, friends I will always hold onto regardless of future relationships.. seems men come and go but girlfriends are always there for you.

Answer 4

My girlfriends understood the change in dynamic because they were all married before me.  I was always the single one.  The only relationship that suffered greatly was my best friend.  He's a guy.  That doesn't fly when you have a husband.  You can't just hang out with a single guy at parties all night anymore or not come home at all.  

Answer 5

Well I was the last of my friends to get married so it turned into a lot of couples nights out for us - which was fun...Actually, I didn't loose any of my friends when I got married, I gained some of hers and she gained some of mine.  

Answer 6

I kept most of my friends and my husband's friends became my friends.

The friends that I lost were people who didn't understand I was the same person I always had been. They thought being married would change me.

I got married....I didn't get a lobotomy....LOL

Answer 7

We have the same friends as before we married, and we've also made some new friends over the years.  I can't say we've really lost any friends, though there are some we rarely see.