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Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Has romance or marriage affected your friendships?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A couple of Saturdays ago, I noticed that business was very brisk at a popular Duluth Bridal Shop near Gwinnett Place Mall.
After the month of June, August is the most fashionable month for weddings. I suppose, based on how busy the shop appeared to be, that there will be weddings galore this month in Gwinnett.
Marriage is about two individuals choosing to become lifetime partners, often excluding or altering existing relationships.
When someone becomes seriously involved in a romantic relationship or gets married, many people who were once central to that person’s life are displaced. Relationships with your parents, siblings, and friends are reconfigured as your significant other takes precedence in your life. It can take an emotional toll on loved ones and friends while they sort out their new roles in the life of a newly attached loved one.
When you marry, your identity and priorities instantly change. Your former “immediate” family becomes your “extended’ family.” And you focus on embracing your new in-laws’ traditions and learning to love them.
Sometimes close friends have an extremely difficult time of accepting changes that occur when their friend become romantically involved or married to someone else. This is especially pronounced if the unattached friend is perhaps less outgoing and more dependent on the friend who now is in an even more important relationship.
The emotional and social impact of romance and marriage on friendships was recently explored in The Washington Post articled titled “The Great Divide.”
The article inspired me to take a look in my life’s rear view mirror, back to my twenties when many of my guy and girl friends got married.
Back in the 1980s when my best guy friend married a wonderful, newly minted attorney, I did not feel displaced at all. I felt really glad that this wonderful friend had found love and a life partner. As for me, I now had two wonderful friends instead of one.
But the reality is that not all of my friendships survived the test of deep relationships and marriage. My friendship with my best girlfriend slipped away once she got married. However, during that time she also moved to the West coast and began graduate school. So, I cannot say that her marriage is the singular culprit for the relationship changing.
However, I never had any hard feelings—because I was glad that my friend was living her life in a way that she chose to. We did not have any anger or hard feelings towards each other. Our lives just took a different course. And the memories of our friendship during our teenage years and early twenties are ones to be cherished.
But I realize that my experience with married friends is unique to me. Not everyone finds a new friend in the spouse of a best friend. And many people cannot easily accept what seemed like a “forever” friendship fading way.
How has romance or marriage affected your friendships?
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