by Gwen Jimmere
Now that I am a marrried chica, I sometimes find it difficult to write about dating for singles. Frankly, I’m not in that world anymore and single dating dilemmas just aren’t at the top of my mind like they were before.
That being said, it got me to thinking about whether it’s feasible for married women to continue hanging out with their single friends. While I would never abandon my girls just because my ring finger feels a little heavier than before, you must consider that the priorities of the two lifestyles are–and should–be in different places.
As a single girl, I was footloose and fancy-free (as my mother would say). No one to report my whereabouts to; and if a guy started asking too many questions, he could see the door. In my mind, if he hadn’t put a ring on it, he didn’t have any say so about anything. Now that I’m married, I am blessed to have a husband who doesn’t try to control me. I still do what I want, but of course, if I’m leaving the house in the middle of the day, he’s going to ask me where I’m going. And I have no problem informing him.
But let’s say my single girls want to go to the club. If I’m the only married chick, should I go? I guess it depends on what you’re there for. Personally, I love to dance and even when I was single, I never went clubbing in hopes of meeting a dude. (I’ve found that trying to meet a man at a club is usually a disaster waiting to happen, anyway, but I digress…) However, some people do go in search of Mr. Right For the Night – and that’s cool if that’s their cup of tea. I wouldn’t recommend it, but hey, to each her own.
Would I want my husband going to the club with his single friends? Hell no. As a woman who has been single and been to nightclubs, I know how men act, particularly when they’re with their boys at the club. I sure don’t want that influence rubbing off on my husband. Now, we could get into a whole debate about how men won’t do things they don’t want to and if the wife is keeping it tight at home, he won’t stray–blah, blah, blah. That’s not the point. The point is do you really want your man hanging with dudes acting like they’re in heat every time a big booty and a smile walks by? I don’t.
When LaLa Vasquez married Carmelo Anthony, she continued hanging with Kim Kardashian and Kelly Rowland, who were both still single. Why wouldn’t she? They were her friends before she got married, why change now? Tyrese posed a question to LaLa insinuating that she needed to start finding married girls to hang with.
I kind of have to agree to a point. I do have many single friends, don’t get me wrong. But out of respect for my marriage and the vows I took, there are just some things I don’t do anymore that they’re into. Case in point: my single friend asked me the other day to go to a speed dating event. Umm….awkward. When I get together with my single girls, topics such as “This is our third date, should I pay or should he pay?” come up. That’s cool, I love to talk about that kind of stuff. But as a married woman, whether he or I pay is far from my frame of thought, mainly ’cause everything is coming out of the same account anyway. See what I mean?
My married girls tend of have relationship interests closer to where I’m at right now. I believe that marrieds and singles can coexist just fine, but I do believe there have to be boundaries. And the married individual has to be discerning enough know when to pump the brakes. Otherwise, they’ll be in for a world of trouble.
Gwen Jimmere is an award-winning and nationally syndicated editor who authored the relationship manual for young women, If It Walks Like a Duck”...and Other Truths My Mother Taught Me. She blogs about relationships, dating, marriage and parenting at The Duck Walkand works in social media/digital marketing.
I found that my friendships changed slowly for me. I was the only friend married with child and then married with children for many years, my bff is still single with no children. Even my friendships with single moms changed. Yes our friendships are still in tact but the dynamics have definitely changed, let’s face it I’m not trying to go out to the club and have to get up early to fix breakfast for my family.
I’m still adjusting. I am newly engaged and the “shift” in attitudes of friends is interesting. Luckily, I had been pretty much reading this blog for years and we were prepared for it :-).
I think that singles and marrieds can be friends. However, I have had single girlfriends slightly distance themselves from me because I got married. I try to reach out via email or phone and sometimes I don’t get a response back. It does hurt some. I’m getting tired of being the person that always has to reach out. I don’t have children yet, so I still have some free time that I can allocate to hanging out with them. So I’ve tried to invest more of my friendship time meeting married ladies or ladies in long term committed relationships.
The dynamics do change, even if you still try to compensate for it. It’s been a journey coping with the shift I feel happening around me. Even if I do encounter friends who are married, I feel guilty because I don’t experience the marital dramas they do – the disconnect can make one feel isolated. It’s so weird. It’s almost as if I try to downplay my new life as a wife. I find myself unwilling to say “husband” around single women in order not to feel the backlash – I’m sure some of us have experienced friends who like to verbally daydream about their obsession to marry and I always feel awkward….especially if I inform someone I’m now married and they respond “oh, must be nice”.
The flip side is the pressure that people who aspire to be in your position seem to have a spotlight on you. I’m now the relationship “go to person” because apparently I’ve succeeded in the get to the alter game. I wasn’t prepared for the external pressures of how others would react to me.
I’ve tried very hard to accommodate for our single friends because I love and value them. My husband is in a fraternity so I don’t mind him going out to hang with the single frat – even in clubs. I suppose I’m deemed the “cool” wife but I do feel some kind of way about imposing restrictions on one another. Just my way of doing things. We have no issues abusing our freedoms and trust in one another.
After awhile you get a sense of which single friends you will eventually slip away from because their actions (or reactions) to your new title knocks themselves out of the circle. Some people have a hard time seeing others live a life they desire to have. I’ve learned I can’t make that my issue for the rest of my life or marriage – and I won’t!
I lost almost all of my friends once I got married. Not bcus I wanted to but bcus my Husband is to come first in ALL matters and they didnt understand that. And every other week its My hubby my wifey and I’m like yall not married.. Dont play. Like its serious to me and not to them. Yea there are a few occasions where Married and single can kick it but in general, the kick it time has to get shorten up. Last thing any married person needs is to be going to a single person for advice on a married issue.
@Jonesi
“After awhile you get a sense of which single friends you will eventually slip away from because their actions (or reactions) to your new title knocks themselves out of the circle. Some people have a hard time seeing others live a life they desire to have. I’ve learned I can’t make that my issue for the rest of my life or marriage – and I won’t!”
Money comment.
@Roni
It’s ironic because there was a post about a tw years ago about friends that are healthy for your marriage and those that are not. I thought about it (I was single at the time) and concluded that I was not a good friend for my best friends marriage at the time. He was having a difficult time and had a relapse remembering the “joys” of the single dating life. Now that I’m transitioning to the married life, I echo Jonesi’s comments. I often feel that I can’t share my joy with many of my female friends. We all dread the “must be nice” comment. On the flipside, I talk about marriage all the time to my guy friends . . . simply because . . . there is more negativity surrounding committment versus people speaking about the benefits (within mano y mano speak).
When seasons change so do the dynamics of that season – so invariably there are going to be some disconnections with old “ACQUAINTANCE.”
Now having said that, this friend conversation always troubles me. A friend is someone who allies with you in a cause. This means a friend is genderless, colorless and their marital status is irrelevant.
Gwen speaks of not wanting her husband in the club being influenced by his friends. Here a NEWS FLASH – if they are influencing him to do everything but be faithful to his wife, then they are not FRIENDS, but “ACQUAINTANCES,” and acquaintances in reality aren’t friends – just somebody you know who you might share some fun with.
Both my wife and I have some wonderful single friends who want nothing but the best for our marriage — friends who are friends to our marriage – friends who are allied with us in a cause.
We gotta call it what it is and understand the difference between a FRIEND and an ACQUAINTANCE.
http://www.ruleyourwife316.com
I’m still friends with my single friends, I just find that the things we do together are different. I am not the one that gets the mid-week phone calls to go to the club anymore, although I don’t have a problem going to the club/bar with friends on special occasions. As we get older it become less of an issue anyway- single or married my over-30 friends aren’t in the club like we were in our 20s. We still hang out in all other ways- going to dinner, working out, shopping etc.
I honestly have not found the dynamic shift to be an issue. My friends respect my marriage enough not to ask me to do anything innapropriate. The only difference is that I tend to talk to married friends when it comes to marital issues.
@Aja – I do believe age plays a huge role as well. I’m 26 and most of my married friends are in their mid to late 30s. However, my friendship circle are women my age. Maybe as I age I’ll run into these issues much less. As I said before my current circle is fine because people remove themselves from my life based on their inability separate their issues from being able to be a true friend to me.
It’s nothing wrong,with being marriage,and still have single coexist friends,but alway watch that fly on the wall,cause the devil love misery…I’m just saying…
Even before me and my husband were married we had children and lived together for years. So I honestly can say I haven’t really experienced much of the single life. Even still, after we said “I Do” and made it official that seemeed to change how my single friends viewed my relationship and several of them inevitably fell by the wayside. I think some of it was out of jealousy, no doubt, but something about the title of “wife” seems to cause folks to view the relationship diferently. Even though nothing about my relationship changed.
Another poster mentioned something about feeling like they have to down play their happiness when they are around their single friends and I can absolutely relate to that. I often feel like I can’t or shouldn’t mention my happiness in fear that it will look like I am bragging or trying to spotlight the fact that they are alone in their faces. At this point in my life I hands down prefer the company of my married freinds over my single friends, becasue I feel like I can relate more to them, especially the ones who have children.
Two of my best friends married each other and their child is my godson. I love them like they are my family, however, when I hang out with them now and their “couple” friends, I feel like the outsider. I absolutely KNOW that they would never hurt me in any way and that they love me, but their lives have changed, and I understand that. I am in NO WAY jealous, but when everyone around you is talking about “married” things (i.e. what type of birth control they use, birthing experiences, etc.) I don’t know anything about that and feel like I am not part of their “world”. The bottom line is things do change. My girlfriend is much closer now to her married friends because I’m sure she goes to them for advice more than me, as she should. But do I miss how it used to be sometimes…yes 🙁 But am I ecstatic that two of my best friends have married each other and I am now a godmother?!?!? ABSOLUTELY!!!
i’d love to still be able to hang out with my single friends and have fun. It seems that since I got married, my world shrunk to just my end of town and the Hus. I will say that on the occasions I’ve been able to go out to dinner/lunch with them, I don’t have anything to add because they’re all talking about The new places and people they’re visiting/meeting that I simply have no idea about. So I feel sort of left out and silly. Oh, and since we had a kid, it’s gotten that much worse. Nobody wants to go anywhere with a mom.
I have been happily married for almost two years now. I am
the first of my close girl friends to get married and now I feel like one by
one they are dropping off like flies. I am not the type of married woman who
constantly talks about her husband. As a matter of fact I hardly EVER speak to
anyone about my husband besides my mother or father. I am very sensitive to the
fact that all of my girlfriends are single and hope very much to be married;
therefore, I am not going to talk their ear off about how freaking awesome my
hubby is (he really is). Considering I dont talk about my husband, one of my
girls stated that she felt like I was keeping things from her. She made me feel
like she wanted to hear that things are going wrong between my husband and me.
I keep good things to myself because I know some of them have a hard time not
being married. I dont have any serious complaints about my husband and if I did,
I would not speak on it with a girlfriend because I was always taught to never
let others in your marriage. Nothing and no one is perfect; however, two years
in, my biggest complaint is still the way he chews (LOL). As of recently, she has become very distant
and I thought it was due to our change in jobs (we used to work with each
other). Weve both relocated and I just figured she was busy traveling and working
as she always expressed. The other day she says, “I stepped back from our
friendship because I noticed that your priorities have changedâ€. She then went
on to basically say she was upset that I put my husband before her. She is a
really good friend and I really could not comprehend what she was saying to me.
I thought she had a problem with me as a friend but in actuality she was
expressing a problem with me being married. I am very hurt. This totally is not
in her character. We are all human and perfectly capable of feeling jealously but
my mind could not conceive what she was actually saying. For example, we
decided we would talk one Sunday evening. I thought I would be free but my
husband decided he wanted to go to a movie. When she called we were at the
movies and I was unable to pick up. I sent her a quick text at that time and
simply stated that I was sorry I couldnt take her call because we decided to
go to a movie. She later confronted me on the situation and basically felt as
though I should have been available for her call. Im thinking what should I
have done? Tell my husband we cant go to a movie because I am expecting a call
from a girlfriend? Im not sure we can continue the same friendship we had
before. She is jealous of my marriage and upset that my husband is my priority.
I feel like ending the friendship but I dont know if that is too harsh. I just
look at her like a weirdo now…you want me to put you before my husband?? Is she
mad?
I think the problem is that people assume that this issue is about a lack of trust for your spouse. It is not. Your mind is nurtured by the people that you surround yourself with.