When we first fall in love, one of the extraordinary side effects is its inherent insularity. The feeling that we don’t need anyone else around. That our happiness, our entertainment, companionship, support … its suddenly all embodied in one wonderful person.  And if we’re lucky, the person we have fallen in love with is good at being everything to us in the initial blush of new joy. If our new love becomes an enduring love, usually that intensity of private connection opens to include the rest of the world. We recognize that no one person can truly be everything to us, that we need other people in our lives, other meaningful relationships. Not to the diminishment of our romantic partnership, but hopefully the enrichment thereof. In a good and healthy relationship there is plenty of room for family and friends, for separate interests and pursuits, for time spent apart.

However, sometimes we forget to maintain our outside relationships, or to cultivate new ones, and can find ourselves feeling very alone when our romantic relationship hits a snag or ends. This was the place I found myself in at the end of my marriage. Without having even realized I was doing it, throughout my relationship with my ex I marginalized the other people in my life. And when the relationship ended, I found myself in a place of needing to rebuild not only my sense of self and my life, but in many ways, my support system. It didn’t happen all at once, and it certainly was accidental, but if I could go back, while I wouldn’t change the fact of the marriage itself (even though it didn’t last), I would change my own behavior during that time as it related to my outside friendships.

No Time for Friends

I met my ex in college, and when our relationship became romantic; it blossomed and became serious very quickly. At first, being young and in love, it was just an unconscious thing, I didn’t feel the same need to reach out to my girlfriends as much as I did when I was single. As the relationship progressed, other outside forces got in the way. We graduated from college and moved to my hometown of Chicago. We moved into our first place together and got engaged. We both went to grad school at night while working full time. We planned a wedding. We were really very busy. Our social life consisted mostly of just having dinner together in front of the TV.

It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid my friends, I just had so little time, and what time was free felt automatically absorbed by my fiancée. After we got married, and finished graduate school and our schedules settled down somewhat, I realized something important. My husband wasn’t a terribly social person. In fact, he was pretty socially awkward. In the beginning I had ignored this trait as part of just being young. But as our years together progressed, and his behavior didn’t change, it became more and more difficult for me to create opportunities to socialize together. He would either hide in a corner and not engage with people, or he would ask them so many questions that they would feel interrogated.  He became famous for asking very inappropriate and embarrassing questions of people he didn’t know well, or would give long monologues about inane or random topics that weren’t of any interest to the people in the room. We were pretty much fine when we were alone, but the longer we were together, the more I felt that I didn’t want to put him in social situations with my friends, and as a result, my own relationships suffered more than I even realized.

It wasn’t until things started to go south in the marriage that I was faced with the serious disconnect between me and my friends. When the problems got serious, I wanted to reach out for support, but found that I didn’t feel comfortable making those calls. Who was I to have ignored people for so long, only to get back in touch wanting to whine about my problems?  What could I say?  “Hi, its me, I know I’ve essentially relegated you to a footnote in my life for the past seven years, but now that my marriage is on the skids, I’d really like you to be there for me!”

Old Friendship Can Endure

Lucky for me, my old friends welcomed me back with open arms, with nary a scolding, and had my back during those dark days. Once my ex was gone, some of those friendships even deepened considerably, making me face the reality that while I hadn’t been reaching out to them, they also weren’t reaching out to me as much, in no small part because they didn’t want to hang out with my husband. Ouch!

I also noticed that once I was single again, I made some great new friends, particularly with colleagues I hadn’t reached out to socially, in no small part because of where I was in my marriage. At the end of the day, eight years later, my life is so much fuller and richer because of the friendships I have.  And one of the lessons I learned, was that the next time around, I won’t allow those friendships to take a back seat to my romantic partner.

My friend Amy (not her real name) was not so lucky. When she started dating her boyfriend, she was so desperate to make their connection strong that she completely avoided any friend of hers that he didn’t like, and turned down any invitation to events he thought would be boring. She dropped out of her book club because the night conflicted with the established “games night” that he wanted them to maintain with his friends. When they broke up, Amy found that some of her friends weren’t very interested in letting her back in the fold. The book club told her they had gotten too big and weren’t taking new members. She realized that holidays were coming and going without invitations to the parties and barbecues that used to arrive so regularly. She found herself in a very lonely place, and even now almost two years later, some of those friendships have suffered permanent damage.

Be a Good Lover and Friend

So how do you avoid this very simple pitfall? Easy. Remind yourself to be as good a friend as you are a lover. If your partner doesn’t love all your gal pals? Remind him that some of his old frat brothers don’t do it for you either, and agree to either suffer in silence, or to simply hang out with those people separately when you can. Think that you have to be attached at the hip to have a healthy romance? You’re wrong. Remember that the person your partner fell in love with had good strong friendships and outside interests. Therapists often suggest a weekly date night for couples who are feeling that their bond is losing strength. I recommend a “you go your way I’ll go mine” night to ensure that you BOTH are able to have quality time with your friends independent of one another. Feeling like you want your nights free for cuddlefests?  Make an effort to meet your pals for lunches midweek or brunches on the weekends.  Whenever a friend’s partner is a potential new friend for your partner, make plans as couples. I have some of my best times with my gang when we are eating dinner at one another’s houses, not necessarily in “dinner party” mode, but rather just a casual “we’re making way too much chili for dinner, come over and bring beer” invite. Your partner calls to say they are going to be stuck after work taking a client to dinner? Get on the horn and reach out to someone you haven’t seen in a long time.

In a best case scenario, by devoting some time and energy to the caretaking of these important friendships, you will have a full and balanced life that enriches your romantic relationship. And in a worst case scenario, if your romance hits a rough patch or even crashes and burns, you will have the strength of other loved ones around you to help put you back on your feet.

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