Did marriage change your friendships?

I didn’t lose friends due to my marriage but I lost some as we moved around a lot, eventually moving abroad. Funnily enough I have resumed some of my early friendships through Facebook since we came back to the UK.

That's lovely to read.

I think it did although it happened over a few years and I didn’t realise till recently that my very happy second marriage was the reason. DH died a few months ago and and I’ve recently reconnected with 2 old friends and a cousin.

What an interesting question to ask us MissA. On reflection marriage didn’t change my friendships but in time they changed anyway as nothing stays the same. Some friendships fell by the wayside as others started up.

Sadly though my husband’s friendship group changed with marriage as playing football for a Saturday team and then in a Sunday league went out of the window in case of injury (we had a mortgage to pay and we were scared if he got injured and we were unable to pay it), drinks in the pub with his mates stopped (babies and less money to spare). Looking back he says he regrets not keeping up with some.

Water under the bridge sadly.

Every year about six of us from school go away for a weekend. One or two are close, the others I see every year. We are surprised how we can still get on happily. I also have old college friends I meet up with. Marriage didn't change most of my friends but don't see them as much due to us moving so much.

No I wouldn't say it did. I am still friends with someone from my teens.
In fact, I have gained friends since marrying. These are wives of DH's work mates and of people he played rugby with. Also a very good friend is someone I met at mother n toddler group 30 yrs ago.

That’s really lovely LullyDully . I don’t have any friends . I made bad choices when I was 17 and lost all my school/ work friends. I couldn’t socialise away from my baby son as I had “ made my bed” . Have worked in male dominated industry for almost 30 years now .

Marriage made no difference to me as I still kept contact with my friends from school, then made more at work. There is still contact as come Christmas the cards keep coming as well as from the families on my late husband's side so can't complain.

Marriage had no effect on my friendships either and I am not aware of having lost friends when they married.

Although this thread has made me realise how few of my friends actually married. My closest friend from school and several close friends from university, plus another I met at work are all single.

Sadly yes. My closet friend didn't like my husband to be, she said he was too needy and would drain the life out of me. And boy was she right!!

My first husband was not a sociable person and disliked spending money so friends were a bit thin on the ground. I still keep in touch with women I did my nurse training with but we are no longer close.
My second husband is much more generous ( despite not being so well off) and sociable so we have quite a wide circle of friends.

When I married I also left the UK to live in my husband’s home country, Malta. I left many friends from schooldays as well as friends I had met at college or at work, and I missed them all very much.

However, we kept in touch by writing long letters, plus the times when they would come over for a holiday or we would go back to the UK for a visit. Then came the internet which made keeping in touch even easier.

Since my beloved H died almost four years ago, it has been the love and support of these loyal friends that has brought me back from when I was at my lowest ebb, and I hope I have been a support to them as well.

Sadly, my dearest friend from secondary school died last year aged 60, and I miss her so much, but am still very close to her family.

Although I have four lovely children and a precious DGD, I have lost both parents and my two sisters, so the friends I made from age 5 upwards, are to be cherished as we grew up together and share so much history.

Sorry to have rambled on! So, in a nutshell, no, marriage did not change my friendships, and I’ve made lots more since, including some very special ladies on GN.

My closest friends were my three sisters so nothing change.

In my life friendships have come and gone over time.
As some friends moved for jobs in other areas, we became focused on our own lives.

When I got married, having a home of our own meant new neighbours with some becoming good friends.
The arrival of children and meeting other parents also brought new friendships.

Again these have disappeared (we still send couple of Christmas cards).

Almost 20 years ago we moved to different area and have made new friends but lost touch with others over time.

I have only a small group of friends, but having grandchildren and going to grandparents group with my first grandson has resulted again in new making new friends.

I do have one steadfast friend who has been with me through thick and thin......
My Sister

That’s nice for you both Bellasnana and sodapop
Good friends are often who we turn to when upset or anxious aren’t they?

Almost as soon as DH and I got married, we moved abroad, and I corresponded with some friends I had left behind, but by happy coincidence, I met two of them again during that posting, as well as a girl who had been at our school for a short while who I certainly never expected to run into again.

I live in the place I finished my education, a smallish commuter village.

I see people from school nearly every day, one of my best friends is the wife of a school chum.

I am still friends with a girl I met in my first job in London, my next door neighbor from when our children were babies (our AC are friends also).

I have a group of “gym girls” who train together 3 times a week some of us for 20 years, all of us say that we are each other’s safety blanket as we moan, groan, rant and rave when needs be and it helps us all with our mental health to have this bond.

Have many “couples” as friends with Mr. GG13 that go back over 35 years.

Yes, my best friend drifted away - she has always been single and we just didn't have anything in common any more. But I did keep writing to her over the years, and just in the last 5 or so years she has been to visit me a few times, and we've regained our old friendship again.

Most of my female friends stayed the same, but we rarely mixed as couples. I would meet my friends separately - after all, how otherwise would we complain about our husbands? There was only really one friend whose husband was as good company as she was, and they were liked as a couple by both my husband and me. We still often met without our husbands, though. She is still my best friend after 55 years.

I have a couple of friends who were school friends. I don't think marriage has changed the friendships although distance and family commitments have had an impact. It is easier to meet up with the friend whose OH gets on better with my OH than the other friend though so perhaps I just hadn't thought about it!

I married just after I left school. My husband wasn’t happy about my friendship with a young man I knew and so I told the man concerned that I couldn’t be in touch with him anymore. Looking back, I can’t believe I did it although I do know I wasn’t happy about it. Years later I looked the man up on Facebook and discovered he is gay so he was absolutely no threat to our marriage. It also explained why our friendship never developed into anything else!

I lost all except one lifelong friend, who I am still in contact. The others really weren’t worth bothering with. However, I have had contact via Facebook with one of them.

I’ve still got 2 friends from Infants school, 3 from Senior school and 2 from college .... so have always maintained special friendships. Naturally your focus changes when you marry, but that applies to all our friends too. My kids became friends with many of my friends kids so we’ve just always been in each others lives. Now we are all grannies together too, and altho men have come and gone in all our lives .... we are all still there for each other, I’m very blessed.

No, not at all. MrA is very tolerant of my various friends and I try to be the same of his. Of course we have joint friends too.
Unlike my DM who once burst out ‘I can’t understand what you see in all your weird friends!’?
It’s more moving around in search of jobs that affects friendships I think. It’s impossible to keep up with everyone you meet & like.
One benefit of retirement is having more time to visit friends in other parts of the country.
And through FB I reconnected with an old friend who I’d had no contact with since my family moved in 1964, which was wonderful!