THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDSHIPS OUTSIDE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP
It’s February, so we know that love is in the air, and we LOVE love! ❤️
We honor the beauty of healthy romantic relationships just as much as we do friendships.
We pray for every woman to have their happily ever after, however, what we don’t love to see is when those romantic relationships prevent you from being an intentional friend.
We know how easy it is to get lost in the sauce of love, so that’s why we’re here to keep you from drowning!
This blog post explores the positive benefits friendship has on your life (and dating life), while also explaining why you can’t afford to lose sight of your friendships just because you found your person.
Here at FriendshipWithIntention, we want you to understand that you don’t have to choose one or the other, you can have both!
FWI PSA: I am going to be using the abbreviation “s/o” for significant other because I am not making any assumptions about the pronoun you choose to date. That’s your business. Friendship is mine.
5 REASONS WHY YOU NEED FRIENDS OUTSIDE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP
1| Friendships provide a safe space.
Anytime you venture into a relationship, your life will change in new and unique ways. While this truth can be very exciting, it can also be pretty scary.
That’s where friends come in and show up for you!
They support you as you navigate your new life’s circumstances and hold space for you throughout your journey.
Friends create a safe space by doing the following:
Providing a trusted place to vent
Listening to your concerns with empathy and understanding
Being a sounding board for your thoughts and ideas
Offering constructive feedback and advice
Encouraging and affirming you
It’s reassuring when you can openly discuss with friends your highest aspirations and deepest anxieties regarding your relationship without fear of judgment.
FWI Note: While we are grateful for our friend’s support, we should be careful not to engage in emotional dumping.
It may not be the best idea to overwhelm a friend who’s going through a breakup with a dissertation as to why your partner is so amazing.
While they would love for you to share your happiness, as their friend, you still need to be considerate of their feelings.
2| Friendships help us grow.
No doubt your partner should help you become the best version of yourself, but before they existed, your friends were probably already doing that in some capacity.
Too often we see women think their partner’s opinion is the only one that matters; however, before they got into a relationship, they used to value and respect their friend’s perspectives just as much.
Your besties have a wealth of life experience, wisdom, skills, and knowledge that you benefit from simply due to the genuine friendship you all share.
Having friends with different outlooks on life helps prevent you from being close-minded and one-sided.
Just because you get into a relationship doesn’t mean your friends no longer care about helping you grow; they want to see you win regardless.
3| Friendships bring us joy.
Your person is a good time, but your friends are FUN!
You probably have way more in common with your girlfriends than you do with your partner, and that’s not a bad thing!
I believe God designed life that way on purpose, giving our friends and our spouses distinctive and different roles to play in our lives.
Throughout the years, you’ve probably formed many friendships based on shared interests, and that’s opened the door for so much laughter, engaging conversations, and incredible memories.
Simply put, it feels good to do activities that you enjoy doing with people who also enjoy doing those same activities.
You shouldn’t force your s/o to do everything you like to do, that will cause unnecessary tension in your relationship.
Yes, they should be open to some things, but not everything.
That’s what friends are for!
4| Friendships keep you grounded.
As mentioned, sometimes us women can get lost in our relationships, and we need our friends to bring us back down to earth.
Our friends remind us that we were individuals before we met our s/o and that we have an identity of our own.
Our friends remind us of our values and who we are at our core.
Our friends knock some sense into us when we start morphing our likes, dislikes, hobbies, personality traits, mannerisms, etc. into those of our partners.
They can speak the truth to us in love and say, “HEY SIS, THAT’S NOT YOU!”
And that’s not to say you and your person won’t rub off on each other, that’s natural. It’s when you turn into someone you’re not, and lose sight of all that makes you, you.
5| Friendships are good for your relationship.
Your s/o met you with friends so it’s safe to assume that they appreciate, and dare I say, love, that you have your own friends!
They want you to have your own life outside of them, and they don’t want to be your only friend!
Having friends fights off codependency and provides you both with the space you need from one another.
You’re happier when you spend time with your friends, and your person gets to benefit from the joy they have brought you.
You’re also lighter after you spend time with friends because you’ve been able to release, and you can return to your mate refreshed and with clarity.
The benefits your relationship reaps from you growing and maintaining your friendships are endless.
5 NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF IGNORING YOUR FRIENDS WHEN YOU’RE IN A RELATIONSHIP
1| Trust is lost.
Your friends value your support and presence in their lives, so when you treat the friendship like a toy you can pick up and put down whenever you feel like it, it’s hurtful.
It creates a feeling of mistrust because they are unsure if they can count on you whenever you’re in a relationship.
It also creates a feeling of mistrust because they are unsure if you truly value the friendship, or if the relationship was just a friendship of convenience.
See the blog post “5 FRAGILE FRIENDSHIP FOUNDATIONS TO AVOID.”
It can get confusing because they aren’t sure if you’re using them for companionship whenever you get lonely, or if you’re genuinely friends.
Forgetting about your friends when you’re in a relationship creates a sense of uncertainty that is unsettling, and not easily reversed.
2| Connection is gone.
When you choose to play double dutch with your friendship while you’re in a relationship, you risk the loss of the connection.
You are so out of touch with their world that it can feel like you don’t even know them anymore.
You would constantly need to be caught up to speed on things, and eventually, your friends will grow tired of doing that and give you surface-level information about their lives.
The lack of depth within the relationship won’t stop you from being friends, but it will change the dynamic of the friendship.
That means you may no longer have access to them in the way that you once did, and you will have to be okay with that.
3| Isolation is possible.
Even if you’re in a loving relationship, you can experience loneliness because there is a void that your partner cannot fill.
When you neglect your friendships, you can be left with feelings of sadness because the joy that friends bring into your life is missing.
When you take for granted those shared experiences and bonding moments that you had with friends, you will inevitably long for them.
The camaraderie you share with good friends cannot be replaced by a significant other.
And God forbid you and your partner go through a tough season. You may end up isolating yourself in a way that you don’t even feel comfortable enough to reach out to them.
4| Guilt will eat your heart out.
If you cared at all about your friendships, eventually you would feel some guilt about ignoring them.
The major milestones you didn’t celebrate, the times you weren’t there when they needed a shoulder to cry on, the canceling of events, and purposely ignoring calls will catch up to you.
You will see your friends spending time with other people or notice that they prefer support from friends who aren’t you.
You may even feel a tinge of jealousy because of it.
If you decide you can’t be a friend while you’re in a relationship, you have to deal with the uncomfortable feelings of watching your friends move on as well.
5| Indignation can steer you wrong.
This is something that’s not talked about enough, but a false sense of resentment and indignation can swell up in your heart because you believe your inactions as a friend are justified.
You may have made yourself believe that your friends don’t understand your relationship, but that’s not true.
Real friends understand that you will not be as available as you once were when you were single.
Real friends understand that you may need to enforce boundaries to respect your relationship.
Real friends understand that you may not be able to provide support in the same format as you have in the past.
Real friends know these things.
But when you expect your friends to be okay with you always being MIA, having little to no communication, and missing important events in their lives, that’s unreasonable.
You’re essentially telling them they need to be okay with whatever you have to offer the friendship when you’re in a relationship, and that’s selfish.
This same line of thinking can be dangerous, and have you assuming your friends are jealous of your relationship, causing irreparable damage.
While relationships bring a lot of wonderful feelings, sometimes those feelings can mislead us into believing that love from a significant other is the only love that matters.
Let’s be clear: Your friends want you to be in a happy, healthy, loving relationship, they just don’t want to be forgotten about altogether.
I’m married and I live far from the majority of my friends, so I have to be purposeful in how I manage to pour into my friendships.
I’m far from perfect at doing this, but I make sure to remind myself that my friends deserve to be prioritized.
You can make excuses or you can be intentional about how you navigate your friendships while you’re in a relationship, the choice is yours.
Have you ever had a friend cut you off while they were in a relationship? Feel free to share your experiences below!
