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When you love your partner but hate their friends
Psychotherapist Mary Jo Rapini says loving your partner doesn’t mean you have to love their friends, but it sure helps if you can get along with them.
It’s a magical time when you finally found someone who seems perfect for you after years of frustration with online dating or bad relationships. When they want to introduce you to their friends, it can be exhilarating and nerve-wrecking. Maybe you are hopeful about future get-togethers, vacations, and double dates. But sometimes meeting the friends can cause a sour turn in the relationship. For example, you may find your partner’s friends annoying, abrasive, shallow, or cynical. You ask yourself how this could happen; you respect your partner so much and expected their friends to be like them. You begin reevaluating your relationship. Should you stay with someone who’s friends you can’t stand? After all, if you end up together, these friends will remain in your life.
If you want to the relationship to survive, it may be time for some boundaries and perspective shifting. It is important to remember that you are not in charge of making your partner’s friends. Loving your partner doesn’t mean you have to love their friends, but it sure helps if you can get along with them. It will require effort on your behalf. These suggestions can help.
1. Create healthy boundaries for yourself. Don’t force yourself to hang out with your partner’s friends. Setting healthy boundaries with your partner up front will help ease tension and make it easier for both of you.
2. Look for similarities between your partner’s friends and you. One similarity between the two of you is you both care for your partner. Explore how they met your partner, what stood out to them, and what sorts of things they do together before he or she met you.
3. Be supportive of your partner’s friendship needs. Having friends supports relationship growth. What is the need this friend fulfills for your partner? Maybe the friend is an encourager or like a family member. All of these are respectable traits and signs of a healthy character.
4. Be respectful when you are around your partner’s friends. These people are special to your partner. No matter how much they annoy you, be respectful and polite.
5. Speak out if your partner’s friend engages in toxic behaviors. Being considerate of your partner’s friends is important, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay silent to toxic behaviors. Have your partner’s back and don’t let them take advantage of your partner.
6. Never make your partner choose between you or their friend. Whenever you make someone choose between yourself and someone they love, it causes resentment and pain. Even if they choose you, they’ll miss their friend and resent you. If it comes to a point where your partner’s friend destroys how you feel about them, be upfront and honest and walk away.
Loving someone means respecting their friends and the things they value. It also means looking at things from a different perspective and being aware that your partner can love many people in their life. Their choice in friends doesn’t have to be the same as yours to make them acceptable.