Do you still hang out with married friends after you're divorced?
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Anonymous
| I'm divorced and I don't have any single friends. I don't really hear from any of my friends anymore now that I'm divorced. Some of them I expected not to hear from because they were my ex's friend's/cousin's wives or ex in laws and they've befriended my ex's AP. But the ones that were my friends, I don't really hear from them. I reach out to them, but I don't get a response in return. Or when I do, it's brief. Has this been anyone else's experience? |
Anonymous
| The couples that we were friends with because of him I don't see or talk to anymore. I still have a relationship with everyone else, including family. |
Anonymous
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Welcome to Switzerland. A lot of people don't want to choose sides in the break up and avoid contact with you for fear that you would ask that of them. There is also the subconscious discomfort and fear that divorce will be contagious. Most marriages have their good and bad parts, and the fact that you decided to ditch makes them more aware of their decision to stay, which depending on their circumstances, can be unpleasant.
Losing friends is just a sad part of divorce. Your true friends will step up ... this process helps you know who those people are. Get busy with your new life and soon you will have new friends as well. Plus the true friends and family. |
Anonymous
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Yes, don't think anything of it either.
What 10:43 said is right, you true friends will step up. |
Anonymous
| Yes, I see married friends much more often than I did before the divorce, but my ex had pretty severe social anxiety so that limited our social contacts. She also doesn't reach out to any of those people, so it's not like they have to try to juggle us. |
Anonymous
I think the fear of it being contagious is kind of oversold. Divorce changes a lot of things socially and brings out all sorts of feelings in the people getting divorced. I tried my best to stay neutral when our best friends got divorced, but the DW wouldn't have any of it. She wanted friends to listen to her trash her ex, she wanted to be reassured that she was completely wronged, that he was abusive towards her - as opposed to the relationship just being really mutually toxic - and so on. She also wants to socialize in a way that most people who are married with little kids just don't or can't. Totally understandable. I mean, I'd love to relive my bachelorette days with boozy brunches at 2pm, but the fact is that I just can't do that with the regularity that she'd like. I'd love to hear about her escapades over dinner though. In the other divorces I've observed of good friends, at least one member of the couple seems to really look for validation from long time friends. Again, understandable, but it's not really fair for either member of the couple to expect their friends to be as invested in their divorce as they are. A lot of divorced people seem to become kind of self-centered and expect their married friends to socialize in a way that they haven't in years or don't want to. It makes them uncomfortable, just like you'd probably feel uncomfortable going out hanging out in a group of people who are all paired off. Also, sometimes married people are concerned that inviting you along by yourself might make you feel worse about your situation, particularly if you're understandably upset about it. When I've extended invitations to newly divorced friends to hang out in a group with other couples, I almost always get turned down. So, that might be some of why you're being left out socially. Including a divorced friend socially usually takes a separate effort, because they don't just want to come along and do the things you might already have scheduled. In any case, I'd reach out to a few close friends and make it clear that you value their friendship and want to still be included. |
Anonymous
| When I separated I started to make new friends just because I had more time to do things and I started doing new things. I actively looked for single friends because I had more in common. I still talked to some of my married friends too and saw them at get-togethers but I created a new social life with new friends. |
Anonymous
| Sorry, nobody wants a divorcee around. |
Anonymous
Do you have kids? |
Anonymous
WHy not? |
Anonymous
This was my experience. It also didn't matter whether the friends were single, married, divorced, whatever. I was somewhat in a pinch when we separated because I was among the first of my friends to marry, and my exDW didn't like me hanging around with "single people" (in fact, it was really that she didn't like me hanging around with anyone but her friends) so I was somewhat isolated after 15 years: most of "our" friends were her friends. After a few years had passed (4-5), much to my pleasure, I found out that a number of them really missed having me around. I was able to reconnect with my by-then married "single" friends, but then I was single...and the issue wasn't so much single-vs-coupled as child-vs.-none. Now that I've got a child too, I'm more in step with those friends, so it's easier. |
Anonymous
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We have friends who have recently divorced. Their children go to school with our children, so we see both of them often. We do our very best to treat them the same as before the divorce.
That said, I do not want to be around the wife at all. Whenever any reference to her ex-husband comes up, she takes every opportunity to make a snide, negative remark about him. When I'm around him, he doesn't say a word about her. I don't want to hear all of that negativity since I have no idea whether any of its true or not, nor do I care to know. Just STFU and tell me who's picking your kid up. |
Anonymous
| I try to be a good friend but sometimes it's hard. I have a divorcing friend who seeks a lot of validation of her choice and I can't provide it. Her DC has an anxiety problem which seems to have worsened, but she thinks it doesn't need to be addressed, and she is very financially over optimistic. I know I should just listen nonjudgmentally, but it's toughard. |
Anonymous
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When I got divorced, a lot of people initially sided with him, which was okay because most of them were primarily his friends anyway. However, as time passed, more and more of them realized who was the person who maintained the relationships, and we grew back together. He has basically moved on and developed new friendships in his new life with his new wife and baby, while I retain the friends from our married life who remained my friends after the divorce.
I will also say that getting divorced turned a couple of "just acquaintances" into really close friends, which was awesome. |
Anonymous
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Close friends I still see, though I definitely get invited to fewer events and activities, for whatever reason.
Newer "friends" like parents from school completely froze us both out. I definitely felt like there was a "keep away from them" mentality. It actually has been hard to make good new friends, because the single women I meet who have time to do things generally have never been married and don't have kids. This doesn't bother me, but it seems like they feel that this is too great of a divide between us. |