Do Best Friends Interfere in Your Life and Marriage? When Friendships with Others Start Getting Too Close...
Do your closest friends know every little thing about your life? Do they constantly give advice on important matters? Do they interfere in your relationship?
That's when friends become too close...so many times I've seen or heard about friends actually causing major problems in a marriage. A husband or wife will talk with their friends about problems with their mate, before their other half is even aware of any problem. The friend says "You need to do this", or "You can't stay in this relationship", or any number of statements. While most are well-meaning--is it really fair to give them the first option when it comes to working out problems in a marriage?
Don't get me wrong--friends can be wonderful, too, but I think there has to be a line drawn somewhere that you don't cross with them. Do they really need to know the intimate details of your relationship with your husband or wife? Of course not--that should be kept private--it's no one else's business.
If you have a problem in your marriage, or relationship--shouldn't it be resolved from within, instead of drawing an outsider into the mix? And friends are outsiders, no matter how close you are to them...they don't know your spouse as well as you do.
When you're single and unattached, it's great to have friends to confide in, and enjoy being with. My husband and I both had many friends before we met, and spent a lot of time with them. But once we got together, our friends came second. We didn't quit seeing and talking to them, but we gradually spent less and less time with them. We're still on good terms with them all, but they just aren't part of our daily lives anymore.
Obviously, our way isn't for everyone, we realize that. But it works for us--we didn't need anyone else other than each other, and our children. We didn't want anyone else being actively involved in our everyday lives...we were, and still are, each other's best friend. Only the two of us know about the private matters of our marriage--it's our business, and only ours.
We do each have a good friend, but both live many miles away from us, and we see them rarely--most of our contact with them is through the occasional phone call, or emails. We talk about our lives with them, and share good times and bad, and the two of them know us better than anyone else does, I suppose. But even at that, the lines were drawn a long time ago with them, as to what we will talk about. They realize, and respect that, and have never interfered when they shouldn't have...
They, in our eyes, are our true close friends...
