It’s natural for couples to clash on friendships

Before we moved to Boulder City, I told my husband on several occasions, "I'm not the party type and I don't want to hang out with your friend and his girlfriend who live in Las Vegas."

Well, it turns out we've gone out a few times and I like the girlfriend less and less, and the couple is causing a huge problem for my husband and me. We were invited to a party at their house and I responded no thanks (discussed with husband first). The friend called back to ask my husband, "What's up ... my girlfriend and I are a package deal."

My husband feels awkward and in the middle. He keeps saying, "I have no reason not to like the girlfriend." That's not the point for me. I don't like her -- can't he just respect how I feel and leave well enough alone?

-- N.W., Boulder City

You and your husband are negotiating one piece of what I call "The Equation of Separateness and Connectedness." I mean by this how couples habituate the commitment to nurture the marital bond (a connection), yet simultaneously are committed to respecting a healthy separateness. All thriving marriages do this. All the time. Sometimes, fluidly and unconsciously, other times with blood, sweat and tears.

One of the things that must be negotiated in this equation is his friends and her friends. For example, the occasional boys/girls night out is, by definition, a movement of separateness. It's gender exclusive. Whereas, double-dating with other couples is an intentional practice of connectedness.

When two men have a close friendship, especially one with a long history perhaps even dating back to boyhood, and one of them enters a committed relationship, things get more complicated. In the blink of an eye, there is no longer one relationship, but four. Think about it ...

There are the two men, there is the man and his mate, the man's friend and the mate, and the three of them standing in the same room together. The status of these four relationships must be discerned, negotiated and integrated. This process sometimes goes smoothly. Sometimes it's fraught with unspoken or even unconscious insecurities and jealousies. Turf battles.

If both men have a mate, there are now 10 relationships in the arena. Wow.

The truth is that, just because a woman loves me, this in no way obliges her to manifest affection for -- let alone investment in -- each and every one of my friends, male or female, or for the mates/spouses of same. She might really enjoy some of them, even eventually develop her own filial affection for them. She might be blasé (kind of bored) with others of them. And, painfully, she might have instant antipathy for a few of them.

Now, antipathy is different from an actual grievance. If my mate was openly disrespected or mistreated by my buddy and/or his mate, I would say my mate has a legitimate claim on my advocacy. That is, to stand with her. To stand up for her. She would rightly want my buddy's behavior not merely to be an issue between her and him, but also him and me!

But antipathy is more than the awkward experience of "I just don't like you very much ... I don't connect with you ... You put me off ... You bug me ... Your values don't fit mine," etc.

So be it. Now you and your husband have to negotiate.

Your husband can decide to respect your decision to keep your distance from these relationships (separateness). This will be a loss for him, because he loves his buddy and he loves you. But, to respect you, he will have to accept this loss. Disappointing for him? Yes, and understandably so. But sooner or later necessary in most healthy marriages.

There might, on the other hand, be available compromises. You say, "I'm not the party type." Perhaps you could offer that your husband could: 1.) Accept that you only double-date with his buddy occasionally, and that 2.) When you do double-date, it's with a different activity than partying -- dinner, a movie (psst, you don't have to talk during a movie) or multiple-couple activities that provide a buffer for your antipathy.

Sometimes it's a right and generous gift to our mate to say, "Sometimes, not real often but sometimes, in certain specific settings, I will simply sequester my antipathy, put on a socially hospitable face and participate with you in your relationship with your buddy. Because it's important to you. Because I love you. Because it makes you feel proud and happy."

I encourage both of you, N.W., to begin from a place of compassion for the other.

Originally published in View News on Aug. 25, 2009.