Keeping old friends after marriage

Friendship dynamics may change after you get married, especially after the children start coming. This change could be as a result of a number of factors, which include having less free time and evolving priorities.

Marriage is an institution we all wish, with high hopes, to experience. The wedding day is one we have a satisfying feeling that we have married our best friend, that person we are attracted to and want to support and take care of, as well as he/she with whom we want to share our secrets, laugh and share experiences. It is only natural that when you find someone else with whom to spend the rest of your life, you may pull back a little from your old friends.
Maintaining good friendship takes time and efforts. As you move up in life, there are certain things that will be very demanding. Hence, you will need to apportion your time appropriately, especially as there will be an ever-growing number of people around you, which makes you have little or no time for your friends. Generally, friends tell us what we want to hear and make us comfortable, support our choices and even forgive our shortcomings easily.
Life Xtra spoke with a cross section of people to find out what they think about the issue. Their responses are very interesting and thought-provoking.
Judith Nwoye, who is married, says the relationship a single lady once had with close friends changes because “immediately after marriage you can’t have the same closeness you had with your friends, especially the single ones, because your priorities become different from theirs.”
Nwoye adds that: “It is not as if you should totally cut them off. I still relate with mine but that’s once in a while, which is in contrast with when I was single. So certainly, you can’t have that closeness. I don’t even relate with my female friends, not to talk of male friends.”
Azeez Shuaib, however, disagrees with Nwoye’s position. “Why would I cut off all my friends? I know situations make relationships different, but it doesn’t mean I will totally keep all my friends at bay after I am married. They will be with me,” Shuaib said.
He believes every relationship between members of both sexes should be well defined, so it is important a limit is set in all relationships. “It doesn’t matter whether you leave your old friends or not. After all, your new friends could even do worse, if they want to,” he stressed.
For John Odegbami, who is married, there are two categories of friends – the ones dropped along the way and those who are like family. “There are some friends that are like family members and as life puts it, we are all in a moving train. There are also some friends that you drop along the way, while you pick new ones. Now if it’s of the opposite sex, I totally agree that they should be dropped after marriage because there may be some you may have feelings for, or actually even have had something with in the past,” he remarked.
“You may think because you are married, such emotions would die. Yes, they should, but don’t create the fire that will burn your house. It would do you a lot of good if you cut them off completely,” Odegbami argued.
Relating a story from a movie he watched, he added that: “I have seen a movie where a man whose wife still had a male friend after they got married. The woman’s male friend was still single and the lady told him practically everything that happened in her home and her life. A day came when an argument occurred between her and her husband and she turned to her male friend for solace. That singular action changed the entire story. Yes, they are friends, but emotions can always build up, emotions that can be uncontrollable. My dad always says that a boy and a girl shouldn’t be close friends, because whether we like it or not, a day will come when their emotions will go wild and eventually escalate.”
Janet Korir related the experience of a friend who she said attended the wedding of another friend in another town about seven hours away from the town she lived in. Korir said:  “My friend risked her life by travelling for seven hours to another town to attend the wedding of a close friend. After the wedding, when my friend got back home, she didn’t hear from her so-called friend again. Even when my friend called her, she didn’t pick until five days later. After five days. Imagine that!”
She added that: “What if something had happened to my friend on her return journey home? What would she have said or done? After how my friend was treated, she made up her mind not to attend weddings in towns outside where she resides. What that lady did to my friend showed that she didn’t value their friendship, hence my friend was not needed anymore.”
She, nevertheless, concluded that: “I don’t think it’s right that you should throw your friends away simply because you have gotten married and they are still single. Inasmuch as you have to be selective about your friends, you shouldn’t just cast them away, especially the ones you have been with through thick and thin.”