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About 10 years ago, I attended a friend’s wedding shower. Like most wedding showers, each guest was asked to fill out a card with a piece of advice for the bride and groom. One of my friends in attendance wrote the following suggestion on her card: “When choosing your husband first, true friends will understand.”

She was single at the time and although I was as well, I totally understood what she meant and even found it a refreshing stance to share. To me, the statement meant that you could move into the next phase of your life –marriage – while keeping those friends who understand your new situation and have their support.

Long before I was married and during my dating seasons, I never dismissed any of my friends or put my friendships on the back burner for a man, as I didn’t see any reason in doing so. However, my friendship with woman I’d known for many years was set aside. One of my closest childhood friends got married during our first year of college, at the age of 19. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding, loved her husband and his family, and was excited about this marriage as I saw him as a brother.

Prior to her nuptials, we talked almost daily. Right after she got married, she became distant. We still kept in touch, but I took her detachment as her being a married woman with no time for single folks. Unfortunately, about two years later, they divorced. That’s when we started talking every single day again, and if we missed even two days of talking, it seemed like forever. About three years later, through a somewhat tumultuous reconciliation, she and her then ex-husband remarried.

Since then (approximately eight years), we’ve spoken about three times. Three. We are, however, Facebook friends. If that really means anything.

After all of this, I couldn’t really decipher if it was the actual marriage keeping our friendship at bay, her husband (who I once adored), or if it was just her. But after observing my close friends following the years they said, “I do,” I realized that your relationships with your single friends could possibly change, but they do not have to completely deteriorate. It just depends on the person and both who, and how they prioritize.

Why your friendships change

Marriage is a huge transition and takes a lot of work. Even after I got engaged, I could tell that my priorities shifted, not solely on wedding planning, but on focusing more on my relationship with my fiancé (premarital counseling, understanding the importance of putting God first, spouse second, etc.).

After tying the knot, I really understood what it meant when people said, “marriage is work.” It can be fun, but it definitely is work that takes up a lot of your time.

Dr. Mike McNulty, a master certified Gottman therapist told Business Insider that creating time for your spouse is very beneficial to any marriage. “Rituals are more formal ways of connecting and ensure spouses reserve time for one another or their families and make specific plans to do the things they want to do,” he said.

How it changes

Even though I have done a pretty good job of keeping in touch with my closest friends after getting married, I can tell that my relationships with some of them have changed, slightly. I don’t divulge any issues going on in my marriage or seek advice from them, since they are single. In the same vein, I find myself refraining from providing dating advice at times as to not seem like the overbearing married friend. I think that things work best when we stay in our respective lanes and focus on ways to support and spend time with one another.

Remember, you can always enjoy your new endeavors as a wife while keeping the friends that you had before the marriage. They may not get as much of your time as they used to, but true friendships shouldn’t be permitted to fall by the wayside.

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