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You’re not going to love every partner your friends choose for themselves. You simply are not. It would be nice if you loved the significant other of each and every one of your friends as much as you love them. And, it would really be ideal if they all loved your significant other as much as they love you. But, that’s not always how things pan out. It’s one of the most classic and unavoidable problems in life: your good friend winds up with a man you don’t really like. You can tell her anything, but you can’t tell her that. Maybe you can. Can you? We’ll get into that shortly. But whatever the answer, it’s undeniably a very uncomfortable subject. Your friend wants to be with her partner all of the time, and she also wants to spend time with you, so she wants her two worlds—friendships and romantic partnership—to merge. And you just don’t want that. But, selfish feelings aside, regardless of how you feel about hanging out with the guy, you are just worried for your friend. You feel she’s with the wrong person. You feel he doesn’t bring out the best in her. Maybe you don’t think he encourages her in her goals enough, that he’s controlling, or that he still has personal issues he needs to work out before he can be a good partner to anybody—your friend, or anyone at all. You’ve always told your friend when you thought she was making a mistake, but it’s hard to do that in this case. And now, she’s told you she’s engaged to this man. Maybe they’re even at the point of having set the date. You’re supposed to act excited and help plan the bachelorette party. Here’s the reality of having your friend marry the wrong man.
You feel you missed your window
All along, you knew this guy was wrong for her. And now that they’re engaged, you’re kicking yourself for not saying something before. She’s decided to spend her life with him. You had the question, in your mind, “Do you think this is really the guy for you—forever?” Maybe it would have been appropriate to ask that question before they got engaged, but it isn’t now.
