Why Your Girlfriend or Boyfriend Needs Time With Their Friends

Your partner can be your best friend, the person who shows up for you whenever you need them. Even so, the strongest relationships tend to grow out of two people who share a life together while each keeping a life of their own. Trust and a little independence make the whole thing work, and that is exactly where outside friendships earn their place. Both of you should get time alone with your own friends, partly to keep those bonds from fading and partly because it feeds the relationship you share. The reasons stack up once you start looking at them, and seeing them clearly makes it easier to protect that friend time and, oddly enough, to build a closer bond with your partner.

Think of your friends as soul mates of a different kind, the platonic sort. The connection is real, and like any connection it needs feeding to stay strong. Friends reach parts of you that a romantic relationship simply cannot, so that bond deserves regular attention. Leave it unattended and it thins out. Give it what it needs and you hold a steady balance between the people you love romantically and the people you love as friends.

Falling into a romance, most of us drift toward the partner almost without noticing, pouring the bulk of our energy there. It happens quietly, below the level of a decision. The fix is simply paying attention to the balance, checking that the close people in your life are still hearing from you. Friends steady you and you steady them. That mutual availability is the whole point.

Friendship is also one of the better mirrors you have for seeing yourself clearly. Your friends tell you the truth, and plenty of them have known you far longer than your partner has. When you mess up, a good friend will say so with love rather than let you keep walking into the same wall, which is how people actually learn and change. The same friendships that correct you also talk you up. That steadier sense of self-worth is what lets a person take a risk now and then instead of playing it safe.

Romances do not always last, and when one ends it is normal to feel flattened for a while, to watch some of your confidence drain off. That is part of the process, not a sign anything is broken in you. But the partner who used to catch you is gone now, so the weight lands on your friends. If you tended those friendships all through the relationship, you already know who understands and who will help you stand back up and eventually wade back into dating.

No two friends serve the same role, and that variety matters. One friend drags you out of your shell and into things you would never try alone. Another has a way of making you feel attractive. Another is simply the one who appears the moment something goes wrong. A partner can fill some of these roles too, but keeping people outside the relationship who can do the same is a safeguard, especially for the times when it is the relationship itself that has you stuck. There is a quieter benefit as well: when your friends reinforce the good things your partner does for you, you tend to show up as a better partner yourself.

Different friendships carry different payoffs, so it pays to gather people you genuinely trust around you, and to give the same back so the bond deepens over the years. You and your partner may share nearly everything, yet some topics come out more easily with a friend. Asking friends for advice about the relationship is the obvious case. And there is something to be said for simply being apart sometimes, each of you free to chase the things the other has no interest in. How much friend time you need comes down to you and the people in your life, but aiming for at least once or twice a month with just them is a reasonable way to keep those friendships alive.

Rosemary Kitchen

Resources: Collingwood, J. (2008). The Importance of Friendship. Retrieved on February 5, 2015 from Psych Central.

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