When one of my close friends got into her first serious relationship I remember feeling this wave of sadness – it was peculiar because I was actually very happy for her. He was (and still is) everything she wanted in a partner and when your friend is happy, you (should) feel happy too.
I tried to analyse my emotions and pinpoint where these feelings of sadness were coming from. At the time I put it down to jealousy – perhaps I was envious that she found someone else before I did. It felt like the only logical reason.
But, as I look back at it, I realise that I wasn’t jealous at all, I was mourning our friendship. I knew the way we would interact with each other would change as she had now found her forever person.
I should also note that up until last year, I was the the ultimate single friend. I dated around but hadn’t been in a serious long-term relationship. So as more of my friends started getting into relationships, I started to feel worried about my friendships with my coupled-up friends.
It’s natural for friendships to change when someone gets into a relationship but no one speaks about how this change affects those who aren’t coupled-up.
*28-year-old Afua who is a writer from London felt conflicted when two of her friends got into relationships.
“Unless something bad has already happened, admitting that you’re scared your friend might not contact you when they’re in their honeymoon phase makes people think that you’re jealous, bitter, or selfish,” she says.
However, Afua wasn’t jealous at all as she shares that she values her friendships and works hard to maintain them. But, when two of her close-friends got into relationships she started to worry.
“For both friends, we spoke every day and I spent a lot of time with one of them in person. I’d never seen how they act in a relationship and given that society encourages people to prioritise their significant other above all else, once someone entered the picture I immediately wondered how our communication style would change,” Afua explains.
Luckily, one of the friendships didn’t change that much but the other friendship change drastically.
“She stopped contacting me as frequently and we stopped hanging out as much. If we did, she always invited him as a third wheel. She tried to return to normal once they broke up, but the damage had already been done,” she adds.
33-year-old *Nadia from London who works in marketing says she has one friend that completely changes when she has a boyfriend: “She starts to adopt her boyfriend’s hobbies and then ghosts our friendship group.”
She’s been friends with this particular friend for 12 years but says there are year gaps each time she starts a relationship.
“The first time it happened I was devastated – we used to spend four nights a week together going to talks, the theatre and just hanging out generally,” Nadia says.
“Within weeks of having a boyfriend, she was all in and I was all out. She’d not text me back, things that we had bonded over became irrelevant - and she was too busy. She began to mirror the boy she was with,” she adds.
It didn’t help that the majority of her boyfriends weren’t nice either.
Friendship coach Danielle Bayard Jackson says that it can be a puzzling time for us when our friends get into relationships: “We feel sad but we’re also simultaneously happy for them and that mixed bag of emotions can be confusing.”
She believes part of the reason why we feel said is because we know that we’re about to lose time with our our friend. “
We’re used to have unlimited time with our friends and we know that this person now will spend more time with their partner,” Jackson says.
She goes on to explain how research highlights that we only have the cognitive capacity for three to five close relationships.
“So let’s say we have two to five close relationships. When a person gets into a romantic relationship, he or she takes two of those five spaces because of all the effort you’re putting in to maintain the relationship,” Jackson adds.
So essentially, we don’t have the capacity to be close to several people when we’re in a relationship.
Jackson also thinks we feel sad because we enjoy the feeling of mutual reciprocity which can get lost when one enters a relationship.
“We enjoy having inside jokes with our friends and the unique and special bond we have. To see her form closeness with someone else it can feel threatening,” Jackson says.
But, as Afua says, we don’t admit these things because of the fear of looking bitter. Though it can feel threatening, Jackson thinks we have to adapt to the fact that things are going to look different.
“If she has a new relationship, that means that you guys are probably not hanging out as much, it means the conversations gonna look a little different, because she’s excited about this new partnership,” Jackson adds.
“So they’ll probably want to share parts of their relationship with you. So remind yourself that it’s a good thing that she wants to share this experience with you,” she says.
It might feel sad at first but Jackson says we should be careful in doing anything that makes our friends feel like we’re not excited for them. It’s hard when our friendships change when someone else is in the picture but it’s the natural cycle of life. Your friendship might look different but I’m sure the love and memories will always be there.