Thank you to all those who have replied with thoughts to this post; it is obviously something that many have had experience with and it has been encouraging to see such a response. As a disclaimer, this post is not a full and accurate depiction of my thoughts on the married-single friendship dynamic (I am, at the very least, sympathetic to struggles on each side). It has been an immense privilege to have heard the stories of many single and married women dealing with issues of loneliness due to friends being at different stages - and this issue may be best left to a further post. If you are a single person, struggling with having friends who are married, or a married person, feeling misunderstood by your single friends; know that this post does not set out to speak to you. If you are, however, the friend of a man who is married or in a committed relationship this post may bring some insight as to what the wife/girlfriend of your friend may be feeling like. And perhaps, to be more specific - what she is feeling like when particularly harsh words are used against her.
My husband and I were the first to get married among our circle of friends and it's brought some social challenges as to how we spend our time. As a result, mean-spirited or not, I've been at the heart of a lot of comments made to and about my husband. This post isn't to take a stab at all those who are the good friend of a husband or a boyfriend - I thank God for the role these men have in my husband's life. They're wonderful Godly men and some of whom just trying to manage this odd transition between their friends being school-boy bachelors shifting to committed husbands. I hope to bring to light the weight of some of the comments made during this time.
"You're so whipped" this (and its many variants) has been said of my husband, in front of me, at various points in our relationship - and over a year into marriage, it hasn't stopped. What this comment sounds like to my ears is "he used to give us all his time, now he's giving time to her and sometimes even choosing to do something with her over doing something with us."
To be honest, I think this is just a testament to my husband - people love hanging out with him and are saddened when someone else takes his time up. But it also isn't very encouraging for either of us to hear;
If a husband looks over to his sick/tired/upset/bored/lonely wife and decides to leave, or say no to another activity, it should hardly. be. surprising. A husband has vowed to love his wife like Christ loves the church. I'll just let that sink in for a second.
Being told that he's "whipped" for choosing to go home to get an early night doesn't make his job of giving up something he wants to do any easier. It also doesn't make his wife feel any less guilty about influencing his decision to stop doing something he's enjoying. Believe it or not wives like seeing their husbands have fun and have good time to bond with their friends. I don't like to play video games or drink scotch - him doing these things with you means that I don't need to.
The same goes if a husband chooses to go to his wife's thing (or spend a night in with his wife) over going to a friend's thing. To say that he is "whipped" for choosing to go to his wife's event strips him of his autonomy and sets him up as a person, now void of all opinion, being blindly led by what his wife has decided for them to do. My husband is strong, free-willed, kind, caring and thoughtful. He takes his role of a husband seriously, and when he decides something for the sake of his wife, it hasn't been lightly decided - and it hasn't been decided by me.
I would expect that a husband acting in love for a wife would be met with a "good job mate" or a "hang in there, you're doing well". Buuuut I get it. He's rejected, left, "dogged" your group - it's easier to shoot-off a comment and blame it on the wife than call him up and ask him what's the best way to hang out now that he's married.
Guys, when your friends get married - hear this appeal from a wife: please always be as eager to help my husband in his marriage as you were on our wedding day.
I'm aware this may be coming off as selfish - as if this rant were trying to claim more time from my husband and keep him back from hanging out with his mates. I'm in no way trying to hold the vows my husband has made to me over him so that he does what I want. But I am trying to point out that these promises we've made to each other we take seriously. We invited friends and family to witness our marriage and likewise vow to help, through prayer, that we might keep our promises. Whether he reads this post or not, he'll make the same decisions about his time and that I'll still love the way he uses his time.
I love getting to represent Christ and the Church with my husband because we firmly believe that this is the way that God wants us to glorify Him. There are times when people ask how they can pray for us, where people want to ask us for advice or want to chat more so that they can know how this life stage is affecting our decisions.
However there is a great deal of times that I enter a room and hope that us being married won't be brought up. There are times I pray that I can stay up later, talk more and be excited more than my mood or energy allows so that we don't have to be the first people to leave. There are times I clench my teeth and smile because another insensitive comment has been directed towards me. Then there are the times we've sat, silent and shocked, feeling misunderstood and alone on the way home in our car.
However hard you're finding this transition, however hurt or cut you feel, however confused about how friendship changes after someone gets married you are; know that we're finding it just as hard and confusing. We constantly talk, worry and pray about the way we use our time. Then a comment like this comes along to cut us down. So we talk, worry and pray about it more.
So we would love your support and encouragement in this challenging time, and we would love for you to pray that we might know how to use our time wisely.
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