To think that friends should always come before partners?

It's quite daft to have a single rule tbh.
It should be situation dependent.

There are times you'll prioritise your partner over your friends and times you'll prioritise your friends over your partner.

Oh I can't phone an ambulance for my partner because I'm heading out the door now for a coffee with my pals...

Adults normally have the ability to assess situations and juggle relationships so that everything is balanced.

You sound very young op.

Well exactly.
Some people go out every night with their mates, stop when they get a partner.
Some cancel all friend activities when they get a partner.

What's the meaning of prioritisation here I wanna know.

If friends are your 'support system' and you're spending hours with them every day.... That's very intense.

I've had more friend breakups than partner breakups, and more friends than partners

Friends before a casual boyfriend. DH of 10 years before anyone. And lots of grey area in between.
But in a healthy relationship, you shouldn't have to choose.

I expect my partner to arrange my funeral if they outlive me and I hope to support them to the end if I outlive them. I am religious, and I would consider life partners in our religion to be as one. 'Soul of my soul'.

But.. but... what about Zigg a Zigg ahhh?!!

My late DH was always my priority. 🤷‍♀️

I like DP more. I actually want to live with him for a start, whereas friends are absolutely fine living in their own homes, thank you very much.

If he's planning on meeting his mates, he checks if there's anything he's needed/wanted for, I do the same - it's not asking for permission or laying down the law, it's just what you do when you actually like the person you're with (rather than have somebody who wants to keep you on a leash and only focused upon their wants).

If you're in a relationship where there's a rule that Mates Come First Always, you're just not that into him. And if you're the Mate that has her nose out of joint because you don't have first dibs on somebody, that's not fair on them.

If it had been written differently, I would assume otherwise, but the OP almost sounds like some who either needs to get their own partner, is maybe inexperienced with romantic feelings, or someone who's still very much in the closet and is grappling with resentment.

Why would it be either or? And it depends on circumstances.
Yes I’d put friends before a new partner.
No I wouldn’t necessarily put friends before a husband, but really depends on what has happened.
Im in my 50s though.

If you think friends should always come before a partner....then I actually don't think you understand what a romantic / life partner actually is.

If that's your attitude, I don't think you are suited to having a stable & committed partner. It sounds like you prioritise non-romantic, non-sexual relationships, and you need to find more people like you to not feel disappointed, and not run into issues with others.

Be prepared though, that it's not a one way system. You will be subject to the same attitude & treatment....which you might not be prepared for or like once you experience that.

For most people, a serious partner is not background noise or fluff when someone is bored with their friends. A serious partner is their number one person, their rock in life.

It doesn't mean that people should start being flakey, not following through with plans, with cancelling them at last minute. If they forget about their friends, some people will come to regret that later on.

I think both are very important. Friendships should not take a complete back seat to romantic relationships especially in the early days, but equally if you're getting married and starting a family with your partner (even if that family is the two of you) then I think that relationship does become more important especially if it's the family unit you're maybe raising children in. To me, good friendships are the ones that withstand all the changes that happen in a lifetime and that allow for your partner/husband/wife to be a really important person in your life - someone you've committed to in a major way. I would prioritise my husband over my friends if it was in a crunch. But a decent husband wouldn't put me in a position where that would be a problem either and would understand that at times I'd need to be more available to my friends than to him.

Interesting. Not sure of your age still but I have a group of friends who were each others main support system all through teens and 20s, men came and went. By early 30s though they were all (at slightly different times) starting relationships with men who would go on to become husbands and fathers of their children. They did prioritise those relationships because that is what mattered most to them… marriage and family. When everyone was at different stages the group was very fractured with the single ones unhappy at the time and priority the coupled up ones were giving their relationships. Eventually everyone bar one did end up in the same position and friendships stabilised again. The one person who didn’t meet anyone (despite the others still carving out time but not the same time as before for her) cut off the group which is and was very sad.

I have never had to choose.

Sure some have. But when people are single, especially when young, their friends are their day to day life. When I was in my early 20s, I'd spend the day with my two best friends, go home to change and go back out with them all night. Now, I'm still friends with those two women but getting together is rare, especially all three of us together, even though we all live relatively near each other. It's great when we do get together but I wouldn't expect to see them weekly, nevermind multiple times a day.

And it's an absolute wrench to have the people you see constantly become someone you see every now and then. But it's also natural. Just like our children go from needing us every moment, to sometimes living on the other side of the world. Relationships naturally change massively. The only one that has no natural end other than death, is marriage/life partnership. If it ends before that, it's because something has gone wrong, whereas all other relationships only stay the same if something has gone wrong.

I've been with my husband since we were teenagers, he's my best and oldest friend. We've moved around a lot so tend to have acquaintances rather than friends, there is no one outside of our nuclear unit I'd put ahead of DH.

I'm completely open to having more in-depth friendships, but it just hasn't happened thus far.

I am divorced (not because of cheating or anything terrible) and still think i made 100% the right decision to prioritise my exH because we had a life together. When we divorced, my friends didn't take the place of a husband - they were great companions, and supportive and incredibly close but they weren't holding my hand at night, or making life decisions and choices with me, or building a life with me. And that's how it should be - I would never want a friend to replace a partner. Too many women go wrong by substituting friends for life partners and then being upset when these friends find their own life partners, have children, prioritise parents, careers, hobbies, other friends etc.

Now that I'm with DH, I have the same policy I did with my ex. I want my friends to live their own lives, have adventures and priorities outside of me - and I feel grateful that they choose to include me in their lives. I value our time together. But my DH and I have a joint life together. When my mum gets too old to live on her own, my friends aren't going to open up their homes to her, my DH will because it's our joint home and it's a commitment we've made. Similarly I'd do it for my MIL, not my friend's mum.

Marriages last because there's a love between 2 people you can never replicate in friendship. The love might go and you might end up alone, but that's just life. Prioritising friends still won't get you the benefits of that partnership.

Er no 🙄 I love my female friends but DH is my best mate, otherwise why would I have married him? I can’t understand your thinking OP.

In your OP you've put that friends should ALWAYS come before partners. That's obviously not true. It's entirely context dependent. Also, I would consider my partner a friend (one of my very best friends) as well as a romantic partner. Life isn't this black and white.

I would generally expect a woman to prioritise her husband over 20 years over her friends. But the people who have been seeing each other for a few weeks and already neglecting their existing friends are very annoying.

It’s a balance really.

For me family comes first - including long term partner/husband/wife etc

But having your own friends is very important too. You should make time for them outside of your partner and away from your partner. There are things that are important to your partner where you will put them first and theres things that are important to your friend where you will put them first. There will be however higher number of these things with your partner.

I think your phrasing in the OP is quite confrontational and too general. It doesn’t make sense to me that friends always come before a partner, or indeed family or a career or any number of other things that people reasonably value in their lives. I’ve moved for jobs and for a relationship, in both cases knowing that it will obviously impact friendships by adding distance.

But I do agree that it’s crap for friends to just disappear when they get a partner. A very close single friend of mine complained bitterly about friends and family not having enough time for her because of their partners, then dropped me immediately when she met someone. I was, still am, really angry about that. I felt used and discarded (btw I’d been in a relationship for a while and managed to consistently make lots of time for her). It’s not okay to just forget people because you’ve gotten wrapped up in a new romance. Friends aren’t placeholders for a boyfriend. I also think a good network of close long term friends is really important for mental health and stability in case of major life changes.

Sounds like you need better friends, if yours are tending to go awol whenever a man is available.