To think that friends should always come before partners?

Family comes first. My husband is family.

If you’re upset your friends are less available due to romantic relationships why not post about that rather than making silly statements.

You may want to invest lots of time and energy in a partner at some point and then understand how your mates feel.

Your partner should definitely be the priority in my opinion. Unless you’ve only been together 5 minutes and you’re not serious about them. My husband is 100 times more important to me than any friend has ever been, and I’m not ashamed to say that.

How would you feel if your partner preferred to go on holiday with his friends and not you and the children? Preferred to spend Christmas with his friends, not you? Preferred to celebrate his birthday with them, not you? Didn't care about your birthday because his friends might want to go out that night? Etc ....

By all means maintain and nuture your friendships as well but when you find a life partner, and especially if you have children, they should be your number 1 priority.

The thing about 'partners' is that if this is genuinely a partnership, then this is the person you love, that you've chosen to spend your life with, that is your 'other half', etc.

I'm fond of my friends and will meet up or help out if I can. I love my DH and have spent 30 years with him. He's always going to come in front of any friend. I'm never going to prioritise them over him.

Life isn't like USA tv shows, unfortunately. I'm always amazed at watching not only 'Friends' or 'Big Bang Theory' but also shows like NCIS where when one character has a baby/accident/trip to hospital the entire group of friends and co-workers shows up to sit in that waiting room and be there for them. Real life isn't like that. I've never had a group of mates that would behave like that, not even in my teens - and certainly by the time we got in our 20s/30s people were marrying and having families. Friendship came quite a long way behind family, work, hobbies, household chores and other commitments.

It's a normal part of growing up in my opinion.

I don't think this is a black and white situation.
I get the impression you're annoyed that some of your friends are seeing less of you since starting relationships?
I think you have to be fair to your friends in these situations - most people live full lives when they are single, seeing friends and doing hobbies etc, as well as work and chores and exercise. They then begin a relationship and have to factor in time to see their new partner, so naturally they need to take that time away from other areas of their life to make time to do this.
It's unreasonable to expect your friends in relationships to commit the same amount of time to their friendships as they did when they were single when they enter a relationship. The same happens when people take on new jobs, have children, get a pet or need to care for family.
Good friendships should evolve through these things, recognising its the quality over quantity when it comes to spending time together.

See I personally disagree with you. My husband (and our family so including our daughter) is my priority- always. I love my friends, I’m very close with them and we support each other as much as we possibly can, but if the day came where a friend and my husband both equally needed me, I would always choose my husband.

HE is my life partner, he’s the one I’ve chosen to spend my life with, build a home and family with, he’s the one I wake up to in the morning and go to sleep next to at night, he supports me through everything big or small, and no friendship compares to that partnership.

So yes I love my friends, friendships are very important, but if it came to it then they will always come second to my relationship with my husband.

It depends on the situation.

If they've been seeing someone for three months and keep ignoring red flags from you where you're trying to warn them it's toxic, or ghosting on you or cancelling on you, then yeah it's shit and friends should be first.

If they've been living with someone for ten years and you're feeling a bit lonely that's on you and you shouldn't expect to be their priority.

I have a friend whose girlfriends come first. Always.

Because of this, she married a man would wasn't her best friend. Which isn't a great recipe for a happy marriage.

As PP said, you need to let relationships ebb and flow. A new relationship needs bonding time that's already been done in a long-term friendship.

It's immature, and IMO a bit selfish not to allow your friends to devote time to building their family.

Husband comes first for me

It's nothing compare to the shift when they have children 😉

Which is normal and healthy, of course, but hard to take of you're the one without a partner or child.

At some stages of your life your parents are the most important relationships to you, then your friends, then your partner or spouse, then your children, and then it balances out a bit more before needs of elderly parents become an issue again, and round it all goes.

It's OK to accept that friends will vanish and reappear depending on their life stage. You can still care about them and know they care about you, even of you're not the most significant relationship anymore.

No. I have great friends but my dh has done more for me than all my friends put together.

I also wouldn't expect my friends to think any differently that me on this issue.

I seem to recall a very wise group of feminist philosophers discoursing on this very issue, to wit: "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get on with my friends. Making love's forever; friendship never ends."

Of course this sagacious aphorism contains a logical fallacy in that it would appear to equate sexual and platonic relationships, as both being timeless and without end.

The philosophers never addressed this fallacy as far as I am aware, although they did also state their intense desire to acquire a zig-a-zig-ah. Perhaps this unusual sounding item offered a solution to the debate.

I suppose it depends the length of the relationship or friendship. I’ve been with my DH 14 years and I prioritise him over friends. I’ve had plenty of friends come and go in that time and I genuinely enjoy spending my time with him more. At the start of a relationship I would never of prioritised a boyfriend over friends but things change

I have 2 friends who always dropped me as soon as a new man appeared in their lives. I was the single friend. They are now acquaintances rather than friends.

I have been with my DH for 22 years, married 20. As ridiculous as it may sound he is my best friend.

I have new, very close, friends and in certain circumstances will choose them over DH, not that I'd need to - he'd be encouraging me/cheering me on.

He has friends that I encourage him to prioritise (because friends are so important). I encourage him to go away for the weekend or to have nights out.

DH has been there for me since 1992, but my longterm friendships have outlasted several of my friends' marriages. By my reckoning, spouses and partners come and go, but good friendships last because they don't rely on two people continuing to want to have sex with one another exclusively.

I think they’re both important.

There’s nothing worse than having a friend who falls off the face of the earth the second she’s in a relationship and doesn’t want to make plans or commit to anything that she used to like girls trips, meeting up etc.

I think it’s only a good thing to make sure you still value your friendships when in a relationship and that you nurture them.

No way, not when you are married and have your own family. Family comes first, always and that includes DH.

For me, my DC come first, then DH, then my parents, then my siblings, then my Dh's parents and siblings.

But good fiends want looking after but they don't come first.

If there’s ever a serious choice, it’s my husband. I would ditch my friends in a heartbeat if he needed me.

Having said that, I’ve never had to make that choice. He and my friends have never been in competition. And he’s never needed me in a friends-ditching situation.

Everyone can have their space in your life.

You just have to learn to have a balance. Relationships/friendships change all the time and its important to adapt to changes and not try to hold on to 'the way things were before or how they have always been'.

Also try not to end up in friendships/relationships with people who expect you to have only them as the centre of your life. That's not a good place to be in.

Of course that's ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the unspoken expectation on Mn that it's normal to 'retire' opposite sex friendships once in a relationship, as though There's Only Room For One Man/Woman In Your Life. Part of the 'I only need my own partner/little family' narrative, which goes so far towards explaining why so many posters experience crippling loneliness.

While I've seen less of friends when one or more of us was doing the hellish small baby stage, I still phoned and messaged them. My longterm friendships are very important to me, probably collectively as important as my marriage, and my life would be much the poorer for not having them in it. And probably my marriage would be less strong. It absolutely nourishes a relationship when you both also have input from other people.

There's room for everyone.

It seems you're probably quite young, at the stage where you and your friends are in a dating phase, childless etc. At that stage, yes friends are more important, until the right, long term partner comes along, and even more so if kids come along. At that point, friends are still very important, but shouldn't be prioritised over your partner/spouse (unless partner is expecting something unreasonable in a situation regarding a friend)

Friends come and go. DP's been there for me for 43 years andf three children.

I can still make time for and love my friends, but I know where my family is.

This is a lovely post