Do you have separate friends to your husband?

[gettingmyvoiceback]

I have seen it mentioned a few times on here that people’s partners have different friends, are these childhood friends?
We relocated from our home town shortly after we met which was 16 years ago and since then all our friends have been couples, some we met at the school gates and had play dates while the kids were small and remained friends, some were couples we met, neighbours are couples and we always do things as couples if that’s having a couple over for a bbq or drinks or being invited out as a couple, weekends away or whatever but it’s always been mutual friendships between both of us and the other couple.
I thought this was normal unless you have childhood friends that you grew up with.
Is this particularly strange then?
I was thinking about people I know and how I’ve never seen my brother without his wife and if they have friends over or go out for meals or events it is always with another couple.
I am not talking about single friends I am referring to friends you have but your husband doesn’t know or see socially or vice versa.
If I text a friend to see if they are free, they will assume it’s the whole family and say let me speak to other half and check we are and so would I and remember my parent always referring to their friends by surnames like we are having the browns over or going out with the smiths today.

Work friends?

I have ex colleagues who are still friends who have never met my dh.

Aldo friends from uni and school that vaguely know him but are definitely my friends.

We have a mix - both have friends from school/college/uni/work but also friends we’ve met together. Also a lot of his friends he’s known for years I’ve now become close to (and their partners) and vice versa. We do separate meet ups and trips though with our own friends as well as things together. I like being able to go out with my friends without him sometimes.

Mostly separate.

Maybe that’s what it is then, we don’t see old school friends because of distance so lost contact and I don’t have colleagues as I’m a full time carer to a disabled child. My husband has colleagues but he has no interest in seeing them outside of work.

I think a mix of both is normal.
I have friends my DH doesn't particularly see and defiantly are some where DH doesn't know their DH.
DH meets up with his uni friends both with and without partners / me.
I have different school gate friends to DH - not always the husband and wife couple.

Yes we both have different friends through work, family, hobbies & childhood/early adulthood.
These have become mutual friends in both directions, but we see our own friends independent of each other routinely, my other half more frequently as I tend to be the “at home” person for caring responsibilities for our SEND child. It generally works out okay, I thought this was pretty normal?

Yes.

I met dh af university but we had different friends then too. I also have school friends and work friends. Also some mum friends from my dcs' school and former nursery.

Yes I have friends from before I met my DH and work friends.
I think it’s a bit strange to have no separate friends at all

Almost entirely separate, my friends are from volunteering, antenatal group and baby/toddler classes, colleagues, before I met DH, etc. We have one or two ‘couple’ friends but I’m friends with the woman half separately and see them solo whereas the men wouldn’t ever meet up solo.

My DH and I mostly socialise separately and apart from the DC’s football club years where there were lots of event we’ve never socialised with a whole other family.

We have one friend that we socialise with as a couple. All our other friendships are separate.

We have both. I'd find it a bit claustrophobic to not each have our own friends that we spend time with alone.

I've collected a few work friends from different jobs over the years who would now be classed as proper friends. One friend we now see him and his wife as a couple and do things together because we're all interested in similar things. He's met a few of the others if I've dragged him to a party or something but there's a number he's never met and isn't really interested.

We both have friends from childhood/school/uni but they have become ‘both’ our friends over the years. I see girlfriends without my husband sometimes but he’d definitely consider them his friends and vice-versa.

Neither of us socialise with work colleagues - maybe once at year, at Christmas - but last year, we all invited partners to that do.

We have both, but mostly separate these days as a lot of the couple/family friendships were held together by mutual aged young kids...which is fine by me.

I would find that strange, would you only ever see friends as a couple?

We both have 'couple' friends and independent friends, but either of us may go out with the 'couple' friends without the other.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5147241-to-think-people-today-arent-really-interested-in-other-peoples-partners

This is my post from a couple of years ago.

Ideally it’s nice to have a mix and to see friends and family both together and separately but I find friends do not want to include spouses anymore or even get to know them.

I think it’s a shame you don’t get to see your brother on his own at all.

When people get together at a later age like my brother-in-law the partners don’t seem interested in forging family in-law relationships and BiL’s partner didn’t know how many kids we had or their names.

I much prefer seeing friends without their partners. I’ve never had a couple as friends, where I liked them equally. When my husband sees his best friend at our house, I have to sit and talk to his best friends wife. I find her very dull. I encourage him to see his friend on his own!
one of my oldest friends often invites me to stay at her place, and I don’t go, because I don’t like her husband! she likes him, well.. not a lot these days, but hey ho!

11 years together and five years married and we still mostly have seperate friends - from school, uni and work.

We used to socialise more as a couple, but due to breakups in the wider friend group and everyone having children, we now mostly socialise seperately other than weddings/christenings.

I would find the scenario you describe claustrophobic and stifling. We have a few family/ couple friends but are both out separately at least weekly. I see a couple of school friends, a couple of mum friends, old and current work friends and also have a group from uni I go away with on my own every year.

It took a lot of effort to maintain these relationships while my kids were babies but I did enough to keep them ticking along. I also socialise with family with and without my husband and he does the same. Having time apart and different experiences to discuss is good for our relationship.

Pretty much all of our friends are separate. People we have grown up with, work friends, hobby friends, school mums.

I actually wish we had some mutual friends to do things with. We have gone out as couples with his friends and partners before but it has very much remained as his friends and their partners.

I think pretty much all our friends are separate. There are some people that we might socialise with as a couple, but they're still really either mine or my husband's friends. For example, for my husband's friends, i don't speak to them outside of meeting up, I wouldn't have their phone number etc.

Friends are a mix of old school friends/ex work colleagues/friends met through hobbies/sports

Yes of course, we're married not joined at the hip.

I think that's very unusual to only have joint friends. I'd say most of my friends are 'mine', sometimes I see them with DH and sometimes on my own. From school/university/mums I've met when on maternity leave. Do you never do something just you and friend(s)? I'd hate to only socialise with my DH there to. Plus far more realistic to do things separely otherwise we need childcare.

Yes we both have different sets of friends, many of whom are from hobby groups & other interests. I barely know most of his friends, and he barely knows most of mine. We hardly ever socialise with other couples. When we go out it is either just the two of us, or with adult dc and their partners.