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.

I have a lot of friends who are completely separate from my husband. Mainly ex work colleagues but I’ve known my BF since my teens.

DH has one BF and we also see his family socially. We have one more couple friend but they don’t live locally.

ETA just looking at the mention of your parents, and yes, my parents did a lot of socialising with other couples. My dad had his own friends and social life outside this, my mum not really .

Yes we’ve both got different sets of friends. It’s worth mentioning that we still live in our home town and neither of us have moved out so we haven’t had to make new friends. OH has a close group of school friends (from infant school) and mine are more from university. I’ve met them and he’s met my friends and everyone gets along, but we both socialise separately.
If we ever socialise as a couple it’s with our existing friends and their partners, we don’t have friends that we’ve made as a “couple” if that makes sense.

Yeah, a mix of both is especially useful because you also have no fomo issues if a meet up needs childcare.

Mine you my husband is very social, but is mostly rubbish at making friends. So his friends are a subset of mine, whilst I have more extras on top.

We have some who are mutual (although in most cases either DP or I are closer to the friend), and some of our own. We have separate friends from our different work histories and leisure interests. He’s got a childhood friend who he still sees. I don’t have any.

Oh, and we don’t live anywhere where either of us grew up.

Work friends, university friends, school friends. We also have lots of overlapping “couple” friends

We don't socialise with couples , no, my husband only has a couple of friends I have a few more but essentially I want to talk to my friends rather than their partners, as nice as they all are. What would you do if any of them got divorced?

Yes. We've not got any friends in common. We used to have some, years ago. But we moved away and it turned out it was less a friendship and more a situationship

I don’t think it’s strange. But I also wouldn’t like this. I want to have my own life and own friends as well and not do everything together with my partner. Yes, I have a few childhood friends but also friends met via kids might become good girlfriends who I like to meet also without the partners.

I don't think we have any friends in common.

I find it more surprising that people find couples where everyone gets along. How do you meet a couple as a couple? Surely it's more likely that one person from each couple met first and then they found their other halves got on as well?

So the people without "couple" friends are those where their other halves didn't get on as well (or had no interest in meeting, which is my situation).

We've amalgamated over the years.

I have one friend, just me that sees her.

My oldest friend, married DH's oldest friend, so see individually and together.

I'm in a group of six, we do meet ups on our own, but three DH and I do couples things together

We go camping/meet up with some of DH's friends including partner, and two male friends stay with us for a joint hobby we all have.

I get on very well DH's two friends. Most of the time I leave them to ho out together, but sometimes say 'hello' and end up staying.

Of course
Work friends,University friends,friends from hobbies , school mums
Csnt imagine only having joint friends

How do you ever let off steam or discuss your partner or spouse with a friend if the partner/spouse is always with you? I don't mean slagging them off but there are times people want sound out a situation.

Ours are all separate with occasional meet ups with people's other halves. But I never feel his friends are mine and nor would he feel mine are his.

What happens in a divorce? This is not typical, no.

My husband and I are immigrants. Our friendships overlap as a lot of them are from his workplace - but some I’m closer with than he is, I spend time with various people without him and I have a handful of friends separate to that group altogether. For years we were juggling childcare so could only go out one at a time anyway - our daughter is 13 now so things are freeing up but it’s still much easier to split up for social things.

Work friends are separate, we do different hobbies so they are separate. We have joint friends but sometimes we see them separately. I think it is healthy to have a social network outside of dh. We do not have loads of friends but I do meet friends for lunch without dh.

I do. One old school friend, his old school friend although we all know each other. I’m friends with his wife. We have couple friends but also friends we met at work and doing social stuff relating to hobbies

I always think it’s pathetic when someone can’t socialise without their partner. You are each your own individual person. Ultimately you will split or one will die, and how will you cope?

We mostly have separate friends, but it's partly a lifestage thing. We have relatively young kids, so one of us looks after them while the other sees their friends in the evening. Occasionally we meet as families, but that's harder to orchestrate with the distances and all the weekend clubs so many kids do nowadays. I imagine when our kids are older we might do more joint socialising.

DH and I have old school friends who we see separately and together at times. I've got school mum friends (although our kids are grown up now!) that I have coffee/lunch/shopping days and nights out with but also get together as couples and been away camping as families too. We've been married 36 years so we know each other's friends really well. But I can't imagine only ever going out as a couple - don't you ever meet a friend for coffee or lunch without your husband?

A mix. Probably more joint friends than separate though.

We've always had separate friends, when we met we already had established friendships and they have continued. Dh is 11 years older than me and we have never socialised as a group of couples. This is what works for us, also means I can moan about him to my friends when he annoys me😅

All separate friends, we're quite different personalities and enjoy different things to be honest!

We have a mix. Sometimes it's fun to go out with Dh with mutual friends but it's way more fun to go out without him. I think I relax more partly cos he is at home with kids and I'm not worrying about getting dinner done before a babysitter. Mine are older now so no sitters but we still need to prep a lot for them or we come home to chaos.

I have a Uni group of friends that is mostly couples, we really gelled over the years and the non core group partners have become close friends too. We are located all over the place so it takes organising and overnight stays to meet up but mostly in couples and usually with kids in tow. Dh has a group of male school friends that I'm very fond of and they live locally, we go out with them as couples or meet with kids but sometimes it's the lads alone, in recent years us partners have started to have the occasional girls night out too. Then seperate from dh I have group from secondary school we meet maybe twice a year, just ourselves. I have an old work colleague locally and her friend who has become my pal too and we often go for walks together. I have a woman who I met 18 years ago with our newborn babies at a meet up locally and we meet a few times a year just two of us. I have work colleagues that do occasional nights out, few times a year but we arent close as such. I have a neighbour I have the odd night out with or walk with. Dh has a similar number of friends he hangs out with. We both have siblings too and family stuff occasionally, so we are fairly busy socially.

Completely separate. My partner and I don’t even have one friend in common. We met when I was 44 and he was 65.

95% separate. There are a few of his friends who I love and see as my friends too now, but even so he probably sees them without me the majority of the time. And vice versa. We don't have any 'couple friends' who we met/socialise with exclusively together.