To think that friends should always come before partners?

[HonestBrickSquid]

I value my friendships immensely and feel that friends should always take priority over romantic relationships. Is this a reasonable stance, or is it unfair to expect others to put their friends first?

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.

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.

Husband comes first for me

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Family comes first. My husband is family.

Absolutely this.

Of course noone should ditch their friends when they get a partner but it's ridiculous to think your friends should be prioritised over the person you build a family with.

I'd be bloody livid if my DH prioritised his mates over me and our children. It's completely out of order and wrong.

No one can ‘always’ prioritise one over the other. It depends on individual situations and circumstances doesn’t it.

Both are important my close friends are family.

Yes Husband is my priority.

However I do have sympathy if you are talking about friends who dump you when latest new crush comes along. Not really a matter of age as this can happen at any age. - more to do with longevity.. is it a serious life partner of just another squeeze...

I'm afraid it's not a very supportive comment of the sisterhood - but women and girls are really bad for this.. men are much more. 'I've made plans with Tom we are meeting up tonight. Are you free tomorrow ?

Whereas women with new bf much more likely to say ' Hi Sarah. I'm really sorry but can't make the cinema after all , Pete has got us tickets to ... (whatever) ... to make this worse - this flaky behaviour is usually delivered by text as too cowardly to be bollocked by phone .

No, I'd put my partner first.

So basically you are brassed off because your mates have couple up and now have less time to spend doing friend things.

Tbh you probably need to grow up a bit. Few friendships are as long lasting as the partner people end up settling down with for life and it would be foolish for people to prioritise their mates over someone they may spend 30 years with sharing a home, a family, a life.

Absolutely disagree with this UNLESS you are single or still in your 'finding Mr Right' phase.

Your life partner IS the best friend you have. You don't buy property or have kids with your mates!

Anyone cancelling plans regularly is a bit flaky and best avoided imo.

I spend time with my friends when we plan stuff. If it’s a last minute “fancy a walk to the pub?” then I’m less likely to be free or have the energy/inclination for that if I’m also in a relationship and spending some of my free time with him.

If I have 7 free nights and my friend wants to go out on Friday night of course I’m in. I have 6 other nights to do shopping, spend time with my DCs, watch my favourite TV shows, recharge my social batteries, read a book, get little jobs done after work etc.

If I’m seeing my BF on 3 of those nights and now only have 4 nights to work with, then I’m still going to want a couple of nights to myself. So if my friend wants to go out on one of my free nights it will depend if I still have enough spare time and energy to do everything else.

If she wants to plan something I’m in, but spontaneous plans not so much. And she’s exactly the same. It makes me realise actually how often it’s me driving our meet ups when I’m in a relationship and don’t suggest it as often.

I agree you shouldn’t drop friends for your partner, it does end up happening naturally when children come along I found, because you are often all at different life stages, it is often children that are incompatible with friendships, not the partner.

I haven’t stopped my friendships nor has my partner but we are each others friend too, he is not just my romantic partner I see him as one of my best friends. Otherwise why would I be with him?

You can have both friends and a partner correct but sometimes it’s not that simple

I prioritise my partner. Is that weird?! I plan on spending my entire life with him. We have DC. I love my friends and I value and care for them, but I might not grow old with them. I haven’t dropped friends or stopped seeing and caring about them, but my family comes first and DH is my family.

I think that will vary for everyone depending on how they conduct their friendships. My friends are people I have a laugh with, not generally people who I lean on, have deep meaningful conversations with or would expect to drop everything for me. So DH would always be much more of priority to me than them.

But for some people friends are soul mates who they may have known for much longer than their partner and then it may be different.

I share a mortgage, house, insurance, credit score, next of kin, emergency contact, family, bed, fluids - basically my whole life with my DH. So of course he's a priority over everyone else. He's the one who soothes me when I've had a nightmare, bathed me when I was too sick to do it myself, and cleaned my bedsheets after I had explosive diarrhoea. My friends will eventually have their own families to prioritise and won't be making life decisions based on me (e.g they won't turn down a job because they don't want to live away from me), my partner would. And I would do the same for them. Friendships are important but a life partnership is not comparable.