Do you have to like your friends husbands?

[TealSapphire]

Inspired by another thread, where a few of the posters were saying that they don't mind their friends spilling all about their life because they and the other couples are all close anyway. It made me wonder if some people only have friendships where both they and their husband like both members of the other couple? They say they think of themselves as a single entity since they're married, so I wonder if they approach friendships with that mindset too, of the other couple being 'as one'.

I'm very much the opposite! I think it's very healthy to have friendships that are just yours. I have a variety of situations ranging from friends that I get on fine with their husbands, to ones where I think he's a dick and communicate the bare minimum with. When I was married we each had separate friends as well as some in common.

Is it important to you that you that you like your friends husbands? Would you not develop a friendship or even drop someone as a friend if you didn't particularly like or get on well with their partner?

My husband and I had entirely separate friendship groups that only occasionally overlapped. We were separate people.

Well I don't like them all so I'm saying it's ok not to.

No it’s not necessary, but it’s nice when it happens.

Ive been friends with the H first in any cases (and similarly my DH has been friends with the W first in some cases). Ofc certainly try to get on with the H/W who is newer, but inevitably there are some who wouldn’t be so close without the introduction.
In two cases, the choice of partner has affected the original friendship a bit in that we see them less and have slightly ‘shallower’ friendships than previously. Which is fine as none of them are truly horrid or obnoxious, and it’s natural that people evolve, and their choice of partner rightly takes precedence.

It's not necessary to like them, no.

Of course it’s not necessary to like them. I think we have only one properly close couple friendship which dates from university, where the four of us all like one another equally and separately.

I have 2 old friends who we mostly see each other with out husbands. I’m not a fan of either husband, one is really dull and the other is a snobby arse. But I’m polite/friendly. I have 2 ‘mum’ friends and both their husbands are awful, both abusive and do not treat them well.
Dh has a group of friends who like to meet in couples I get on fine with the wives but I don’t consider them my friends.
I don’t know what friends think of dh at worse I’d say maybe they find him a bit boring/ quiet.

It's not necessary to be best mates with them, but there is a saying that you can judge a person by the company they keep. Boyfriends I had who had idiot mates, turned out to be idiots themselves once they stopped pretending

DH's mates are a very varied bunch, and I get on much better with some than others. But the common theme is they all treat me with a lot of respect, and same goes for all the other wives (except the one wife we all don't like as she treated DH's mate terribly and clearly was just using him for a visa). Years back there was a mate who was on the periphery of the group,who tried it on and was rude to a couple of the then girlfriends (including me) and they stopped including him. If they had turned a blind eye to his behaviour I think it would have concerned me, if DH and his mates thought that kind of misogynistic behaviour was ok, that he wouldn't have made a great husband and father.

Not in the slightest. I have two friends whose husbands I dislike intensely. However, I can put a cheerful chatty face on for a couple of hours to keep the peace.

I'll be there as support if either of them ever plucks up the resolve to leave the creeps they inexplicably ended up with. 😊

I’m good friends with most of my good friends’ husbands or wives because they’re interesting, funny, nice people in their own rights. It’s “important” to me in the sense that it makes socialising a lot easier if I do, and in the sense that it can be difficult to have a friend with an objectionable partner if that also involves having to hear from said friend about their relationship problems whilst also having to bite my tongue because they usually just want to moan rather than to be told they need to break up. I don’t think it’s essential, but then none of my friends think of themselves as a single unit with their partner or feel they have to do pretty much everything together - I imagine I’d naturally drift from friends who did feel that way if I didn’t like their partner, simply because I’d see much less of them.