Couple friends?

[ChickenMom]

I’m married and have been for over a decade. We have small kids and live in a busy community. I realised over the last year or so (after coming out of new baby fog) that we don’t have a social life. We used to pre-babies but we’ve moved area in the last 4 years and it’s all fallen apart. I just wondered how many of you married with kids have a regular couples social life. I see on Facebook an old friend of mine (who lives many hours away) getting together regularly with a dozen couple friends and I wish I had that! A decent social life with people you’ve known for ages. Don’t get me wrong I’ve got some girlfriends but it’s all child/school related and “girls nights out” and they are all fairly recently made and it’s a bit up and down. Apart from the school connection how do people go about making a friendship circle with couples these days?

Why does it have to be couples? What on earth does ppl's relationship status have to do with their ability to be a good friend?

Totally agree with Grobags

Yep I'm with grobags.

And the more people you add to yourbsicial circle, mandating they're a couple for example, the more unstable. You not only have to like her, you have to like him too. And your partner has to like them both. And both of them have to like both of you back. Then what happens when they split up, tough shit cos they're no longer a couple?

I don't get the couples thing either. Surely you are friends with people who you enjoy spending time with regardless of their relationship?
I've a wide circle of friends and am friends with some couples. It has always started with me being friends with one of them and then getting to know the other over time. When I socialise with a group it is a wide mix of people not just singles or couples and that's the way I like it.
I would focus on widening your own circle and meeting new people.

In terms of 'couples friends' they are usually formed from one of each couple being friends then the partners join.

Perhaps keep focusing on building your own friends, your husband builds his and then suggest a couple evening out with such and such plus partner??

I've been living in a new city for a while and thoroughly feeling very sad about lack of good / close friends so I feel how you feel in some ways.

We moved to a totally new area exactly a years ago now and it's only been fairly recently that we've both made some friends.

We have separately made friends with people but can also socialise with partners included. It takes time to build a friendship one on one and then to add partners in.

Focus on making your own friends, that's what we've both done.

If you really want to meet new people then your really have to put yourself out there. I'm more reserved than my DH so it can take me longer, he will literally talk to anyone about anything and is very relatable so finds it easy to make friends.

Yes-we have ‘couple’ friends who we see regularly. Probably 6-7 couples. The odd person has changed over the years if people have split up though.

I’ve lived here forever though which helps as you’ve known people for a long time. If not, I suppose you meet people through work, where you live, kids, hobbies etc and ‘collect’ friends that way.

Thanks for all the advice. Grobags it doesn’t have to be couples but it’s something we don’t have and I feel quite sad about it. I do have individual girlfriends but I’d love to have an active social life that my DH is part of too, rather than us going out separately with our individual friends. The friends I have are single or separated or the other persons DH isn’t up for the couples thing..it never works for us for some reason, so I was just wondering how others had made those “couples” connections or if it was just us that it seems to elude.

We have almost only couples friends (actually I wish I had more girlfriends to go out with for girls nights! Unfortunately I moved to where my dh is from so my girlfriends live far, far away and we only see each other every few years). All of our couples friends are friends we met (mostly my dh) either in school, uni or work and their partners, so it’s not recent. Like one of us has known them for at least 10-15 years and now that we have kids, we rarely do big nights out ever so we just meet up for lunch or invite them over for dinner once kids are asleep. We’ve not made any close friends through school or our dc’s friends parents. I don’t feel like we have anything in common with them, other than having children the same age. So really it’s old friends who are now married and we’ve always stayed friends. I’ve found it hard to make new close friends with other mums I meet. I don’t feel like we have much to talk about other than children - and I don’t really want to talk about my kids on a rare night out to be honest!

But @ChickenMom why can't your DH be friends with your single friends?