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Relationships

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Original poster

Does anyone else not have any friends as a couple? Am feeling quite sad about this.

68 replies

saddo · 03/09/2007 20:08

Feel quite sad and embarrassed about this (hence the name change) but me and Dh don't really have any friends

Dh doesn't have any friends at all - apart from his team mates that he plays his sport with and he never sees them other than at games and never sees or socialises with them outside of the season.

I do have friends but they are not close friends - most of them I have made through work and don't really see them all that often.

I have one close friend at my current work but don't see her that often outside of work.

I am quite envious of couples who are friends with other couples and go round to each others houses, have BBQ's etc and even go on holiday together - we rarely have visitors other than family and rarely go anywhere else.

Whilst we are quite happy with each other's company, it does feel a bit 'sad' sometimes when you see/hear about others having friends round.

Any advice/words of reassurance that we are not sad, lonely freaks!

OP posts:

beansprout · 03/09/2007 20:08

Nah, pretty much the same here (for various reasons)!

scattyspice · 03/09/2007 20:10

You are not sad lonely freaks.

Tortington · 03/09/2007 20:11

my dh sounds like yours - he plays darts and therefore gets shitfaced wit the team every week.

i have friends who live a long way away from where i am.

i would hate to have other couples as friends

am not arsed i got over it

Surfermum · 03/09/2007 20:14

I am quite sure you aren't sad, lonely freaks .

MuffinMclay · 03/09/2007 20:21

Same here. The only couple we socialise with is SIL and her dh, and usually just her without her dh (who is a bit odd).

Original poster

saddo · 03/09/2007 21:05

I guess we are not - but still feels a bit odd sometimes and I am feeling I am missing something.

My family do not live close either so it really is just me, DH and Ds most of the time.

OP posts:

tribpot · 03/09/2007 21:10

I think for a lot of us, that's true, for one reason or another. I know a lot of people because I've worked in a lot of places, but I don't have close friends in the way I can see my friends do. Partly that's down to having worked abroad so much and been out of touch, partly that's down to having a chronically ill dh and people just not understanding. Sadly I moved to where we now live because my best friends from uni are all still local, and I really thought it would help me develop a social network. Two of the other three had kids in the year after ds was born and I really thought this would help. It didn't. If anything, it drove a wedge between us as they were clearly uninterested in the immense hassle it is to have a small child and a disabled dh simultaneously. I have nothing to do with them now.

I wish I had a nice group of friends who were parents (i.e. the only ones you could reasonably expect to maintain a day-to-day relationship with) but it hasn't happened.

You are not sad, lonely freaks.

KristinaM · 03/09/2007 21:10

you are not freaks. its often quite hard to find a couple where all four of you like the others AND you all like to do the same things IYSWIM. Some of my frineds i dont really like their DH - i mean they are ok but i wouldnt like to go on holiday with them. And I feel the same way about some of my DH friends or their partners. Or the men are really sports mad and my Dh is not.

we do have people round but we just go on holiday of for weekedns as a family

maybe we are sad lonely freaks too

galaxy · 03/09/2007 21:13

Same here really. We have casual friends and dh has 1 really close friend but we only get together at birthdays and Christmas

I've been bad at maintaining good friendships since I started in my current profession.

madamez · 03/09/2007 21:16

Actually I can't imagine much more grim and ghastly than having a social life that consists of going out as A Couple and mingling only with Other Couples. Unless you're swingers, of course. And even swingers quite often like to have a sprinkling of single people at the party (b ut that's probably enough digression).

It can be a bit difficult to have friends to socialise with when you're the only one of your old social group to have any DC, and (as many threads have discussed) it can be quite hard finding friends with DC - just because you're parents doesn't mean you'll have anything else in common with other parents.
Best advice is probably the oldest: get involved in something that's fun for its own sake (a sport, a hobby society etc) and family-friendly, and see who you can hook up with through that.

lisasimpson · 03/09/2007 21:25

I know exactly what you mean - and what we find is sometimes we find another couple that we like and it starts off well but we end either putting in all the effort or it just peters out. I hate the idea of 'trying too hard' to find friends when a lot of people I know just seem to naturally be very sociable and spontaneous.

lisasimpson · 03/09/2007 21:34

and it always feels worse on occasions like New Year's Eve when other people have parties/people to spend the evening with/sleepovers etc and we invariably end up in bed at 10.00 as usual

galaxy · 03/09/2007 21:40

Lisa, I'm with you on that one but dh never wants to do anything anyway as he has usually worked New Years eve and has to work the next day (so I lose out too) - selfish cow that I am

Bensonbluebird · 03/09/2007 21:42

It is very difficult - usually there is one half of another couple that you like more. My DP does seem to find it difficult to get on with other men. I don't think he can be arsed with the atmosphere of competition that there is in a lot of male relationships. I have a whole lot of female friends from having kids, but none particularly close. Most of my pre-baby friends live a long way away, and those that do live close by don't have kids so it's hard to keep things up. Your not sad and lonely, probably pretty normal.

galaxy · 03/09/2007 21:45

I had a jealous stage about someone I know. She was always doing stuff with the other mums at nursery or at some party or other. Two weeks ago I text her about meeting up and she was on yacht with another family from nursery.
Then I thought how much her social life must be costing her and realised I couldn't afford it anyway so stopped worrying about it!

emsiewill · 03/09/2007 21:49

We are the same. Dh doesn't really have any 'proper' friends - if he socialises, it's with work people - & my friends are all "mine", (although dh gets on well with them) and I wouldn't really describe any of them as close.

I think if I lived nearer to my brother and / or sister we would socialise as couples, as dh gets on well with my brother and my sister's husband, and I get on well with my sister and my brother's wife, but as they all live about 200 miles away in different directions, then it just doesn't happen.

So you are certainly NOT freaks, cos if you are, we are too!!

evenhope · 03/09/2007 21:53

My DH is very antisocial and has no friends. I'm not antisocial but have no friends either We don't go out and nobody visits us. (I'm so glad there are other people as sad as us!)

DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2007 21:54

Oh we are very much the same. I occasionally lament the fact to dh but there isn't really much we can do about it, I feel.

We have moved a lot since getting married. The last 11 years I have been at home with the children. I have people I am friendly with in the playground but not even that many anymore as we moved yet again 2 years ago and I just haven't been able to make as many new friends this time. Meanwhile, dh only sees the people he works with. He works long hours and we do not live near his work so there is no opportunity to socialise with his colleagues even if we wanted to.

Dh has joined the local tennis club but so far that has yielded no social life and if the tennis club he used to be a member of is anything to go by, the people there only wanted to live and breathe tennis anyway! Bit limiting!

DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2007 21:56

We have lived in this house for 2 years now. Apart from family and the occasional mother picking up a child from playing with my children, no-one has entered the house at all in that time! Talk about sad. And I have so many wedding presents (special crockery/serving dishes etc) that have never been used in 13 years of marriage.

Does that make you feel less alone saddo?

adamnjacobsmum · 03/09/2007 21:59

Very difficult when friends don't have kids and you do. Feel akward trailing kids around everywhere and frends houses are so child unfriendly

adamnjacobsmum · 03/09/2007 22:01

my husband works away for 4 weeks at a time and friends never ask me around on my own, really lonley

virgo · 03/09/2007 22:11

Dumbledoresgirl - its so difficult moving around - I've treid really really hard to make friends after moving 300 miles south which is 500 miles from family.

Its hard being new somewhere - however old you are...realistically I've thrown myself into my work and have made some friends but am sooo envious of local 'frineds' who have close family and can spend time with them rather than needing friends to fill the gap so to speak...nobody has it all I guess..

virgo · 03/09/2007 22:14

adamnjacobsmum - that's hard - know how you feel...but probably they don't know that you are lonely...

GodzillasBumcheek · 03/09/2007 22:16

What are friends?

No, you're not a freak, well , only as much as i am! I think some people are destined for an interesting and varied (and expensive) social life, and some aren't. I fall into the 'aren't' category, but i (usually) don't mind as i think it makes me much closer to my dh and dds than i would be otherwise.

GodzillasBumcheek · 03/09/2007 22:19

Oh, and i have lived in the same area all my life (yup, sad) so it's not because i'm "new"!

It might be because i'm a bitter twisted untrusting individual with a sense of humour to rival the last corpse buried in yer local graveyard but it's not cos i'm new

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