So how does anyone juggle the correct amount of friends?..

[Mondayblues2]

A recent thread made me think. It was about a woman who wanted to step back from one of her friends, in order to spend more time with her husband and family. A discussion followed, about the importance of maintaining friendships, as you never know what’s round the corner, death/divorce etc. I think everyone agreed with this. It was suggested that quite a lot of people in relationships just have ‘surface friends’ ie not deep friendships and that we’re somehow letting the side down if we’re not available most weekends and/or for lengthy girls holidays?

i’ve got quite a nice circle of friends locally, nearly all married, so we’re not in each other pockets but meet regularly for meals, drinks, theatre trips etc and we message each other a lot. I also have 4 other friends, outside of this group, I’m very close to 2 of them, less close to the other 2, but I still value them a lot. I am also involved in 2 hobby groups and have quite a wide circle of acquaintances.

So it would probably be fair to say the majority if my friends are ‘surface friends’ but how on earth are you supposed to find (and cultivate/maintain close friendships with) a huge network of women,in addition to working full time, running a home, spending time with DH and family?

Maybe I’m over thinking this but the thread made me feel a bit lacking and I wondered what other people think?

IME it's not a great deal of help anyway. I thought I had a good group of friends, some couples with DH plus my own friends.

It's true that you find out who your friends are in hard times because everyone disappeared when DH died, and some were downright nasty about my attempts to carry on afterwards.

I have different friends now and they're important to me in a different wayn now that I'm not with a DH. I don't think it's really possible to maintain friendships in the same way when you're also supporting a realtionship, and I don't think you can expect friendships (anything) to be the same after a major life change anyway.

There's no law stating that you need to maintain a huge network of friends. If you can't manage your evenings out with your friends then step back from them.

I think it's important to have a good support network and maintain your individual identity outside marriage but there are no hard and fast rules.

I can manage my current social life, and wouldn’t want this to change, I just wondered if everyone else has a huge network and if so, how do they fit it all in