Your partner does not need to enjoy the company of all of your friends. Just like your partner doesn’t need to be into all the things you’re into.

This is normal, and healthy. You shouldn’t be attached at the hip. You should be able to balance being a person, and being a partner, at the same time. If your partner doesn’t like your friends, you shouldn’t necessarily have to give these friends up. You just need to figure out why your partner isn’t too keen on them, and then agree on a compromise.

When you communicate honestly with your partner and find out why they don’t like some particular friends of yours, it will fall into one of two categories.

A – She just don’t like them. She finds them annoying or boring. She dislikes their habits or their lifestyles. She has nothing in common with them and can’t figure out why you like them.

B – He sees that these friends are dangerous for you.

Let’s leave Reason B alone for a moment, and tackle Reason A.

There is a time factor to marriage or partnership. Understanding this will help you to form compromises. The things you need in the first year together are much different then the things you need in the tenth year together.

I tried to explain this in my Right To Privacy hub.

The “friends” thing works the same way. I offer the example of my husband and I. When we first moved in together 11 years ago, the garage was his terrain, and the home office was mine. We didn’t go through each other’s wallets, and we never opened each other’s mail. As time went on and life happened all of that gradually just changed. If I get the new medical insurance cards, I will go right in his wallet, take the old one out and put the new one in. If he wants gum, he will go in my purse looking for some. (He never has gum. I always have gum.) His work bench in the garage is now stacked with bins of my vintage Christmas ornaments. I simply ran out of places to store them. As for the office, there’s much more of his stuff in there than mine, as his business grew, and my ghost writing became more paperless. His blue prints have taken over. He even set his stereo equipment up in there.

These weren’t conscious changes, they are just things that evolved. After living together 11 years, we just relaxed and found comfort in our trust of each other. It’s the same with the friends issue.

Relationships are hard. They take some thought and some consideration. They involve sacrifices and compromises. When you are a partner, you are still an individual but you have to accept responsibility for the things you share, and the things that affect your partner adversely.

In the beginning of the relationship, there are a lot more insecurities, and questions. You each feel a stronger need to carve out your place. It’s not that ten years up the road you lose your sense of identity. It’s that you relax. The relationship goes through its stages. That’s because in a healthy relationship, you see that your partner respects your individuality, your privacy, and your needs. You SEE it in your every day life, and you just settle in to how comfortable that is. Life happens.

Say for example you don’t like his poker buddies. He has this weekly game, it’s always at his place, and you hate it. Talk it out and find a compromise. Maybe he can rotate the game to some of the other houses and only host once a month. Or maybe they could get a motel room for their weekly game. Or maybe on poker night you could go to the salon and have a spa pedicure.

Maybe there are specific things about these friends that you don’t like, like that they smoke in the house, or that your boyfriend always winds up paying for all the beer and food. Asking him to address these specific behaviors might make a huge change in your feelings.

It isn’t fair for him to have to completely give up his game. But he should respect your feelings about this and want you to feel better. You should be able to find a compromise.

Here’s how the timing factor with that will work. Ten years from now, believe it or not, you might actually ook forward to poker night. it might become your night off where you don’t’ cook or have to worry about him. You spend it taking a class at the New School, going to a line dancing bar with your girlfriends, going for that pedicure, or visiting with your family. Maybe you have your own poker night with your girls, or you go the movies, or you do something completely different every week.

Meanwhile, the lure of the poker game for him might diminish. He might not feel like doing it every week anymore. He might be working later as he becomes more focused on his career goals. Or maybe he’d actually prefer to spend his time in a quieter way, or tackling a project at home.

Let’s look at another example. You find her married-with-children girlfriends annoying as hell. They are always asking her when you two will get married, and doesn’t she want to have a baby, and can she host the get together because they all have screaming babies at their houses. They seem to always want to meddle. They ask personal questions. And then they insert their opinions.

You may feel disrespected by the interference into your relationship. You may feel pushed and annoyed by them. You may have nothing in common with them, and find that after an evening in their company you want to cut your own ears off to escape the shrill.

She has every right to have these friends, just like you have every right to have your smoking drinking cursing cheap-skate poker buddies. But that doesn’t mean she has to inflict them on you.

You could suggest that when she wants to have them over, you’re going to shoot pool or throw darts or go the gym or work late. She could limit it to a few times a month. You’ll even spring for the Chinese Take Out when they all converge. In exchange, she needs to be a little more firm with them, that your relationship is YOUR relationship. And they need to show a little more respect to the privacy of that.

By the way guys, two little tips on your girl’s meddling girlfriends. One is that if they are asking when you’re getting married, it means they want you to marry their friend. It is meddling, but it is actually a stamp of approval. It means they like you. And two – if they have so much time and energy to meddle, it kind of means their lives are boring. they are excited about the things your girl tells them about you. They find you interesting. They are happy for their friend, for being with you, and for having the life she has, even though it may not sound that way. They’re doing a little vicarious living through her. When you’re getting annoyed, try to see the compliment to you in what they’re doing. It will help you cope calmly.

You and your partner should be able to communicate, and compromise. You should be able to maintain your friendships while still respecting the needs of your partner. Setting some parameters and boundaries is healthy. And you will find that you’ll revisit them as time goes on, and that this really isn’t a big issue at all.

Reason B from above, is The Danger Zone

There is a huge difference between your partner not liking your friends, and feeling that your friends are destructive.

This is when it’s not about a friend being annoying, or needy, or having a bad habit. This is about your friend that seems to inspire you to do destructive things. The friend that makes you cry and feel miserable for days everytime you see her. The friend that’s visit always end with one you out on bail, in rehab, or doing community service.

This is a completely different issue. It’s not about your individuality. It’s about your well being.

If your partner has made it through a 12 Step Program, and has a friend that…. well…. hasn’t, but should, then that friend really may be a danger. People that don’t turn their backs on long time friends are to be commended. Especially when those friends really need a safe haven and a nonjudgmental shoulder to cry on.

But there is no shame in being unable or unwilling to put yourself in harm’s way.

You might be able to present a compromise to your friend. As long as their dangerous friend is sober, or clean, or not wearing gang colors, or in a program - or whatever parameter you need to set – then the friend is welcome. Or, you may offer to help pay for a treatment program. Or you may offer to help organize an intervention.

If your partner struggles with a serious situation, and this friend seems to bring out the weakness your partner has, then you really need to be clear. This isn’t acceptable. You never want to be an enabler. It doesn’t help anyone.

Let your partner know you respect their loyalty. Try to point out the positives instead of just focusing on the negatives, like how much you appreciate his struggles, his strength, his love and his devotion. But then be clear: this friend crosses a line. And it’s not ok.

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All text is original content by Veronica.

All photos are used with permission.

All videos are used courtesy of Youtube.