What to Do When Your Significant Other's Friends Interfere with Your Relationship

Every relationship needs to be built on mutual trust, respect, and willingness to compromise. However, especially when relationships are new, a good balance between the relationship and everything else in life can be difficult to find. One of the major problems that may arise is that your significant other spends more time and attention on his/her friends than on you, or those friends feel entitled to interfere with the relationship -- especially in cases where they feel that you are not right for their friend.

If you feel that friends are interfering too much in your relationship, have a serious talk with your significant other. If s/he doesn't listen and isn't willing to work with you for a solution, then you may seriously consider terminating the relationship. Anyone who isn't willing to listen and at least attempt to find a solution in one facet of life most likely won't in others too. That, and if his/her friends are childish and foolish enough to try to run his/her life and s/he goes along with their plans, then that's a very strong indicator that s/he is also childish and foolish.

No matter what your significant other says, his/her friends can't make him/her do anything s/he doesn't want to do, and if s/he's trying to make excuses concerning them then s/he may need to pull his/her head out of his/her nether end and decide whether the relationship with their significant other or with their friends is the most important. That's not to say that your significant other should give up their friends entirely, everyone needs friends, but a balance has to be struck.

The Other Side of the Coin

That said, a little bit of introspection does have to happen here as well. Perhaps your significant other has been perfectly willing to discuss the problem with you, and has indicated that there is a darn good reason s/he is always off with friends instead of spending time with you. True, that too may just be an excuse to try to blame others rather than take the responsibility on him/her self. However, if any such concerns are mentioned, then at least take a little bit of time to think over what your part might be.

Are you being overbearing, clingy, or smothering? When you do spend time together, do you insist that all of the time must be spent paying attention to you and only you, or do you actively take part in other facets of his life with him/her? One of the reasons a significant other may pull away from you is that they enjoy other parts of their life too and aren't willing (nor should be required) to give it all up for a relationship. As the great Kurt Vonnegut observed, most relationships fail because "you're just not enough people," and trying to crowd out everything else in your significant other's life will only speed up this kind of decline.

Reasonable expectations about time spent are also important. Does your significant other go and spend time with friends one or two evenings a week, and the rest is with you? Being jealous of that couple of times with friends is pretty unreasonable -- this is where the trust and respect come in. Time together is much sweeter if you get the occasional break, and you have to be able to trust your significant other to take that time for themselves without doing anything that would hurt your relationship.

Conclusion

Overall, it all comes down to balance. If your significant other clearly isn't working for a balance, spends excessive amounts of time with friends, and tends to treat you like more of a convenience when they need intimate companionship, then there could very well be a serious issue that goes beyond being inconsiderate or selfish. Such behavior in a relationship smacks of carelessness, and you can't waste your own time and affections on someone who just plain doesn't care.